Backsweeten/carbonation (beginners 1st post)

camypooface

Hows it going guys. I'm new here as well as to brewing.
My goal is to make a carbonated cider. (Technically wine since it's a 10.8% abv right now at 1.000)
I used 71B and plan to back sweeten then bottle carb.
My question is simple. Can I backsweeten to taste THEN add an oz of carbing sugar to my gallon brew and expect a carbonated beverage similar to the sweetness prior to carbonation? My logic tells me yes but I figured I'd ask. Thanks

DBhomebrew

Only if you backsweeten with something nonfermentable. Otherwise, the yeast will eat both your priming sugar and backsweetener.

camypooface

Ok. I see what you are saying. I should have mentioned I plan on bottle carbing then just cold crashing to stop fermentation since it will be consumed quickly. Im ok with it not being the exact sweetness prior to carbonation. Just curious if I should be backsweetening by gravity readings or if by taste is good enough.

JulianDave

You can do it that way. I would bottle a 'tester' in a plastic soda bottle. Check the carbonation by pressing the sides and when it gets stiff like soda from the store, it's done bottle conditioning and you can put it all in the fridge. Keep in mind it will slowly continue to build up pressure even when chilled.

camypooface

Thanks so much. This place is awesome!

Chalkyt

Yes, the search for sweet, carbonated cider continues. This is my approach... you might find it useful.
For the past month or so I have been running a comparison of AS-2 and TF-6 yeasts which Fermentis claim will leave some sweetness. They certainly do... not a lot, but enough.
Using the same blend of AJ, both yeasts produce a fully fermented (SG 1.000) pleasant off-dry cider with no back sweetening needed. I prime by gravity reading on the basis that two gravity points will ferment into about one volume of CO2. In fact, with the first AS-2 batch, I primed from 1.000 to 1.005 using the original juice as the source of fermentable sugar, bottled then left it for a couple of weeks. CO2 production stopped at a pressure of 2 bar (approximately 30 psi or two volumes of CO2 which was what I expected since by that time all the priming sugar should have been converted to CO2 and alcohol).
However, to continue the exercise I also primed some of the fully fermented cider to 1.010.. This was bottled (with a monitoring pressure gauge in a test bottle... a more technical version of a soda bottle squeeze test) and heat pasteurised when the pressure reached 2 bar. The remaining unfermented sugar (about 10g per litre) resulted in a medium-sweet cider.
Attached FYI (pictures are better than words... whoops, its filename is labelled 2021 and should be 2022) is my pasteurising chart for one of the batches so you can see what I am on about. Although I do monitor time and temperature it probably isn't really necessary since I find that heating bottles of cider from 60C to 64C in a constant 65C water-bath takes about 8 minutes and generates around 25 pasteurisation units (PUs). It is generally accepted that between 30 and 50 PUs will stop any further fermentation and also destroy pathogens... win-win.
After removing the bottles from the hot water, their residual heat generates another 20 or so PUs as they cool back down to below 60C. With this approach, bottle pressure at 64C and 2 volumes of CO2 doesn't get to much more than 80 psi so the risk of bottle bombs is minimised. You will get similar results if you follow Pappers' sticky at the top of the forum.
If all of this sounds like gobbledegook, have a look at the attachment to my post of 1 Feb 2021 which goes into detail about heat pasteurising. The point of this post is that without too much effort you can produce a stable sweet, carbonated cider without the risk of on-going fermentation. Hope this helps.

camypooface

Some good things to think about in this! Thanks! Just using the squeeze bottle method right now

JulianDave

Have you seen the paper "A Preliminary Evaluation to Establish Bath
Pasteurization Guidelines for Hard Cider" that shows only 1 PU is needed for cider? I'm not sure if I ran into that here or elsewhere, but according to their results it seems that PUs are overdone.

KeizerBrewr

TLDR
I use 1968 to make my ciders and it stops just above or right at 1.000. It makes it perfectly dry, like an English-style cider(sans tannic body). If I want it sweeter, I use xylitol to back sweeten to preference and then use corn sugar to prime to 2.7 volumes(roughly 1oz/gallon at 68F).

Chalkyt

Yep, that paper is out of Washington State University and was posted here by someone (I can't remember who) about 12 months ago. My reading of it is the same as yours in that not much heat exposure is needed to disable the yeasts and 50-60 PUs is an over-kill. However, the paper's authors point out that their research mostly related to yeast and not to other spoilage pathogens.
"Though there is yet to be enough research to establish a pasteurization standard for the cider industry, it is likely that recommendations of 50–60 PUs are much too high and result in energy and labor over-expenditures. Regardless, it is important for each individual process to be validated with microbial testing to ensure sufficient heat processing and resulting reduction of microbial viability".
Having said that, starting from cold (say 20C), it takes about 5 minutes or so for bottles to heat up to 60c (which is where pasteurisation starts) so I find that another several minutes in the bath isn't a big deal just to make sure that the temperature is distributed evenly throughout the bottle, and in any case around 50% of the PUs are generated during cool-down. There are some studies that suggest that it takes about 10 minutes for the temperature gradient in the bottles to stabilise.
Re the squeeze test. I used that until there were some posts here about making a "pressure gauge test bottle". The advantage of this is that with the squeeze test, hard is hard so you don't know what the pressure is once it gets to about 2 volume of CO2. The pressure gauge bottle (a pain to make) tells you exactly what pressure you have so that you can estimate the likely bottle pressure at elevated temperature (useful in avoiding bottle bombs!)
It is all good fun (and you can taste test... yum)

JulianDave

Thanks for the detailed reply. I definitely like the more 'sciencey' side of things, so I'll have to look into fitting a bottle with a pressure gauge.
As far as PUs are concerned, I don't think anyone should do the bare minimum and expect that to consistently work, when doing a little more isn't any more trouble, but provides more insurance. I'll be doing my first pasteurization in a week or so so looking forward to it.

camypooface

Interesting. Since I used a 14% yeast I wanted to get some more bang for my buck. Its also a cherry/apple brew so i need sweetness to get over the cough syrup taste lol. I have yet to come across an artificial sweetener that I like when it comes to tea or coffee so that's why I've stayed away from them but im willing to experiment. Can I ask why you use corn sugar instead of regular sugar for priming?

KeizerBrewr

I get that! Xylitol is basically tasteless and when used in small amounts in cider(from my experience) it's perfect when carbonated. I use corn sugar as it more readily dissolves and I always have it on hand as I brew beer often and use it to bottle carbonate and make Belgian beers.