Yeast Attenuation, Alcohol Tolerance, Gravity, Bottle Carbing

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benjamin123

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Hello All,

Newbie question: I'm a little confused and I'm hoping someone can help sort me out.

I understand that different yeasts have different alcohol tolerance.

I don't understand how this relates to yeast attenuation, and how it plays into bottle carbonation.

For example:

I've been playing with ec-1118. Once the gravity is steady at 1 or lower I prime and bottle. No problems.

The question:

How does this work if you use a yeast that only has a 70% attenuation rate?

If I use a yeast that only eats up 70% of the sugar, how will adding more sugar get the yeast to start eating again and carbonate the cider?

. . . so if I use us-05 or Nottingham the alcohol tolerance is above what would be expected from just yeast and juice--but the yeast will only eat "most" of the sugar leaving a less dry end product?

Prime as usual, bottle, good?

What if the yeasties decide to eat more than 70% after primining, Bottle bombs?

I'm lost.

Thanks!
----Ben
 
Hi Ben,

I've also recently started taking up cider making. Used to brew beer very often, also starting my hand at wine.

In late November I had a couple of batches of simple cider going with 2 different yeast strains. My parents were in an accident in December which required me to be away for over a month. I got back expecting the cider to be at 6% and 8% due to yeast strains. Not the case. Both were cranking 9%+ and dry as all heck. Had to back sweeten them up a bit to drink.

In reading some posts tonight on the speed of fermentation and yeast attenuation I decided to check a fermenter currently on the go which was started just over a week ago. I expected it to stabilize at 1.025 or so over the course of a month. Tonight it was just below 1.01 and still bubbling. To stabilize I threw in some potassium sorbate and chucked it outside. Will bottle in a couple of days and hope for the best. My wife and I aren't fans of carbonation in cider (thus the potassium sorbate pre cold break), so can't offer any advice there.

As Cville said, the attenuation for yeast in cider is close to 100%. In beer brewing you match the yeast to the malt and can let it ferment out, same for many wines. In cider brewing it appears the hydrometer and spot checks every few days is your friend.
 
Ozone - I hope you added k-meta before the sorbate. I dont much care for the taste of sorbate, but some people can tolerate it. However if you sorbate without k-meta first, it will taste really wretched, like geraniums

cold crashing is more work, but doesnt stomp all over the taste
 
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