Okay, I know this has been posted/asked before...but I've dug and dug through forums on this subject and to be honest I'm over reading and just wanna get back to making my darn cider. So.... I would like to make a sparkling sweet cider. I will be bottling and pasteurizing (wish me luck) because I do not have kegs. I keep reading that I can either make a still sweet cider or a dry sparkling cider, but that's not what I'm going for. Can I just ferment it dry, add a non fermenting sugar, then bottle carb (plan on using carbonation tabs). Has anyone done something similar? I don't want to add a soda to a still cider afterward to get carbonation, if I do that I may as well just go make myself a mixed drink and save myself some time.
Sparkling Cider Questions
- Thread starter duderay
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Sparkling sweet cider is my goal as well. And yes, you can have both. Ferment it dry, then at bottling time add non fermentable sugar to taste, then add enough fermentable sugar to get carbonation. Corn sugar (dextrose) will give you tiny little bubbles, but any sugar will work.
If you bottle at 1.005 you can skip pasteurization without risk of bottle bombs, but it'll take a while to carb. Or go higher than that and either cold crash or pasteurize when you get the fizz you're looking for. But whatever sugar is left from that will change the sweetness.
I dunno about carb tablets, so I can't comment on that.
If you bottle at 1.005 you can skip pasteurization without risk of bottle bombs, but it'll take a while to carb. Or go higher than that and either cold crash or pasteurize when you get the fizz you're looking for. But whatever sugar is left from that will change the sweetness.
I dunno about carb tablets, so I can't comment on that.
TopherM
Well-Known Member
Duderay
No problem with your logic. The only thing you're missing, is that there aren't exactly non-fermentable sugars that are going to taste good in a cider.
Some sort of fermentable simple sugar (I always backsweeten with apple juice in about a 2/9 ratio in the keg), is the only way you can get a sweet, carbonated hard cider that tastes good, and about the only way you can accomplish that through bottle carbing is to pasteurize or cold crash once you think the carb is done, which is a bit of a guessing game.
Good luck!
No problem with your logic. The only thing you're missing, is that there aren't exactly non-fermentable sugars that are going to taste good in a cider.
Some sort of fermentable simple sugar (I always backsweeten with apple juice in about a 2/9 ratio in the keg), is the only way you can get a sweet, carbonated hard cider that tastes good, and about the only way you can accomplish that through bottle carbing is to pasteurize or cold crash once you think the carb is done, which is a bit of a guessing game.
Good luck!
That would depend very much on your definition of "tastes good".
TopherM
Well-Known Member
True. But lactose cider? No thanks. Truevia, Steevia, Splenda, Xylitol, sucralose, aspartame, or saccharin cider? Not for me.
I keg, so carbonating a sweet cider at fridge temps is very easy. If I had to bottle, I'd go through the PITA processes to backsweeten with real sugar before I'd sweeten with non-fermentable.
Just my opinion!
I keg, so carbonating a sweet cider at fridge temps is very easy. If I had to bottle, I'd go through the PITA processes to backsweeten with real sugar before I'd sweeten with non-fermentable.
Just my opinion!
Point taken, and I agree with you. I detest the taste - and aftertaste - of artificial sweeteners.
However, of the sweeteners you mentioned one stands out as different. Xylitol is an organic sugar alcohol made from Birch trees (or corn cobs). It tastes like sugar and leaves NO aftertaste. I have it in my coffee right now and will be sweetening my cider with it today.
However, of the sweeteners you mentioned one stands out as different. Xylitol is an organic sugar alcohol made from Birch trees (or corn cobs). It tastes like sugar and leaves NO aftertaste. I have it in my coffee right now and will be sweetening my cider with it today.
So, if you're going to tap a keg of Cider you can backsweeten with real sugar? can I assume the serving temps prevent any remaing yeast from going active?
I have not done Cider yet and would be kegging, so I'm interested as I might want to backsweeten if I find the dry (no backsweetening) to be to dry.
TopherM
Well-Known Member
Yup, it's easy in a keg. I ferment 4.5 gallons of a decent apple juice with S-05 or Nottingham for about 10 days, then transfer to the keg. Cold crash for at least 24 hours, then add a 1/2 gallon of the same sweet juice to the keg, and carbonate. The low temps keep the yeast dormant.
In a bottle, obviously you can't carbonate and have dormant yeast at the same time, so you basically have to add the extra sugars and take an educated guess to when the beer is sufficiently carbed, but there are still residual sugars left, then either pasteurize with heat to kill the yeast or cold crash the bottles. Yeast activity is somewhat predictable, but also somewhat random, so it is literally an educated guess. Anyone who tells you they "know" when to pastuerize/cold crash the bottles is fibbing!
The trick is this - fill a plastic soda bottle of approximately the same volume as the bottled cider (i.e. 12oz beer bottle = 12oz. soda bottle) when you bottle. When the soda bottle is firm like an unopened bottle of soda from the store, you're in the right ballpark. Crack open the soda bottle and sample. If it's good, then you open one of your beer bottles (for instance) to check the carbonation levels. Pasteurize per the stickied thread at the top of the forum.
I just pasteurized my second last night with excellent results. You can read about it in the "New Member, Same Ol' Story" thread by me.
Caveat - I had one batch where the soda bottle was carbed sufficiently but my glass bottles still aren't. I've been checking a glass bottle every 3 or 4 days. Sure, I'm losing several bottles to testing (aka drinking), but that's a quality problem to have.
I'm a beginner myself, dude... but I have read that cider improves a lot with age. After all the work I've put into getting 8 measly bottles of cider, I sure hope it's worth while lol.
What you get depends a lot on what you start with. I'm using pasteurized orchard cider, which is probably the ideal base. When I bottled yesterday it tasted very "appley" but dry. I added the Xylo Sweet and enough sugar to give it some carb without risking bombs. Next batch is in primary now, and I think I'll do the backsweeten / pasteurize method.
That's why you should do 5 gallon batches! About the same amount of work, but you get more cider in the end.
I filter the yeast out with a 1 micron filter then back sweeten and force carb in the keg then bottle it with the beer gun.
10-15 min. set the regulator to about 1-2 psi and let it push the cider through the filter slowly.
TopherM
Well-Known Member
LOL....as you have read, I'm going to rest my case about bottling cider being a PITA. Get a keg!
Sure...check out the starter kit from Kegco in the giveaway.
That's a pretty sweet setup. 
