Yet another bottling question

[Brewer dad]

Hi all,

I've posted this question on the recipe(applekush) thread, but haven't gotten an answer yet. Looking to bottle soon so will ask here too.

I started this cider on 8/10 and got OG of 1.072, checked it today and it's 1.005(on S04). My intent is to cold crash, prime with 4oz corn sugar, and bottle. Is there a need to pasteurize at this point? I've read other recipes recommending this, but they seem to be bottling at higher FG's. Not sure since I've let it go lower if there's a need. Don't mind doing it if it's still a good idea, but if it's unnecessary will skip.

Thanks!

 

[Epond83]

If you pasteurized now you will kill all the yeast and there will be nothing to eat the priming sugar and carbonate your bottles.

 

[Brewer dad]

Sorry I mean after I bottle.

 

[rsquared]

At 1.005 it's pretty dry, and that recipe seems to be finishing around 1.003-1.004. Hard to tell if yours just finished a couple points higher than others, or if it's got a bit more to go. You might be safe to bottle without worrying about pasteurization, but it also might still have a few points to go.

A good rule of thumb is around 3-4 points of gravity drop gets you in the ballpark of a typical level of carbonation. In other words, bottling now and not pasteurizing could lead to 1.5-2x the carbonation you expect if your cider still has 2-4 points to go.

So, either prime and bottle now and then pasteurize later just to be sure, or wait a few days to see if the gravity is stable. If a reading in 3-4 days still shows 1.005, you should be good to go without pasteurization.

 

[Brewer dad]

Ok! I'm not in a rush so I'll wait a couple more days. This is day 11 and op for that recipe ran it two weeks so there were a few days left anyway. Thanks for the help!

 

[Chalkyt]

Yep, 1.005 is a good place to bottle with SO4 if you want a dry carbonated cider. I typically do this with SO4 which I sometimes find will finish above 1.000 (say, 1.002). So you will end up with a nice petillant type of carbonation somewhere around 2 to 2.5 volumes of CO2. This approach is an alternative to fermenting fully then adding priming sugar.

Bottling a bit higher than this, then heat pasteurising keeps a bit more natural sweetness and apple flavour since I find this tends to get lost in the last 0.005 of fermentation. As a guide you can expect 0.002 fall in SG to generate 1 volume of CO2.

My current approach if I want just a touch of sweetness is to bottle at 1.010 and heat pasteurise at 1.005 or so (you can either monitor fermentation progress and extrapolate this to when 1.005 is reached after you have bottled, or make a pressure gauge to fit onto one of the bottles to determine when pressure is around 2 Bar or 25-30psi which is about the level for petillant carbonation).

The current "bee in my bonnet" is determining what combinations of time and temperature for heat pasteurisation will help you avoid bottle bombs. (I will post this once I have got the information together). The current wisdom is that 65C for 10 minutes will do the job. With 2 volumes of CO2, the bottle pressure will reach 80-90 psi at this temperature as the CO2 is driven out of solution. Folklore says that beer bottles are O.K. to 100 psi (and probably a bit more). My bottle bomb experience was that anything over 150psi is extremely high risk.

 

[Brewer dad]

Gotcha. So one more follow-up question.

My wife tried some of the sample I took, and is asking me to put some bottles aside that are still. This is 5gal batch, and only will do a couple this go around. But for future reference if I want to leave for example 25% of my batch still, should I reduce my priming sugar by the same amount?

For example, out of 5 gal before priming I go ahead and bottle 25% of it still. Then what I have left in vessel is 75% of original. Recipe calls for 4oz corn sugar to prime, but since reduced volume by 25% reduce sugar to 3.5oz? Not trying to be overly technical, just don't want bombs.

 

[rsquared]

Yup, you've got the right idea. 25% reduced volume of sugar would be 3 oz though.

If you do want to get technical though, I'd recommend a priming calculator such as Beer Priming Calculator - Brewer's Friend. That'll let you dial in the carbonation level you want. If you like a very sparkling cider, you can push it up around 3 volumes (don't go much higher than this with standard beer bottles). If you want just some very light bubbles, you can go down to around 1.5-2.

Based on that calculator, 3 oz in 3.75 gallons gets you around 2.2 volumes and 4 oz gets 2.7 volumes. So, you won't get bottle bombs either way, just a fizzier cider. For comparison, most IPAs and lagers are around 2.6-2.7, with 2.2 being around where you might see maybe some lighter carbonated porters (although a lot of those are often closer to 2.4)

 

[Brewer dad]

Yup, you've got the right idea. 25% reduced volume of sugar would be 3 oz though.

If you do want to get technical though, I'd recommend a priming calculator such as Beer Priming Calculator - Brewer's Friend. That'll let you dial in the carbonation level you want. If you like a very sparkling cider, you can push it up around 3 volumes (don't go much higher than this with standard beer bottles). If you want just some very light bubbles, you can go down to around 1.5-2.

Based on that calculator, 3 oz in 3.75 gallons gets you around 2.2 volumes and 4 oz gets 2.7 volumes. So, you won't get bottle bombs either way, just a fizzier cider. For comparison, most IPAs and lagers are around 2.6-2.7, with 2.2 being around where you might see maybe some lighter carbonated porters (although a lot of those are often closer to 2.4)

And that's what I get for mathing before 10am. Great info thank you!