carbon in cider

[Bruno5555]

Hello! I'm new and I really need information about cider carbonation. I would really appreciate your experience!

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Bruno5555. And welcome to this forum. Not being snarky, but what is your question? How to carbonate? Or how to remove the CO2? If you are concerned about why there is no head compared to a beer, cider does not have the proteins that grain contains and so there is no net to trap CO2. But that aside, your question is vague. If you could be a little more precise, I am sure that many will be only too happy to tell you what they know.

 

[Bruno5555]

Hi Bruno5555. And welcome to this forum. Not being snarky, but what is your question? How to carbonate? Or how to remove the CO2? If you are concerned about why there is no head compared to a beer, cider does not have the proteins that grain contains and so there is no net to trap CO2. But that aside, your question is vague. If you could be a little more precise, I am sure that many will be only too happy to tell you what they know.

Hi sorry. I meant how to carbonize cider

 

[DBhomebrew]

Bottle conditioning or keg?

With bottles, you can easily do carbonated dry cider or still sweet cider. More complicated to do carbonated sweet cider.

For carbonated dry cider, it's the same process as carbonating beer.

Ferment until stable. Add the proper amount (use a calculator) of priming sugar. Bottle, cap, and set aside in an area at about 70°F. Give it a few weeks.

 

[bernardsmith]

DBhomebrew is right. It's easy to carbonate cider but the challenge is that most people want some sweetness to bring the apple flavors forward, and so the better way to to both sweeten and carbonate is to use non fermentable sweeteners to sweeten and fermentable sugars to carbonate. That means that you want to ferment the cider brut dry and then back sweeten when it is bright and clear. Some non fermentable sugars produce a chemical taste but not all. Not certain, but 1/2 t of sugar per 12 oz bottle will carbonate the bottle. It may take several weeks for the carbonation to fully develop. You might want to use carbonation drops - which are measured quantities of hard sugar designed for carbonating beers and ciders.

 

[bernardsmith]

DBhomebrew is right. It's easy to carbonate cider but the challenge is that most people want some sweetness to bring the apple flavors forward, and so the better way to to both sweeten and carbonate is to use non fermentable sweeteners to sweeten and fermentable sugars to carbonate. That means that you want to ferment the cider brut dry and then back sweeten when it is bright and clear. Some non fermentable sugars produce a chemical taste but not all. Not certain, but 1/2 t of sugar per 12 oz bottle will carbonate the bottle. It may take several weeks for the carbonation to fully develop. You might want to use carbonation drops - which are measured quantities of hard sugar designed for carbonating beers and ciders.

 

[Bruno5555]

Bottle conditioning or keg?

With bottles, you can easily do carbonated dry cider or still sweet cider. More complicated to do carbonated sweet cider.

For carbonated dry cider, it's the same process as carbonating beer.

Ferment until stable. Add the proper amount (use a calculator) of priming sugar. Bottle, cap, and set aside in an area at about 70°F. Give it a few weeks.

thanks, but in the pet keg the process is somehow different or the same¿

 

[Bruno5555]

I have tried carbonizing the cider in a 20L pet keg by adding dextrose. It came out quiet. Can this be fixed at home (no CO2 tank).

 

[JulianDave]

I have tried carbonizing the cider in a 20L pet keg by adding dextrose. It came out quiet. Can this be fixed at home (no CO2 tank).

How much sugar did you add? There are online calculators that will tell you exactly how much sugar to add to a certain quantity of cider to get a certain carbonation level.

Assuming you did add enough sugar, if nothing happened either:

• It's too cold
• You didn't wait long enough
• Keg has a leak
• Yeast is dead

In my past failures its usually not enough viable yeast left. Rehydrating more yeast and adding it did the trick.