Bottle Conditioning

Cider
1

So I have been reading the forums and I see that bottle conditioning ciders is hit or miss… but I am going to give it a try.

I currently have 2 ciders I am about to bottle: 5 gallons of cherry cider and 6 gallons of oaked regular cider.

They have both been sitting in secondary for over 6 weeks now (maybe more, lost track of time).

My question is this: For the regular cider, I would like to see if I can get a bit caramel flavors into it, so was considering using brown sugar. Any opinions on this? The more I think about it, since I will only be adding approximately 1/3 cup of sugar, I guess it probably will not make any difference, but figured I would ask.

Thanks!

2

Consider using this dark sugar syrup:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/d-90 ... -1-lb.html
3

This sounds great! Have you tried it with a cider? If so, pleased with the results or not?

Thanks!

4

I have not tried it, but I’ll let you try it and post back with results! :wink:

5

6 weeks or so, there should be plenty of yeast in suspension to carbonate your cider. If you let it go for a year in bulk storage, you might have an issue with it carbing up, but a couple of months should not be a problem.

However, re-yeasting at bottling is cheap insurance. You only need maybe 1/4-1/3 of a packet of champagne yeast, re-hydrated, and mixed in your bottling bucket. You’ll end up with more yeast in the bottle, but it’s pretty much guaranteed to carbonate.

Good luck!