Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

you could up the sugar and then before its all fermented out do a cold crash- stick it in the fridge to make the yeasties fall asleep, then rack the lot and keep in fridge for a bit then bottle. the only thing with this is that you will have a still cider (unless you have an in fridge keg with gas charge)

Andy wrote:you could up the sugar and then before its all fermented out do a cold crash- stick it in the fridge to make the yeasties fall asleep, then rack the lot and keep in fridge for a bit then bottle. the only thing with this is that you will have a still cider (unless you have an in fridge keg with gas charge)

And store every bottle in the fridge or you will have bottle bombs :scared-eek:

Reckon the lactose is easier and you can enjoy a carbonated cider ;-)

As already mentioned though, the lactose is a non fermentable. Sweetens without the extra abv or boom boom. Apparently.

There are a few dedicated cider yeasts out there.
Mangrove Jacks, Mad Millie, White Labs and Wyeast liquid yeasts. Or you can use a champagne yeast.
Hit up Aldi and grab 24 litres worth of Juice. Should be about a $1 per litre and is preservative free.
Add in lactose for a sweeter cider. Or you can add a touch of pear juice. There's sugar in pears that will not ferment.
Otherwise you can ferment the cider right down to a dry cider and then back sweeten your cider by adding a touch of apple juice to your glass as your drinking it.
If you bottle, make sure it's fermented right out before bottling as said before...bottle bombs...

For those who are lactose intolerant, there are other non fermentable sweeteners like stevia etc that you can use as well. Just work out the dosage in a small glass first then dose the lot with slightly less than you thought tasted good (it's way too easy to over do sweeteners)

I've been making a sweetish cider using oztops. http://www.oztops.com.au/

They might be a little pricey but they were given to me as a present and work really well.

Just another way to skin a cat.

well i have just put down my first cider this morning so now we just wait and see how it turns out

Run your Cider as long as possible to dry it out and pump up ABV, then back sweeten it with concentrated juice (frozen then allowed to drip off, leaving water behind) and some wine conditioner ... there is a few videos for it on Youtube, then you can make it as sweet or dry as you like.

yep bottling day is here at last i have spent all day cleaning steralizing bottles and removing lables from said bottles
so i will be bottling tonight and capping then i let it sit for at least a month (unless the other half ) rips a cap off early lol
she likes her cider

Tim

first cider successfuly bottled and capped out of a 9L kit i got 28 bottles
think the missus is going to have some drinking to do

Tim

So I had 4 L's of cider leftover from my bottling. I put it in a sterilised demijohn with a used French Oak stick, spices incl Peppercorns, Allspice berries, cinnamon and some star anise. I left it several months and finally had some friends over to drink it.

Well, it was flat, likely due to the nature of the swingarm lid on the demijohn, but apart from that, it was very tasty with a hint of oak and just the right spice mix, may have needed some vanilla and I dare say after 4L b/w 3 of us, we were very happy with finishing it, would've probably been good warmed up actually!

If I racked to secondary, then spiced and oaked for a couple of weeks and then bottled, I guess I could've got some carbination?

tipsy wrote:I've been making a sweetish cider using oztops. http://www.oztops.com.au/

They might be a little pricey but they were given to me as a present and work really well.

Just another way to skin a cat.

I started my being journey with oztops :)

Being a tight wad I' make cider with a tin of Brigalow cider kit from Woolies, 1/2 kilo of sugar and 10 or 12 litres of Aldi apple juice, made up to 25 litres.
It ferments out with the Brigalow yeast to a nice dry drink which I bottle after bulk priming with about 80 g of sugar. Produces a nice sparkle and very little sediment in the bottle (I bottle to Aldi 1.25 litre lemonade/cola etc bottles)
It certainly improves with keeping for a couple or 3 months.
And when serving to guests there's a bottle of Aldi juice ready in case they need a little "sweetener" .

In fact I think I'd best get some n the fridge for this evening.