New to cider. Help!

[carlsonderek]

Question for you all:
I have learned, the hard way, that you can't just let your yeast go to completion Because there is so much sugar in the cider naturally that it ended up turning out like rubbing alcohol with a few drops of apple flavor. I have a decent amount of experience brewing all grain so I'm very used to letting the yeast ferment out. Can you guys please answer these two questions?:
1-How do I stop the yeast from fermenting once I have determined I am pleased with the taste of the cider? I have read that you can siphon the cider off and heat it to over 150° or something like that to basically stop the yeast from being able to do anything.
2-If you do this, then how am I to naturally carbonate in the bottle? I do not have a kegging system to force carbonate and the group of people that I am making the cider for all agree they prefer it slightly carbonated and not still. Could I bottle it with priming sugar (do i even need to prime) and then heat the bottles up to stop the yeast (after two weeks or so)?? And then skip question 1 all together?

 

[Sewer_Urchen]

Well, the real answer is to put less sugar in your initial cider...so when the yeast ferments out it's not like wine, leaving it with the rubbing alcohol taste you describe (by the way, if you let the cider age for a year in the bottle the apple flavor's definitely come back). From there you can back sweeten to taste plus a little bit, bottle carb and (as everyone suggests) read the stove top pasteurization technique sticky at the top of this cider forum.

If you've already added that much sugar, and your original gravity is more like 1.090 instead of a more reasonable 1.060, and you're using champagne yeast instead of ale yeast, than you're out of luck, there is no real way to stop fermentation...none...if you siphon it into a pot to heat it up to 170*, you risk contamination and aeration like nobody's business; You CAN NOT stop fermentation with campden tablets or potassium sorbate; Some people try racking it off the cake, twice, and then cold crashing (where you can put it in the fridge and then siphon off the cake after that, but you have no garuntee that it will get rid of all the yeast working away in there, champagne yeast can (though not well) stay active as low as 50*F and will likely come back to a state of being active the second you let the bottle get back up to 70*F, blowing your bottles.

So I guess the short answer is to start with a lower OG. Shoot for 1.060-ish, use an ale yeast with a low attenuation level (US04 instead of 05, or look for a specialty cider yeast), and check out the stove top pasteurization sticky.

 

[carlsonderek]

Ok. I appreciate the response, I never added a single grain of sugar. I went to the local apple farm, bought three gallons, dumped it in the carboy with a teaspoon of pectic enzyme, let that sit two hours. Then pitched one dry packet of Nottingham. No sugar at all. That's why I'm confused. Friend of mine tried cider at the same time and his did the same thing, neither of us knew to pasteurize or halt fermenting we both got the same thing. I guess I will have to keep experimenting with 1 gallon batches so they don't cost that much if they suck. Thanks though!

 

[motobrewer]

cider will naturally ferment down to nothing, if you let it. There are a few ways of stopping fermentation:

keeping it cold (this really just slows it down, it still ferments, just very slowly)
pasteurizing
filtering

My usual process:
Apple juice + nottingham (OG 1.050-ish)
ferment down to 1.010-ish
rack to keg, keep in keezer at 40F
end of process

obviously, you need kegs for this. If you are bottling, there are numerous threads on pasteurizing here on the boards. I have never tried filtering but I would imagine that filters at that size (0.5 micron) will filter out a lot of things you want as well as yeast. I would not recommend that.

 

[Yooper]

Ok. I appreciate the response, I never added a single grain of sugar. I went to the local apple farm, bought three gallons, dumped it in the carboy with a teaspoon of pectic enzyme, let that sit two hours. Then pitched one dry packet of Nottingham. No sugar at all. That's why I'm confused. Friend of mine tried cider at the same time and his did the same thing, neither of us knew to pasteurize or halt fermenting we both got the same thing. I guess I will have to keep experimenting with 1 gallon batches so they don't cost that much if they suck. Thanks though!

It's shouldn't taste alcohol-y or boozy, then. My feeling is that it fermented way too warm (above 70 degrees) and that is where the hot rubbing alcohol is coming from.

Keep it in the mid 60s or so, and let it ferment out. Once it's totally clear, rack (siphon) to a new container where you've added some sorbate and campden (you can buy that at any store where you bought the yeast). Then, a few days later you can bottle. That's for a still (uncarbonated) sweetened cider.

For a carbonated cider, you can skip the sorbate, and then you can add some sugar (1 ounce per gallon) and bottle. That will give you a dry sparkling cider.

For a sweet sparkling cider, follow the "stove top pasteurization" thread at the top of this forum.

Making cider is easy, and with some temperature control and a bit of knowledge you can make great cider.

 

[robbyhicks]

My couple batches I've gotten up in 1.090 range pitch nottingham, ferment at 64ish (basement temp), let it go to 1.010 or less then backsweeten at bottling... I store the bottles right away at 32ºF for still or let carb for a couple days using plastic bottle for a guage, I used 2 and recomend 3 to taste when they feel right, then stove top pasteurize... I've never pasteurized because I keep them in the keezer, but I plan to when I can't control the temp like when giving as gifts...