Apple Cider Sweetness

[staggalee]

also have you discovered the ignore button? :icon_cheers:

yes ,thanks anyway :beerbang:

stagga.

 

[Airgead]

OT:
Hey Dave,
The Sweet Mead yeast left the most residual on the BBRadio podcast. Dry Mead must have been wine yeast as it fermented out the hottest. English and Scottish Ales left rubber-band twang and US-05 of all things came out on top. Give it a go next time.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

I've had really good results with the Wyeast 3766. I've use wlp001 (which I think is similar to the us-05) before and that was OK. I've also used WLP002 but the missus declared it too "beery". Never used the sweet myself as the missus and I both like a dry cider (though I like it drier than her). I've used wine yeast (red start premier cuvee) but that comes out too dry for the primary cider drinker.

If I remember correctly, the strains labelled as mead yeast is are wine strains. I think "dry mead" is just a neutral white wine strain (or maybe a champagne) while the sweet is more a sauterns strain.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Sportygirl]

also have you discovered the ignore button? :icon_cheers:

Thanks for the tip! I've just spent the last hour finding my way around the site and updated my profile. (Should be working!) BTW - where's that "ignore" button?

 

[hayden]

its in your messenger, next to the user usernames of other people

 

[pdilley]

Hey Brewer Pete,

You're obviously a "Pro" and I'm a beginner - I assume when you say "back sweeten" you mean to put the lactose in after fermentation has stopped and before bottling, or should it be put in at the start?
:unsure:
Like the idea of making it a "his/hers" by just pouring the cider on top of the juice for the sweet-tooth!

No, we are all professional beginners here I just have more of a scientific/math "bent" to the hobby then others. Some of us are happy with "just fill the pot up with water to four finger widths below the rim". Others are happier with "measure out exactly 16 liters of water and place it in the pot". If both results end up with a drink you are happy with then who is to say anything about your preferred style. Thats the good thing about doing it as a hobby you can do whichever makes you feel good about your participation in the hobby.

Adding juice in with the fermented drink is common practice, so you should not feel bad about doing so if you so choose to do it. It is easier to put sweetness into something dry than it is to do the reverse.

In reverse if something ends up "cloyingly" sweet, then to a point you can add acid blends "citric, etc." to balance the flavour and make it "seem" more complex than it did originally.

The process would be ferment out dry, starting by watering down the original fermentable item(s) until the gravity reading reaches a number that you know will end up making a particular percentage of alcohol if completely eaten up and fermented by the yeast you use. Each strain of yeast is different to another strain. They make only up to so much alcohol % in what you are fermenting before they give up and just drop out of suspension (flocculate). If a yeast gives a 12% rating on the packet or web page of the manufacturer then you know in a perfect environment it can make 12% (doing it all means 100% Attenuation in brewing words, doing half would be 50% Attenuation, etc. Some yeasts are known to have Attenuation of 74%-85%, at 85% if you take 12 times 0.85 you get 10.19 or 10.2% Alcohol produced before they gave up and flocculated. Nothing stops you from watering down the fermentable to an starting gravity that would end up in 4% and then use that particular yeast strain that has a rating of 12%. Once they chew through all the fermentable stuff they give up and flocculate. This lets you be in control of the process more than setting a high starting gravity number and hoping it finishes exactly at a gravity of 1.008 and give the full 12% Alcohol. That 74% Attenuation may happen and you'll end up sweeter than you wanted, or maybe the 85% Attenuation might happen to your fermentation and you still end up sweeter than you wanted but no so sickly as at 74% Attenuation. Maybe, just maybe you toss in extra yeast nutrients and you will find your 12% rating was a porky and the yeast end up being able to put out 14% alcohol before they flocculate. Some strains are even weird and when nutrients are added give you 10% instead of 12%! Its a variable world out there with living organisms so that is why it is sometimes a lot easier to decide to ferment out dry and back sweeten.

That means the back sweetening takes place after flocculation takes place, so no lactose additions and then tossing in of yeast. Same for acid as well, save that until after flocculation.

Now you can also siphon off the liquid after flocculation into a new cleaned and sanitised fermenter which they call racking a [wine/mead/beer].

Racking off of the flocculated yeast prevents additional excretions from the yeast to add new and perhaps unwanted flavours into your liquid.

In some cases you do want those flavours.

Some people think its safer to leave the liquid on the yeast with short term fermentations (mostly with beer compared to wines or meads) than risk getting oxygen into the finished fermented liquid or expose it to the airborne yeasts, fungi, and bacteria and get an acetic (vinegar) making bacteria in their liquid. This is why when racking you make sure you fill up the vessel you are racking to all the way up to the top with as little air gap as possible even if it means racking into a smaller vessel and putting the extra left overs into an even smaller vessel, even wine bottles or small beer bottles with its own rubber bung and fermentation lock if you are worried about further fermentation/production of gasses.

Other people think it is better to rack to a second vessel.

Welcome to the argument that makes this hobby unique no one is correct, whatever suits your fancy for your particular situation and particular type of beverage you are fermenting, if you like the end result, so be it.

If you wondered but didn't want to ask about stabilization, the idea is to stop the yeast so you are going to have to be mean to them.

You need two items to stabilise, it is not enough to use just one and call it stabilising a wine/mead/cider/etc.

You also have a choice. The products you buy and use can start with the word Sodium or start with the word Potassium, its up to you which you use. Sodium is salt to you and me so you know why I don't like Sodium stuff in my drink, so I go with the Potassium ones.

Potassium sorbate is a wine stabiliser that should be used in conjunction with Campden tablets which is really just Potassium metabisulfite. In other words, it works better with sulfites present than without, and it works better than sulfites alone.

Potassium sorbate disrupts the reproductive cycle of yeast which means they are unable to reproduce and they slowly diminish in number. But it does not kill the yeast that already exist and are alive so you send in Potassium metabisulfate to finish them off. Only then can you truly say a fermented beverage has been stabilised. The only bad thing is you need yeast to make carbonation in bottles so if you bottle you should not do this at all. This is where kegs come in. You can put beverages in kegs and hook up gas cylinders of carbon dioxide CO2. The gas in the cylinders is at such a high pressure that when you turn on the gas it rushes to the normal pressure keg and forces itself into the liquid. This is where modern soda drinks and other fizzy items are made. Its cheap and it does the job. But you get into Argument space #2 on the quality and size of the bubbles and how it effects (beer) foam heads. Its all in good fun though.

This is where the sulfates apart from sulphur dioxide given off by some yeasts comes from in wines, and a small number of people are allergic to it.

Without stabilising you have to drink the wine young before it goes bad.

Or you add spirits to the wine instead to protect it without sulphates, which is where fortified wines come from.

That should be enough to make you fermentation masters in no time.


Best of luck,
Brewer Pete

 

[jivesucka]

used the brigalow cider. added a 750 bottle of apple schnapps to boost the alcohol and man it packs a punch! pours with a nice fluffy head and is very well carbonated. left it in for as long as possible and not surprisingly the hydrometer was barely visible. the flavour is dry as a bone, but i like it. i'd prefer it sweeter but the potency makes up for the dryness.
might try it again soon and add 2 bottles of apple schnapps.