# Carbonating Sweet Cider/mead?



## machalel (18/2/12)

Tell me i'm dreaming if the following is silly, as I don't have a huge wealth of experience...

Everyone keeps saying that getting a carbonated mead or cider is hard without back-sweetening or force carbing etc, but wouldn't you be able to do this (assuming that you dont mind a high ABV drink) by choosing a yeast/gravity combination that will get over-saturated with alcohol before using up all the sugars - but bottling it before its 'finished' leaving the last bit of fermentation to proceed in the bottle?

I assume you would have to be really careful not to get bottle bombs... but what is wrong with the theory? anyone?


----------



## Airgead (18/2/12)

Machalel said:


> Tell me i'm dreaming if the following is silly, as I don't have a huge wealth of experience...
> 
> Everyone keeps saying that getting a carbonated mead or cider is hard without back-sweetening or force carbing etc, but wouldn't you be able to do this (assuming that you dont mind a high ABV drink) by choosing a yeast/gravity combination that will get over-saturated with alcohol before using up all the sugars - but bottling it before its 'finished' leaving the last bit of fermentation to proceed in the bottle?
> 
> I assume you would have to be really careful not to get bottle bombs... but what is wrong with the theory? anyone?



That would work. But its likely to be unreliable. You would have to have a pretty good handle on how your fermentation was going, when it was going to stop and how much gas it would give off between bottling and finishing. Possible but not easy and certainly not for the faint hearted (the first few times anyway). A day to early and you get bottle bombs. A day too late and you get flat cider...

Cheers
Dave


----------



## machalel (19/2/12)

Ah ok, cool... I'm not going to attempt it, but was just wondering.

Possibly easier to do if you were using swing-tops, and a recipe that you regularly used (and knew what FG to expect etc)


----------



## potof4x (19/2/12)

Nothing wrong with the theory at all. It is also possible to use pasteurization to control a secondary ferment in the bottle. The beauty of it is you can leave residual sugar in there that dead yeast can't consume.


----------



## brettprevans (19/2/12)

potof4x said:


> Nothing wrong with the theory at all. It is also possible to use pasteurization to control a secondary ferment in the bottle. The beauty of it is you can leave residual sugar in there that dead yeast can't consume.


Um as ready pointef out thete is potentially quite a lot of danger with the theory. Pasturisation is a completeky diff kettle of fish . With that u can fully fermwnt out, add sugar and pasturise thus kill the yeast.


----------

