I took a chance and fermented 5 gallons of locally pressed, preservative free cider without killing the wild yeast with capden tabs. It’s been a couple of months and it’s tasting great so far. If I want to keep this cider around for a good year or so, do I need to add capden to stabilize the cider?
Yes, 1 Campden tablet per gallon is a good idea to stabilize the cider.
Are you wanting to backsweeten?
If so, I would add stabilizer as well.
Not to hijack a thread, but my cider batch is about done and the question seems about on the same line.
So now that it’s at its final gravity, is there any problem with adding potassium sorbate, campden and gelatin at the same time, a day or two prior to racking to the keg? Can I do them all at once?
Thanks, as always.
Comin’ in way late on this post, but I thought I’d mention that preserving a cider with SO2 right after fermentation will most likely eliminate the possibility of any MLF. With that said, I’ve done it before and the end result was great. MLF isn’t always going to occur and it may not be desired, particularly if your working with cider derived from dessert variety, i.e. very sweet, apples.
