Force carbing at room temp? and bottling?

[collin8579]

So I am on my first batch of hard cider, its been sitting in secondary about 3 weeks now, and its pretty clear. Clear enough I'm encouraged to get it into bottles.
I'm back sweetening my cider, so before I bottle I'm going to either pasteurize it, or add chems to stop/prevent yeast from processing the new sugars. I haven't decided yet but probably pasteurize in the keg.

Anyway, I want to bottle and fizzy so I want to force carb, but I don't have anywhere cool/cold to store it.
I've read about force carbing at room temp for beers, is it any different with ciders? Do I just "follow the chart" ? Or is there anything else I should know?

Can I "age" my cider if I slow force carb it? Or does that not count for some reason?

Lastly, I want to bottle so I can store it in pantry, and I'm going to use a blichmann beer gun. Does force carbing at room temperature for cider change that process at all?

Thank you
Collin

 

[Bobby_M]

You can carbonate at room temp all you like (yes using the chart) but you must get it down to 35F before you attempt to bottle it off the keg.

 

[datcv]

Bobby_M - is that because you would just lose a lot of the carbonation while bottling?

 

[collin8579]

Yeah - Why do I need to lower before I bottle?

 

[Maylar]

I tried it once - all I got was foam.

 

[Bobby_M]

CO2 is more soluable in water at lower temperatures. If you release pressure on carbonated beer when it's at room temps, most of the CO2 will come out of solution in the bottling operation. The only way to bottle warm carbonated liquids is to do it in a pressurized environment.

The every day exhibition of this effect is to try opening a warm bottle of soda a pouring it out vs. a cold bottle.

To be clear, it's still hard to maintain carbonation while bottling ice cold beer. Doing it at even 40F is much harder and it only gets worse the warmer the beer and bottles are.

 

[area123]

Cider doesn't foam nearly as bad as beer. I've bottled my cider with the last straw beer gun at 55 F and it worked just fine. Little to no foam.

The way I did my last batch was to Transfer to the keg after it was really clear and sat in secondary a couple weeks. So most of the yeast had settled. Then I back sweetened in the keg and added potassium sorbate and let it carb up for about a week or so. Sampling it pretty often (only 2 gallons left to bottle) After it was carbed nicely I bottled. It is shelf stable so far after about 2 weeks.

 

[MarkKF]

I bottle off the keg at room temp. But I drop the pressure to 2-4 psi first. No problem!

 

[collin8579]

Ok, Good to know, thank you
I'm going to get a cooler to chill it down before I bottle and keep the psi ultra low, should let me do it

 

[Rake_Rocko]

I bottle off the keg at room temp. But I drop the pressure to 2-4 psi first. No problem!

Resurrecting an old thread, sorry about that. But this is literally the exact situation I am in right now so I wanted to ask if you still do this. You are the first person I have seen that says you carb and bottle from keg at room temp. Hopefully this is seen, but Mark, do you still do this? Either way, did you carb at room temp at a high PSI, then bring your pressure down to the 2-4 PSI to bottle? I guess I'm wondering how you did yours and how the carbonation came out when you opened a bottle after it chills in the fridge for a few days. Thanks and hopefully you see this!

 

[MarkKF]

I carb at basement temp. Usually a month at 26 psi. I then drop to 4 psi to bottle. I also soak the bottles in cold starsan first. Works great. The first few foam until the corny adjusts.