After some failed ciders several years ago, I got back into it last year and have been pleased with the results. I ferment store-bought “not from concentrate” apple juice (Musselmans or “TreeTop Pure Pressed” both work and are cheap) with S-04 and treat with pectic enzyme, then basically treat it like a lager after fermentation is complete, with a long stay in my lagering freezer until I’m ready to serve in. When I keg it, I back-sweeten the keg. I’ve never had anything start fermenting again, or anything like that.
Apple juice concentrate: I’ve found that 2-5 cans of defrosted frozen apple juice concentrate is sufficient to sweeten and flavor a cider made this way.
Montmercy sour cherry juice concentrate: I added a 32 oz bottle of this stuff, along with 2 cans of frozen apple juice concentrate and it was very nice and not too tart, though I think dialing back to 16-20 oz of the cherry juice concentrate would work better.
Now I’m ready to try a few more things and I wanted to know what others have done.
Belgian Candi Syrup? I thought about adding 2 lbs of the amber or dark stuff to a keg of fully dry cider —- take it from 1.002 or so to about 1.015 and give it a darker amber color. Has anyone tried this?
Honey syrup? I have considered making a syrup out of honey and water (to get it to dissolve better into cold cider) and adding enough to get the cider up to 1.010-1.015. I know plenty of people ferment honey with cider, but that seems a fair bit different.
Other juice concentrates? I’m already planning to try this with wild blueberry juice concentrate, but I’m not sure how much to use.
Anyway, how do those of you who like to back-sweeten in the keg go about doing it?
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