Priming Bottling Cider

[ADZ4321]

Elo again

Im just about ready to bottle my black rock cider thanks to some patience from Eoinmag lol , now the tin says add 1tsp of sugar per bottle?
i have a couple of questions....

Should i use brewing sugar or normal sugar? which tastes nicest?

My bottles are 500ml and 660ml how do i get right amount if sugar ?

I heard people say mix it into bin but i only have the one and its fitted with tap so i wouldn't be able to transfer it first, any ideas

[ADZ4321]

OK i have acquired a 5gal water bottle so i could mix sugar in there, how much brewing sugar for 22 liters of cider please?

[EoinMag]

Hi ADZ,

I never prime it myself, but I'd imagine you could use this priming calculator http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

Pick a beer style that you would like your cider to be carbonated like, I'd have said you want it pretty fizzy as it's a cider, so go for one of the higher styles, heading for 2.5 volumes or so, not sure though to be honest.

Brewing sugar or table sugar will be all the same for cider, so use whichever you can find cheaper, some people prime with apple juice too, so there is that option, but you'd have a hard job working out how much to use.

Cheers.

[EoinMag]

If you search about there are a few priming calculators and some of them probably work in litres for us EU heads, also remember a US gallon is different.

[EoinMag]

Actually here's a better one that does litres etc.

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipa ... ation.html

[ADZ4321]

Thanks mate just what i needed, comes out around 35 to 40 grams depending on room on temrature (who would have thought that would have made much difference!).
as you seem to be a man in the know , have you ever made cider from apples before ? a friend poped round the other day saw me making cider (home brew kit) an said his sister has about 15 apple trees that are going to go to waste!!!

Thanks again Eionmag calculator just the job.

[EoinMag]

Well I'm not that experienced, only at it a year, but my first go was with cider from apples. I bought a press and all, problem was that it was too many cookers and the cider tastes like cooking apples.
Pressing apples was a real pain in the ass messy job, they get everywhere when you're scratting them, although I was using a mincing machine so that could be part of it. I have asked for this years harvest from my father again but I wanted more of the eating apples as he gave me none last year.
If you can get apples, both eating and cooking I think if you went about 85% eaters and 15% cookers you'd have an alright cider, the article on the front page here gets into Breton cider making and goes into apples types more so that'll be more accurate.
I just tend to use lidl apple juice now and make a slower version of the turbo cider which I then add apple juice to when drinking to sweeten it and I'll be damned if it's not like drinking Old Rosie scrumpy, I love the stuff. That said I hope to be making a better cider this Autumn when the apple harvest is in, when I get a bit more experience with crushed apples then I can give more advice from that side.

40g of sugar sounds a bit low by the way, I dunno what you picked as carbonation levels but I'd have thought you'd be better off with 150g or so, for more carbonation with it being a cider? Then again I don't particularly like sparkling.....so what would I know.

I just used that calculator there and took 2.5 volumes and used cane sugar and came up with 146g of sugar as the amount on 22l, I think that 40g will be hardly carbonated at all and you'll just end up with a lightly sparkling cider myself, but that's all good if that's what you want.

[ADZ4321]

I See sounds fun, ill have to find out what apples they are! all that hard work must make it taste better! i heard you can use a mincer too must have taken a while tho (unless its an industrial one!)

good job you pointed that out - i re-checked the calculator, i was entering 22 in the temperature box but you need to put a C next to it to make it Celsius otherwise it assumes you mean Fahrenheit! so it came out like you said around 150.

Im not sure what i prefer as this is my first batch, i like proper cider, i dont like mangers ect that much, and proper cider isn't really that fizzy but with it being home brew I thought I better stick some fizz in it just in case it doesn't taste that great! if that makes any sense at all !

well, will let you know how i get on, av a good weekend!

[EoinMag]

Cool, glad you found the error you'd made, let us know how it turns out. I'd suggest that you grab a few demijohns and experiment with 1 gallon batches, if no demi johns then get the 5l water bottles from tesco and just use tin foil on them instead of an airlock, play with the recipes a bit until you find what suits you.

Have a good weekend too.

[pauljmuk]

For beer or cider, I always go with about 2.5g sugar per pint bottle - added to the bottles in a liquid (ie, I blast my sugar in water in the microwave, cool it, then add the right amount using a pipette)

For 40 pints, I make about 200ml solution of sugar water, and add 5ml per bottle.

[ADZ4321]

my bottles were all different sizes, so couldn't really add to the bottle, i transferd into new bin about 19/20 liters i lost a few won't happen again! and added the sugar to some boiled water and mixed in then bottled, may have a wee bit extra sugar but hopefully be o.k.

here they are

http://twitpic.com/eklxi

can't wait

Cheers for the advice!

[EoinMag]

Just a tip, if you're adding sugar for priming, don't mix it with water and thin your booze, take some of the beer/cider whatever and put the sugar in that and put it on the stove, that way you are dissolving in the same stuff you are priming.

[pauljmuk]

Bottles dont look that different in size? I use a measured pipette- pint bottles (or those that are near enough a pint) get a 5ml solution, and I also bottle into 1 litre and 2 litre PET's occasionally - just pro rata up the amount you "squirt" from the pipette!


Re the last comment, I can't imagine 5mls of water in a pint bottle will "thin" the booze to any noticeable degree. Even if it does, the small rise in alcohol caused by the extra fermentation will more than make up for it.

I dissolve sugar in as little water as I can get away with. For a 40 pint batch, that means about 100g of sugar in 200mls of water,and about 5ml squirts per bottle.

[EoinMag]

I much rather the idea of a bottling bucket and adding dissolved sugars in the same liquor that you are priming, it gives a much more even mix of the solution and more consistency.
I did try something similar to the pipette idea once, never again it was too fiddly and also too hard to be consistent, I found I had sugar liquor left over which means I didn't get the required priming into the bottles, if it works for you then fire away

[pauljmuk]

If you are accurate (with your jug of solution and the pipette) it works out fine

Ensures exact amount in each bottle, and it gets distributed as soon as you start syphoning into the bottles.