# Bottling cider



## bonk1972 (14/7/17)

Can you bottle cidar early and not add priming sugar.. say at 1.010 or less to get a sweater cidar.. and will it still carb up enough... i have PET bottles


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## Bribie G (14/7/17)

If you bottle early the cider will not be sweeter, it will just keep on fermenting to dryness and produce CO2, which will carb up but could end up producing bottle bombs. 
With bottled cider the best way of serving a sweeter drink is just to add a dash of Bickfords cloudy apple or something into the glass. I'd guess that commercials make sweeter cider by pasteurising before they are attenuated, then artificially carb in bottle as with beer.


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## bonk1972 (14/7/17)

Ok that makes sence... thanks i will leave it until it's finished. .


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## warra48 (14/7/17)

Never heard of cidar, so I changed the topic title to Bottling Cider.


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## bonk1972 (14/7/17)

Ok thanks. . I guess


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## Airgead (15/7/17)

Yep. Bottling before it's done = boom and cider (and possibly glass) everywhere.


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## philistine (23/2/18)

Reviving an Old thread, but ive only just discovered it.
You can bottle anything before it hits FG but of course you run the risk of bottle bombs. There’s probably a rule of thumb when it comes to how many points you can expect to drop in a bottle and not get dangerous but i dont know what it is.... i would expect no more than 10 points....
Given that cider will usually ferment out to zero if left to its own devices, id say you would have been pushing it.
Having said that, ive done it and it worked.
I dunno what the gravity was, but i didnt want to take any chances and i wanted a sweet fizzy cider.
When the ferment was at the level i wanted, i capped it (it was a small batch in a swing top 5l demojohn)
And waited 12 hours, then put it in the fridge.
2 days later i had carbed, sweet cider and it was ******* amazing.
Im not suggesting you do it this way- but there it is.

There are other ways to safely make fizzy sweet cider at a homebrew level and one which ive yet to try is called keeving. (Google it)
Basically you starve the yeast of nutes so that it finishes at a higher gravity that will remain stable.
Another (which i really dont like) option is to back sweeten with lactose or some other kind of non-fermentable at bottling along with your priming sugar.


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