Bumping up my Cider ABV - Thoughts?

Hello all, as usual I hope you are safe and well during the pandemic. I am beginning my first cider batch this weekend, and I was wondering. I am using a kit(I know I know, let’s move past this part) that would normally yield approx. 6 gallons that would sit around 5.2% abv.

Those are rookie numbers, let’s pump those numbers up.

Here’s what I am thinking: I can cut the batch to about 4 or 4.5 gallons, and add an extra 1LB of corn sugar to my brew(recipe calls for 2LBs normally). My questions are as follows:

Do I incite any extra risks by doing either of these things, or do I need to take any extra steps or precautions with adding extra sugar?

I know it’s hard to tell for sure, but what sort of ABV gains would I expect to see from this?

Is there a clear down-side to doing this?

As always thanks for your unending knowledge and support. Love u.

A lot of things you can do besides what you suggested. What was in the original recipe? Adding raisins will give it some body and raise the ABV. Corn sugar will dry it out but add no flavor if you want to add a bit of flavor use brown sugar. The other thing you could do is get some frozen apple juice concentrate and add that. Good luck

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Here’s my love in return… :nerd_face:… I usually have apple cider on tap. I buy 5 gallons from the grocery store… Sometimes under 4 bucks a gallon… I’ll ferment with safe ale 05, or Whites 001… My starting gravity is 1.045-50…
I’ll end up at .997… Some times, when I monitor it with my tilt gizmo… I’ll stop at 1.001-003… The first one will carb and drink like champagne… The second one not quite so dry… My ABV will be 5.5- up to 6 %… Now this is without doing anything to the juice (must)…
I did jack up the ABV one time… I could not taste apple… Gone… Missing, so I never went back down that road…
I’ve also juiced apples from the tree… That’s quite a bit of work… I can’t tell the difference from this or store bought cider…
Now you can ponder what I’ve found along the way…
If it were me… Follow the instructions…
Sneezles61

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Appreciate the words and sharing your experience my friend! Gives me lots of stuff to think about prior to brew day.

My cider brew day takes as long as it takes to sanitize a fermenter and dump in the juice and yeast…
Sneezles61

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So after doing much research I am leaning towards following the recipe(which already calls for adding 2lbs of sugar dissolved to the fermenting bucket), but only topping off to 5 gal instead of the recommended 6 gallons with water. At this point I will check the O.G. and see how it compares to what the recipe suggests it may be at this point; and only at that point consider adding some dissolved brown sugar if I see totally necessary.

Seems like across the board it’s easy to make a cider high alcohol, but also extremely easy to ruin the flavor by doing this. We don’t want 5 gallons of nasty stuff!

You could only add say, half the water amount check your gravity…
You’ll find your taste… Many batches and taking notes on how you put it together (volumes bring of utmost concern) and tasting notes…
Sneezles61

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Me? Personally I like sessionable alcohol. 5.2% would be perfect IMO.

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You make a good point. Definitely nothing wrong with 5.2%, and I definitely wouldn’t sacrifice taste for it, but wanted to see if it was complicated or potentially detrimental to bump an extra ~1% out of that.

I can get to 6%… But it does dry out… Ala Brut… And it’s actually good to my palate … 5% and there abouts IS a good target… See if I can get a picture of my current cider…
So just to be able to separate apple juice and hard cidre… I’d propose to call juice with alcohol… Cidre… might help un-confuse things?
Sneezles61

Here is my one on tap now…
Sneezles61

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For a carbonated cider 5% or so is nice. For the strong stuff 10% and up I prefer it still like wine New England style we call it

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My ciders all turn out 6-7% ABV without adding any extra sugar, just juice and yeast. Be aware that FG is going to be close to 0.997 or thereabouts regardless of OG, so this isn’t like beer at all, the ABV is going to be higher than you might think. There is such a thing as applewine, some people like it. But a regular cider should be close to 6%, and you’ll get that from a ~1.045 OG juice. So if you add any sugar at all, and/or cut the water short in your kit, you’re stepping that up to 7, 8, 9, 10% alcohol or more, for a more wine-like beverage than a regular cider close to 6%.

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For the last couple of ciders I’ve made, I’ve added a couple of cans of frozen apple juice concentrate after all fermentation and aging is completed. I add the juice to a cleaned and sanitized keg and then rack the cider to the keg. If kept cold, it will not ferment. It adds apple flavor and sweetness back to the cider. I also add oak cubes or chips too for a more complex flavor. I only add enough CO2 to gently push the cider out the tap. It’s not completely flat, but very close. So if you wanted to add corn sugar to the juice to boost ABV, you could at least in part cover the resulting dryness of the fermented cider with frozen apple juice concentrate. I would only do this with kegs! Bottles could be dangerous unless you pasteurize them. Last thought is be very careful with fermentation temperature on ciders. Low and slow is key to avoiding hot alcohols. I keep my cider at 55 degrees the whole fermentation. I’ve been happy with the Safcider yeast.

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Ok so here’s the situation update: the cider is now fermenting. I followed the original recipe exactly other than cutting the batch volume.
I took a hydrometer reading at 4 gallons(recipe normally calls for topping off up to 6) and woof - 1.072, higher than expected by a lot. Topped off to slightly above 5 gallons and ended up with an O.G. at 1.054. Still a bit high but I am confident I can work with that figure, especially due to the fact that I will already be adding some sweeteners on the back end after fermentation(peach & mango flavorings a la the recipe kit).
Long story short you were all right, there was no need to add more sugar to the recipe; and I should learn to trust the process. Thanks much for all the information my dudes! Stoked to see how it comes out and I will let you all know how it tastes in due time.

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Having tried a few dry yeasts made a huge improvement when using K1V-1116(Montpellier White Wine Yeast) which keeps much more apple flavor/aroma compared to EC-1118 champagne yeast. We add 1-2 TBSP of pear juice in the glass when serving slightly sweetens up the dry cider and brings out more flavors. Adding 1-2 teaspoons ground cinnamon when starting also nicely changes up the flavors. Usually do two batches in a row and repitch a cup of the first batch’s yeast trub to start the 2nd batch.

fyi Oct 2016 Brew Your Own magazine article “Hard cider yeast selection” Summary: 12 dry yeasts and one liquid yeast (Wyeast 4766) were tested. The yeasts were either cider yeasts or wine yeasts (no beer yeasts). The base
juice came from a carton. It was allowed to age for six months. There were five tasters who noticed quite a bit of variability in taste between them. Lalvin 1116 was their favorite and Mangrove M2 was highly rated.

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How were they served? Still or sparkling? Makes a difference… Good to know about their choice of yeast… I’ve got to get another batch going…
Sneezles61