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Author Topic: Bottle Carbonating Hard Cider  (Read 684 times)

Offline Squash90

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Bottle Carbonating Hard Cider
« on: September 18, 2022, 09:17:23 am »
Hey all!

Made my first hard cider last year.  SG: 1.054, FG: 0.996
It was pretty dry at the end and I figured I would be safe adding priming sugar before bottling.  I calculated and measured, boiled, etc...I paced myself and drank the cider over the course of 6 months.  What I found is that some of the bottles tasted a little sweeter but had no carbonation.  Other bottles were still dry with an extremely small amount of carbonation.  I used a liquid yeast for cider with an alcohol tolerance of 16%, so I don't think that was the issue. 
I'll be having another go at it using cider from a local orchard here in about a week.  I've always been confused about whether or not all of the sugar in a cider/beer needs to be gone before adding priming sugar, should I rack it multiple times to get as much yeast sediment out as I can, etc...I ended up having about a dozen bottle bombs in the last batch of beer I made, but I had used priming tablets for those.  Just a little wary since I bottle bombed the beer and seemed to have undercarbonated the cider.

I'd love to have a dry, fizzy cider this year.  Any help would be aprreciated!

Offline denny

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Re: Bottle Carbonating Hard Cider
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2022, 09:30:52 am »
Do you batch prime or bottle prime? When I make cider, I let it ferment a long time (maybe a month or so) so it's totally fermented out, then batch prime using corn sugar. I haven't ever had either a bomb or a no carb, so I have to assume my method works.
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

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Offline Squash90

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Re: Bottle Carbonating Hard Cider
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2022, 06:17:40 pm »
Hey Denny!  I believe I batch primed with a bag of priming sugar from some brewing site.  After about two weeks, I got my first gravity reading below 1.000.  I basically racked the cider on top of the priming solution, stirred it gently, and bottled it.

Offline denny

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Re: Bottle Carbonating Hard Cider
« Reply #3 on: September 19, 2022, 09:05:28 am »
Hey Denny!  I believe I batch primed with a bag of priming sugar from some brewing site.  After about two weeks, I got my first gravity reading below 1.000.  I basically racked the cider on top of the priming solution, stirred it gently, and bottled it.

Pretty much what I do, too
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

www.dennybrew.com

The best, sharpest, funniest, weirdest and most knowledgable minds in home brewing contribute on the AHA forum. - Alewyfe

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell