priming bottle with concentrate instead of sugar?

[jacob1484]

I have a 1 gallon batch of spiced cider that is getting close to done. I was wondering if I could possibly use the frozen apple juice concentrate to bottle carb instead of sugar and hopefully add a little apple flavor back at the same time. Has anybody tried this? How much should I use per bottle to be sure they won't explode?

 

[Grizzlybrew]

I brewed a smoked, apple blonde a while back and primed with apple juice concentrate. I based my addition off the mg of sugar on the nutrition facts...

3 weeks later... BOOM!

After two more blew, I just opened them all and poured them out - each one was like a warm champagne bottle, shaken up.

My advice - Be Careful

 

[Nurmey]

I have done it a couple times and it works nice BUT you have to do the math on the amount of sugar in the concentrate. Don't go over 1 oz of sugar per gallon of cider.

Also, make sure your cider had fermented completely. Mine usually ferment down to 995ish range so I know that there isn't any more sugars left for the yeast other than what I add.

 

[Teromous]

Adding concentrate after fermentation won't add much apple flavor, as you can't apply much of it to the cider. It's much easier to use sugar because you have greater control over the carbonation level.