Why DON'T I have bottle bombs?

[SatanPrinceOfDarkness]

I have a bit of a mystery happening. On 10/26/15 I bottled some 4.5 gallons of cider. 2 gallons got primed with .25 cups of maple syrup. The other 2.5 gallons got 1.75 cups of maple syrup so that it would be sweet.

I was planning to try out bottle pasteurization after a few weeks to stabilize the sweet cider, but I never got to it. I gradually became afraid of the cider, and now will only approach that case with safety glasses on.

After a month or more without touching them, I had a few this weekend, and they're still great. Still almost as sweet as the were in Mid-November, just a touch on the very sparkling side. No gushers, and most importantly, no bombs so far.

1.5 cups of maple syrup (excluding the .25 cups for priming) is enough to raise the OG by .009, which is at least .9% alcohol if it fermented.

But, is maple syrup fully fermentable? Brewer's friend doesn't seem to think so. It thinks the FG on pure maple syrup + water would be 1.002. The cider itself was down to 1.003 before I bottled it.

So, of the standard possibilities, either the yeast doesn't want to fully attenuate the syrup, the alcohol is too high for the yeast (was at 6.7% after primary), or it just is slowly eating the maple syrup and I'll have bombs in a few more months.

Are there other things that go on in a bottle? Does the pressure actually stop the yeast from eating all the sugar? Any ideas?

 

[MrFancyPlants]

Are you keeping them cold? That could stave off the bottle bombs.

 

[juskojj]

i'm not sure but i've done some ciders and haven't had to pasteurize them so i'm thinking it's possible that the yeast has converted all sugars so carbonation is complete, thus no bombs... just a thought.... not sure how feasible though...

 

[david_42]

Maple syrup is typically 65% fermentable sugars by weight. The first batch should be slightly under-carbonated. The batch with 1.75 cups of syrup are potential bombs, but if you keep them cold the yeast aren't going to do much.

In the future, I'd recommend using an unfermentable sugar, like lactose, for backsweetening.

The only time I've had gushers was when a batch got infected.

 

[SatanPrinceOfDarkness]

Maple syrup is typically 65% fermentable sugars by weight. The first batch should be slightly under-carbonated. The batch with 1.75 cups of syrup are potential bombs, but if you keep them cold the yeast aren't going to do much.

In the future, I'd recommend using an unfermentable sugar, like lactose, for backsweetening.

The only time I've had gushers was when a batch got infected.

So I haven't been keeping them cold. They've been in the 60s the whole time. I didn't know that about lactose. How's the flavor?

I used a priming sugar calculator for the the dry batch. I think the carbonation is at a nice level but I don't remember what volume I was aiming for.

 

[SatanPrinceOfDarkness]

i'm not sure but i've done some ciders and haven't had to pasteurize them so i'm thinking it's possible that the yeast has converted all sugars so carbonation is complete, thus no bombs... just a thought.... not sure how feasible though...

So you're correct generally, but I added a ton of sugar at bottling. Way more than I needed for typical CO2 volumes. Typically when you back sweeten cider like this you pasteurize or chemically kill the yeast. I'm not aware of any easy way to have sweet, living, sparkling, cider,unless you keep them cold the whole time.

The other responder suggested lactose which I'll be looking into.

 

[Phildo253]

I am able to get a sweet sparkling cider by bottling when i get to 1.015 and using 3.7 oz of melted table sugar for 5 gallons. But, i have to start testing carbonation after a few days and pastuerize when the carbonation is where i want it at.

I could just cold crash it at that point, but i like to pastuerize the bottles. It is easy, only takes about an hour to do 2 cases and allows me to age them without necessarily having to keep them cold the entire time.

 

[SatanPrinceOfDarkness]

Are you keeping them cold? That could stave off the bottle bombs.

I was not keeping them cold.

 

[SatanPrinceOfDarkness]

I am able to get a sweet sparkling cider by bottling when i get to 1.015 and using 3.7 oz of melted table sugar for 5 gallons. But, i have to start testing carbonation after a few days and pasteurize when the carbonation is where i want it at.

I could just cold crash it at that point, but i like to pastuerize the bottles. It is easy, only takes about an hour to do 2 cases and allows me to age them without necessarily having to keep them cold the entire time.

Can you please tell me your method for pasteurization? I've seen a few methods around, but it seems to vary on temperature, time, and whether you need to use a pressure cooker.

I am curious why you do it at 1.015 and not when they're done? Is that to have the residual sweetness include the apple sugars?

 

[RichBrewer]

The variable that comes to mind for me is the yeast. What type of yeast did you use? A cider or ale yeast will have much less alcohol tolerance than a wine or champagne yeast. Yeast health can also effect the amount of carbonation in your bottles. If there weren't enough nutrients in the cider, the yeast might have pooped out during fermentation and might not have had enough viability left to over carbonate the cider.

 

[SatanPrinceOfDarkness]

The variable that comes to mind for me is the yeast. What type of yeast did you use? A cider or ale yeast will have much less alcohol tolerance than a wine or champagne yeast. Yeast health can also effect the amount of carbonation in your bottles. If there weren't enough nutrients in the cider, the yeast might have pooped out during fermentation and might not have had enough viability left to over carbonate the cider.

Well both of them carbonated fine and then stopped. Well, the sweet one is probably still slowly carbonating more. I'm mostly just confused about why it stopped. I used Nottingham yeast which doesn't have high tolerance but this cider is probably still below 7%.

 

[Phildo253]

The pastuerization process that i use is pretty simple. I did not come up with this method. I read about someone else on HBT (can't remember who) that does it and never had an issue either. I use a 5 gallon kettle on the stove.

Place about 8 bottles in the kettle and fill with water to cover the fill line of the bottles. Remove the bottles. Heat the water to 190F. Turn off the heat and lay a dish towel on the floor of the kettle. This keeps the bottles from coming into direct contact with the hot kettle. Place the 8 bottles back in and leave them in the kettle for 10 minutes.

If I remember correctly, pasteurization is done at a core temp of 140f for 30 seconds, this is plenty of time to heat the entire bottle.

After the 10 minutes is up, remove the bottles and heat the water back up for the next batch.

I have never had a bottle shatter, but if you are nervous about it, you could cover the kettle with a towel, which should deflect any potential broken glass.

Using this method and 2 kettles on the stove, i can pastuerize 5 gallons in about an hour. I have done dozens of batches and have never had s broken bottle or one that was unpasteurized.

The reason that i stop the fermentation process at 1.015, is purely a taste preference. Over time i have gone from letting the cider go to terminal to a little sweeter. Using nottingham ale yeast and pastuerizing when i get to the carbonation that i like allows me to get the elusive sweet, carbonated scrumpy cider.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

The first batch of cider I did I back sweetened with dolce syrup and frozen apple juice concentrate. Killed the yeast in the dishwasher. The second batch I skipped the dishwasher. They both came out the same. Still and sweet. I believe that due to the added brown sugar, the alcohol content was high and inhibited further action of the yeast in the bottles.