Cider Making Dilemma - proceed or stop while I'm ahead?

Cider
1

So I’m from Minnesota, but living in DC. I’ve done some one gallon batches using apple juice. It’s fall here, (how’s the weather back home?) so I told my wife to pick up 5 gals of cider (stuff’s heavy) and she brought me 5 plastic jugs of Ziegler’s from Giant Foods (kinda like Red Owl for you MN types, yeah, I left awhile back).

Which has potassium sorbate, allegedly unfriendly to yeast. It tastes fine out of the jug. It’s cloudy, but it has, like, potassium sorbate.

Some guy on the internet said no problem. Culture and pitch some baker’s yeast in that cider. It won’t be able to effect mitosis, but al the happy yeast will ferment and clean out the potassium sorbate. They don’t have to multiply. Just let them sputter out.

THEN pitch your champagne yeast and any other additives (I was going to put in enough brown sugar to get a 20% alcohol content outcome) and it will proceed normally. Since it was on the Internet, as I always do, I assumed it must be true.

I pitched a furiously bubbing Hodgson Mill dry yeast starter I had prepared with DME and some ground up vitamins that had some of stuff (plus other stuff not) typically found in yeast nutrient kits, into the BigMouth Bubbler™ that I bought from NB, with the cider on September 28. OG was 1.05. Two days later it was burping 13 bubbles per minute through the airlock (the peak) settling to 4.5 by October 4. It is now burping only occasionally.

Tonight I took an OG. 1.004. The brewer’s friend online calculator sez that’s about 6.43% ABV. Better yet, it tastes great, nothing like the apple juice gallon batches I’ve made from frozen concentrate (which had no added preservatives). A lot of the brown particulate seems to have settled out, it is now more yellow in color, pleasing to the eye. Hence, my dilemma.

I feel like putting this awesome stuff into a secondary for a week or two, and bottle conditioning it in champagne magnums with enough sugar to produce a sparkling wine level of carbonation. If I got a carbonated version with this taste, maybe a little less sweet, that would be a major victory. I would make it every year. I would post, despite being a new brewer, authoritative Ziegler hard cider recipes online, telling people not to worry about potassium sorbate. That it is all old wive’s tales.

But I’m worried that I missed something. This was supposed to be a two-step, esoteric approach to fix a bone-headed purchase. (Rural Virginia is 30 minutes away, and has unpasteurized cider practically flowing in the storm drains). It should not have worked, producing an acceptable tasting, alchohol-positive product without proceeding to step two. Plus that extra sugar worries me. Maybe if I bottled it, even in magnums, it would blow them up or spout foam til the bottles empty because there is still too much sugar. My other apple juice ciders were dry, except for the ones I put a packet or two of Equal into.

So. What should I do? Proceed according to plan? Stop while I’m ahead?

2

That’s cool that the sorbate didn’t prevent fermentation. Good data.

You’ll be able to carbonate it just fine for a champagne-like beverage, no problem. HOWEVER…

Don’t bottle until it’s done. Don’t rush it. Then it won’t gush or explode. In all honesty, it’s probably going to ferment all the way down to about 0.992 before it’s finished, which might take another month. Don’t rush it.

3

Hmm, so it fermented to 1.004 using just bread yeast and tastes great? Wow, I’m thinking you got lucky.
I can only guess that since sorbate stops yeast reproduction, then you must have pitched such a large number of yeast that they didn’t need to reproduce. Sorbate doesn’t affect the actual fermentation. I did defeat a batch of sorbated cider last year by diluting it 50% with apple juice and adding it to 2 G wort, essentially using that as a massive starter. Result= Graf, which was absolutely great.
Take another SG or two over the next couple days to make sure that it’s finished. Then secondary if you want to clear it up some more, or bottle and let it condition in that. Know that most likely whatever sugar you add will be completely fermented making Co2 (and a little alcohol) so don’t overdo it and create gushers or bottle bombs.

4

+1 to the above replies. Only thing I’ll add, is don’t bottle condition with champagne yeast at this point. The champagne yeast will break down all the residual sugars, and as Dave says above, it’s going to finish well below 1.000. And this could result in exploding bottles.

If you do want to bottle it as a dry sparkling cider, add your champagne yeast, wait for it to be done, and then prime it with sugar with an online calculator to carbonate in the bottles. It could take a few more weeks before it finishes dry.

BTW, sorbate is effective at preventing fermentation when starting with a small amount of yeast. The way to defeat it is to start with a very large, active pitch of yeast, which is exactly what you did. Kudos for that!

5

“Don’t bottle until it’s done. Don’t rush it. Then it won’t gush or explode. In all honesty, it’s probably going to ferment all the way down to about 0.992 before it’s finished, which might take another month. Don’t rush it.”

Just to clarify, without adding any more yeast or sugar, this could reach .992? (around 7.61% ABV?) It is presently not bubbling the airlock at all anymore.

“Then you must have pitched such a large number of yeast that they didn’t need to reproduce.”

It was about a quart, and it was very active. Also I was worried it would taste bready, but it didn’t.

“don’t bottle condition with champagne yeast at this point. The champagne yeast will break down all the residual sugars, and as Dave says above, it’s going to finish well below 1.000. And this could result in exploding bottles.”

Just to clarify, I was going to add the champagne yeast and brown sugar to the cider when major action from the bread yeast (as indicated by the airlock) stopped and then let the champagne yeast do its thing with the brown sugar and residual cider sugars til it stopped, and THEN bottle condition with the recommended amount of sugar (and no more yeast).

Since it doesn’t seem necessary and I can wait to make some super potent cider another day, I am inclined not to mess with success and do the minimum necessary to finish this thang.

So to clarify, If I leave the cider alone, do not add any more yeast, do not add any sugar as a fermentation booster, I’ll be able to bottle condition a nice sparkling cider (adding the proper amount of sugar) to an FG cider of .992 in maybe a month?

6

Quite likely, yes. And it may turn out dry as a bone, no sweetness left. So then you can consider adding more sorbate and sulfite and then backsweeten to taste, if you wish, but then it would be a still cider, no carbonation. Carbonation is possible if you skip the extra sorbate at the end, but again like I said, might still turn out dry as a bone after the yeast eats all the backsweetening. Getting a cider to be both sweet and carbonated at the same time when bottling is very difficult. I manage it by tiring out the yeast with time and temperature. If you don’t give the yeast several months to tire out before bottling, then sweet champagne is a very difficult thing to accomplish. It will tend to either be sweet and flat, or dry and gushing, with a brief period of perfection in between.

7

“with a brief period of perfection in between.”

I like that. Very poetic.

I’ll just leave it alone for a couple more months and not mess with it.

I assume that drinking this tasty stuff right now, in addition to being less than effervescent, could produce some yeast-induced, er, “reactions” in the consumer?

I also assume that if I want some sweetness in some of the magnums, 1-5 packets of a sugar substitute like Equal will get me there without going back to sorbate? No reinheitsgebot for cider 'n such?

Thanks again for all of the informed comment!

8

No, don’t use Equal. That stuff tastes terrible in cider. I’m going to sound like a broken record, but if you want to backsweeten with a non-fermentable sugar, try xylitol. It is very flavor neutral. I found it at a local organic store, but it can be found online if you can’t get it locally. Add xylitol to taste (a little goes a long way, so be careful), prime with cane sugar, and you can bottle a carbonated sweet cider without all the worry about bottle pasteurizing and overcarbonation.

9

I agree with porkchop that Equal would not be good in cider. Also Splenda turns out terrible. I have not tried the xylitol but several people says it works well, so if I were to try another artificial sweetener, it seems worth a shot.

10

Great, this cider will have no Equal.

Thanks for all of the guidance. Will try to post a review…much later of course.

11

Update: The final reading was 1.004 which looks like an ABV of about 6.56. I bottled the cider in champagne magnums on 11/22 with a cup of corn sugar added to the five gallon bottling bucket in hopes of getting some sparkling cider. I did not add any more yeast at any time.

When I open one, there is just a little gasp (from the bottle, not me). The cider tastes fine. But it is far from sparkling. Very little effervescence. A bit sweet.

So I’m assuming the bread yeast finally died and was not up to carbonating.

I’m not going through this very fast, and would like to shoot for a drier, carbonated cider. I’m thinking about opening a few, putting in some champagne yeast, maybe a bit more sugar, and recapping them. My questions are:

  1. Is that an okay idea?
  2. How much sugar should I add per magnum? Yeast?

As before, any help appreciated!