I can't say how much I appreciate your sharing this information and that in your other videos. It's also great that your delivery is so measured - believe me, many of the basement and garage fermenters like myself are watching these videos while freaking out about the current state of our batches ;)
Another thing some people do is they use priming sugar and "bottle condition" the keg and let it naturally carbonate. Then they just need to have the co2 to serve.
Yes - that is possible as well. Sediment does collect and pour out with the cider but it does work if the keg is kept at room temperature long enough and sealed well enough to create that pressure.
Hi. The cider will have a tendency to pour foamier the warmer it is. If it is a dry cider, it is not critical for it to remain at refrigeration temperature after it is carbonated as long as you have a good seal on the keg. Obviously a back-sweetened cider will start to re-ferment fairly quickly if it is not stabilized.
As always a great video I just wanted to say thank you to you guys again you really helped me not just get into making cider but fermentation in general. I’m curious you mentioned northern Brewers in your video are you guys affiliated with them.
Hello, dear friends. Thank you very much for your videos. They have been my great teachers in many subjects and today, I come to ask them again for their advice. The case is this: I have 100 liters of cider of different varieties and I want to make back-sweetened on kegs But it's a bit expensive for me to use sweeteners like xilitol and eritrithol and I want to force carbonate. By studying some bibliography along with your videos, I understand that I can cool the cider and keep it at a low temperature, However, to avoid fermentation do I have to incorporate any cheap fermentable sugar when the cider is already cold? The next question would be if I have to extract residual oxygen from the barrel before pouring our cider into them to prevent oxidation by pushing that oxygen out with C02? Will it be something risky if I force carbonate and incorporate sugars to sweeten? Can my barrel explode? Thank you very much for your advice. I am a Fan!
Luis - sorry for the late reply. You can add any form of sugar as long as you keep it cold - under 38 degrees f. If you add non-fermentable sugar it will keep for a long time. If you add fermentable sugar you need to drink it in less than 3 months and keep it refrigerate, otherwise you should stabilize it with a sorbate - sulfite combination. Monitor the pressure in your keg when you pour the cider. It will increase in pressure if it is fermenting in the keg. If so you should release some of the pressure and you wont have an explosion problem. If you are using a keg or a barrel - it is good practice to purge the vessel with co2 before filling.
That is a good blend for still products and wines where you want to avoid adding any co2 to the product beyond existing levels. We use a reverse blend for most of our ciders 75/25 co2/nitrogen.
Do you guys aim for different volumes of co2 with your different style ciders or keep it generally around 2.75 volume? It's something discussed with different style beers but not really with ciders
Good question. Yes, definitely we do. I think generally our lighter more sparkling wine-like ciders get a bit more carbonation and our heartier, more tannic ciders get less carbonation. Probably 2.6 to 3.0 or so.
@@Number12Cider Thanks for reply. That's how I sort of thought about it as well. Just made a dry apricot cider with champagne yeast and went for around 3.0 volume on that
Hi Stuart. Yes you can bottle directly from a corny keg. You will lose some carbonation in the process and there are couple of things to do to increash your chances of success. Make sure the cider, and bottles are chilled; rinse and sparge the bottles with co2 before you fill them and seal them right away. If the cider is bubbling a lot when you fill them, you will end up with under-filled bottles that are more succeptible to adverse bacteria. There are products in the marketplace that are supposed to make this easier like a bottling "gun" that attaches to a co2 line and the keg so that you can pull the sparging trigger before pulling the fill valve. Good luck!
