sweetening cider

My recipe for hard cider is this:

5 -6 gallons of apple cider 5 pounds of brown sugar a little bit of honey champagne yeast.

It fermeted for about 2 weeks, and has been clearing nicely for about another 2 weeks, but it's still sour. I'd like to sweeten it up. I was thinking of adding apple juice (maybe a gallon) - but I don't want the yeast to eat the sugars in it - so I was thinking of getting some w/ preservatives in it. Will this cause the yeast not to eat it? I also want to make it sparkling. I was going to add priming sugar before bottling. Will the yeast eat the priming sugar w/ preserved apple juice in there?

-Lars

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With the champagne yeast and all that honey and sugar, you are going to have a difficult time producing a sparkling cider. To be able to get a sparkling cider with any sweetness there needs to be enough unfermentable sugars in there so that when the yeast eats all the fermentable ones, there is still some sweetness left. Then when the yeast eats the priming sugar, carbonation is formed.

The problem with champagne yeast is that it will eat sugars other yeasts can't. Thus, the dryness. If there are enough preservatives in the additional apple juice to keep the yeast from eating the sugars in the juice, it will also stop the yeast from eating the priming sugar. The preservatives will be diluted too much to prevent the yeast from fermenting the additional juice. It may slow it down a little, but not in a predictable enough manner to be able to safely bottle it.

You best bet would be to go with a still cider. Kill the yeast with some sodium or potassium met, then sweeten to taste. If you still want to have it carbonated, then force carbonate it in a keg and use a counterpressure bottle filler to bottle it.

If you don't want to kill the yeast with chemicals, you are left with the choice of feeding it more sugar until the alcohol level (in excess of 15%) kills the yeast and then add sugar to the sweetness level you want.

Next time, for a sparkling cider, use an ale yeast like Wyeast 1007 or Nottingham. Either one will stop with a reasonable level of sweetness left and will allow you to prime for carbonation. You will need to allow a couple extra weeks for these yeasts to settle out.

Wayne Bugeater Brewing Company

Reply to
Wayne

I had the same idea last year to make a sparkling sweet cider, and I got 2 suggestions from this group: pear juice, which contains some sorbitol, which tastes sweet but is not fermentable. Another suggestion was household corn syrup, which is likewise a few percent non-fermentable.

I tried these suggestions this year with my cider, and I also used Wyeast cider yeast, and well, it didn't come out perfect. The yeast is able to ferment well above 7 % alcohol, and is eating up all my priming/sweetening suger -- I can tell from some small bottles I've been sampling. I'm hoping that chilling the bottles will slow the process down enough so my cider is, at least, off-dry by new year's.

Here's the thread from way back when:

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Reply to
ralconte

Wayne, I also have some cider that is fermenting..I brought it up to 1.085 with corn sugar, and used champagne yeast. My intention was to put enough sugar in it to carbonate it and have enough left to have residual sugar..It is not like beer so I dont mind the 15%+ alch...(and I was planning to get it real cold to rebottle it to get rid of most of the lees)...I would be curious as to your thoughts on this project... Bud

Reply to
s

I was

better idea, skip the preservatives, and add some apple juice at the time of drinking to kill the sour taste.

Reply to
billb

Why not drink it flat? In the UK it's quite normal...

Reply to
Paul

At the risk of being known as "abnormal", I was trying to duplicate some of the French stuff from Normandy that is not available here.... Bud

Reply to
s

The acidity will balance out in about 9 months if you let it sit.

Reply to
Droopy

iv bottled a batch of cider about a week or 2 ago. i used champagne yeast with it which has made it very dry but i added sum glycerol (glycerine) when bottling which has removed the harshness of the acidity. i like cider dry but the previous batch (my first) i made the same without the glycerol and was too dry. i ususally added a small amount of sugar to this in the glass

Reply to
raindog

Is glycerol non-fermentable?

Reply to
Paul

Yes. It is not fermetable by the yeast and is produced in small quantities during fermentation. It is a sugar alcohol that can taste a little sweet and gives a heavier mouth feel to the wine.

Andy

Reply to
JEP62

Glycerol is not fermented, but yeast can metabolize it by respiration in the presence of oxygen. Since your bottles shouldn't have much O2 in them, it's a moot point. Warren Place

Reply to
Warren Place

Non fermentable and it is actually a byproduct to fermentation. In small amounts it improves the mouth feel in too large of amounts it will make the wine "hot".

Ray

Reply to
Ray Calvert

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