[Wort-H.O.G.]

I doubt there is a difference in how CO2 is absorbed, but there may be a difference in how it comes out of solution. Perhaps most of the CO2 is coming out of solution during the pour and you don't notice that because cider has no head. If it were beer you'd be pouring glasses full of foam, but instead you get glasses full of decarbonated cider.

I notice this with my ciders too.  When I first pour from the keg, they are clearly carbonated, almost to the point of being sparkling.  A few seconds later, the may be a bubble or two.  It makes it really difficult classifying it for competition.  I usually say petillant and hope the judge sees it before it dissipates.

there's a significant difference in carbonation perception between my cider and my apple ale that is about 50/50 juice and wort. that i can charge up to the point it is like champagne...the pure cider not so much.

I should have added on my posts that I like cider lightly carbonated, so I've never tried to push the envelope on high carbing.  A couple weeks @ 12psi gives me all the carb I care for in cider.

i'm thinking there is a max carbonation for sure you can get out of cider in a keg. perhaps bottle would be different (like champagne is carbonated) but others have said its a crap shoot if and how much you will get in a bottle.

[dmtaylor]

I have experienced gushers, so I do know that champagne-like carbonation is entirely possible with cider.  In that case I blame the Brett that I used, which no doubt continued fermentation in the bottles for a very long time.  The priming sugar in that case only made matters even worse.

[Wort-H.O.G.]

I have experienced gushers, so I do know that champagne-like carbonation is entirely possible with cider.  In that case I blame the Brett that I used, which no doubt continued fermentation in the bottles for a very long time.  The priming sugar in that case only made matters even worse.

i bet. i visited schramsberg in napa. they are a very old champagne producer (sparkling wine if you're not in france and champagne region  ) . i toured their hand dug caves, and they still to this day have guys doing the riddling-turning bottles by hand each day. those bottles and cages withstand all the pressure.

[Jimmy K]

I once saw some calculations done by Andrew Lea, a UK cider expert, on priming with sugar according to the nomograph we use for beer. The calculations said the sugar added could never account for the entire volumes of CO2 in packaged beer. He figured the carbonation must be supplemented by CO2 already in solution and maybe a small amount of fermentables left in the beer at packaging.
 
The point was that those last two sources don't apply well to cider. Cider is often bulk-aged longer, which dissipates dissolved CO2, and is usually completely dry if priming with sugar.
 
Obviously, this doesn't apply to force carbonating at all - but would explain pesky carbonation in bottles.

[dmtaylor]

I once saw some calculations done by Andrew Lea, a UK cider expert, on priming with sugar according to the nomograph we use for beer. The calculations said the sugar added could never account for the entire volumes of CO2 in packaged beer. He figured the carbonation must be supplemented by CO2 already in solution and maybe a small amount of fermentables left in the beer at packaging.
 
The point was that those last two sources don't apply well to cider. Cider is often bulk-aged longer, which dissipates dissolved CO2, and is usually completely dry if priming with sugar.
 
Obviously, this doesn't apply to force carbonating at all - but would explain pesky carbonation in bottles.

This is fantastic insight.  Thank you for sharing!  Makes perfect sense, and something I should no doubt pay more attention to in future.

What I'm getting out of this is that if you bulk age for a long time, or swirl or agitate the cider a lot before bottling, there's not much dissolved CO2 left, so you'll want to use extra priming sugar to compensate.  This is in contrast to a fresh, not very disturbed ferment (such as with beer) where there's a lot of dissolved CO2 so then the typical "3/4 cup per 5 gallons" rule is most applicable.

Interesting!  Thanks again!  For those who don't know, Andrew Lea is like the number one smartest dude on the whole planet when it comes to all things cider.  He's like the Michael Jackson of cider, or of pop, for that matter.   

[HoosierBrew]

Yeah, that's great info and backs up Ken's point.  I'd just never tried to pump much carbonation into my ciders so it had never been an issue for me. Makes sense about beer often having a lot more CO2 in solution.

[Wort-H.O.G.]

Funny how we stumble across stuff sometimes huh


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Jimmy K]

Hey - I found the post. I just needed the right frame of mind I guess because I thought it was lost to the interwebz. I've been trying to find it for a while.
 
Full thread - https://groups.google.com/d/msg/cider-workshop/a_AznLMoSOc/cQig2jv72gIJ
 

I've done a few more calculations now .....   According to Henry's Law, saturation CO2 at 45F (7C) is around 1.25 vol.

Going back to the previous posting for that condition, we had a shortfall of 1.5 vol at an indicated 3 vol carbonation. So if the beer or cider is just saturated with CO2, the sum of these now gives a
shortfall of only 0.25 vol.

Taking another example, at 75F (25C) 5 oz of sugar per 5 Gallons is shown by the nomograph to give 3 vol carbonation. That amount of added sugar is (5*28)/(5*3. = 7.4 g/L which will give 3.7 g/L of CO2. That is around 1.85 vol of CO2. Henry's Law shows that at 75F the saturation of CO2 is  0.75 vol. Putting those together we get 2.6 vol, a shortfall of 0.4 vol.

In either case there is a calculated shortfall which is presumably made up by the supersaturation of CO2 in a freshly-fermented beer with residual gravity together with the long-term fermentable potential of that gravity, and the nomograph appears to be valid for that situation; the temperature correction allowing for the lower saturation of the existing CO2 at higher temperature.   

However, it is not necessarily valid for bottle conditioning of a fully fermented dry cider where, at very best, the existing CO2 level will be at saturation only and quite probably a good bit less, and where there is no residual gravity. Under those conditions, following the nomograph will lead to less carbonation than expected.  QED.

   Andrew