[ponce0501]

So I am new to home brewing and have been searching for a clear answer hoping for some help. 

I am making a hard cider, well two batches but both ciders from preservative free store bought ciders.  My plan was to bottle the batches at the end since I don't have a legging system.  Here is my plan please let me know if it will be an epic fail...

6 gallons of cider using dry wine yeast cotes des blancs at 66 degrees temp and nutrient SG 1.054 in primary.  Will wait until just over 1.000 like 1.005 to rack to secondary.  From there I planned to wait about 10-14 days add sorbate and was hoping to back sweeten with local honey.   Once the cider clears I was going to bottle.

I am looking for a mostly dry, slightly sweet cider that is clear and carbed in a bottle.  My concern is that adding sorbate and then honey and bottling will result in a still hard cider. 

Is this true, can I sweeten slightly and still be carbed in a bottle?


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[erockrph]

So I am new to home brewing and have been searching for a clear answer hoping for some help. 

I am making a hard cider, well two batches but both ciders from preservative free store bought ciders.  My plan was to bottle the batches at the end since I don't have a legging system.  Here is my plan please let me know if it will be an epic fail...

6 gallons of cider using dry wine yeast cotes des blancs at 66 degrees temp and nutrient SG 1.054 in primary.  Will wait until just over 1.000 like 1.005 to rack to secondary.  From there I planned to wait about 10-14 days add sorbate and was hoping to back sweeten with local honey.   Once the cider clears I was going to bottle.

I am looking for a mostly dry, slightly sweet cider that is clear and carbed in a bottle.  My concern is that adding sorbate and then honey and bottling will result in a still hard cider. 

Is this true, can I sweeten slightly and still be carbed in a bottle?

The thing is, the yeast don't know when to stop eating. If you backsweeten with a fermentable sugar, the yeast will eat all of it leaving you with a dry, overcarbonated cider.

I haven't tried it myself, but the only way I know of to have a bottle-conditioned cider be both carbonated and retain some sweetness is to pasteurize in the bottle. I know I've seen posts on another forum from someone who has a procedure for this, but I can't quite remember where it was. I think the basic procedure was to let the cider ferment until it had the right amount of residual sweetness, then bottle with the proper amount of additional priming sugar to carbonate it. The bottles need to be monitored regularly for carbonation level. Once carbonated, he would heat the bottles in a hot water bath to pasteurization temperatures to kill off the yeast.

[factory]

So I am new to home brewing and have been searching for a clear answer hoping for some help. 

I am making a hard cider, well two batches but both ciders from preservative free store bought ciders.  My plan was to bottle the batches at the end since I don't have a legging system.  Here is my plan please let me know if it will be an epic fail...

6 gallons of cider using dry wine yeast cotes des blancs at 66 degrees temp and nutrient SG 1.054 in primary.  Will wait until just over 1.000 like 1.005 to rack to secondary.  From there I planned to wait about 10-14 days add sorbate and was hoping to back sweeten with local honey.   Once the cider clears I was going to bottle.

I am looking for a mostly dry, slightly sweet cider that is clear and carbed in a bottle.  My concern is that adding sorbate and then honey and bottling will result in a still hard cider. 

Is this true, can I sweeten slightly and still be carbed in a bottle?

The thing is, the yeast don't know when to stop eating. If you backsweeten with a fermentable sugar, the yeast will eat all of it leaving you with a dry, overcarbonated cider.

I haven't tried it myself, but the only way I know of to have a bottle-conditioned cider be both carbonated and retain some sweetness is to pasteurize in the bottle. I know I've seen posts on another forum from someone who has a procedure for this, but I can't quite remember where it was. I think the basic procedure was to let the cider ferment until it had the right amount of residual sweetness, then bottle with the proper amount of additional priming sugar to carbonate it. The bottles need to be monitored regularly for carbonation level. Once carbonated, he would heat the bottles in a hot water bath to pasteurization temperatures to kill off the yeast.

If the OP is adding potassium sorbate, that should kill off the yeast and halt fermentation.

Still, if you want to carb in the bottle, you will need to add yeast after adding the sorbate, so back sweetening would be difficult due to the yeast that produce the carbonation eating all of the sugars (thus drying out the cider).  I would suggest that if you want to back sweeten, don't use the sorbate,  and use a sugar alcohol like xylitol to back sweeten and use a little honey for carbonation.

[ponce0501]

Awesome, thanks both!


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[dmtaylor]

You might be interested in reviewing this thread in full:

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=21265.0

I find that the key to maintaining any sweetness in a cider is to rack often, about once per week.  Sorbate and sulfite can be used to help arrest fermentation, however they don't kill the yeast dead but rather only slow it down.  If you want a carbonated cider... good luck.  I have not had great success with carbonating my ciders because you'll inevitably either get a still cider or a gusher, because like others said, the yeast has no idea that you want it to ferment a little bit but not all the way.

Pasteurization, I have not had good success with personally.  It makes the cider taste cooked and it loses something, also makes it hazy.  You can try it, it should work, but you may or may not be happy with the result.

Best way to carbonate, unfortunately, is to keg.  My ciders are mostly all still.  Occasionally I get lucky and have a slight carbonation, but often times not, or sometimes, it gushes out of the bottles.  Good luck, that's all I can really say.  Or get used to drinking still cider, which in my opinion tastes every bit as delicious as carbonated anyway.

[majorvices]

Not that it really matters nor will this comment really help you in any way but making cider is technically not "brewing". I just felt the need to say that.