Bottle Conditioning question

[Allen Crump]

Hello All,

The cidery I work at did a bottle conditioned cider last year that turned out quite well in most regards. We took a dry, filtered cider and then bottled in 750 mL bottles with 7.5g of sugar and around 15mg of dry EC-1118. We then went ahead and corked and caged the bottles and have been serving it as a kind of traditional-method/pet-nat hybrid.  All went well and the cider turned out very nice.

Our owner has been pretty disappointed by the level of "pop" when the cork is removed. He's hoping for a more champagne-level of carbonation. My primary concern is that going much higher on the sugar will create a volcano upon opening since we aren't disgorging. My main question is whether or not anyone had a general idea of what carbonation level we might be able to push up to before the nucleation points in the lees will become a problem. 

We are also looking at the possibility of capping and disgorging the bottles rather than corking them, but he is hesitant to do that due to the added labor of our relatively small team. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[terryc...@gmail.com]

I am no expert on the matter but my experience as a hobby craft cider maker is that anything much more than 3 volumes of CO2 can gush a bit. Mind you, I press my own apples without any filtering so although my cider falls clear, there are still some solids in there which settle as a “paint film” and can stir up if it fizzes too much when the bottle is opened. Things are more civilised if I use filtered bought juice.

Having said that, Alex Simmens of Llanblethian Orchards has an excellent Bottle Conditioned Cider Guide on their web site. You can use this to run a few trials to help determine what level of sugar and CO2 will give you the “pop” that you want without getting too messy.

Using this guide suggests that the amount of sugar you are using will produce about 2.4 volumes of CO2 (10g/L =4.7g CO2/(CO2 density of 1.977g/L) = 2.4 vol in 1 litre). The residual carbonation in the finished cider is probably somewhere between 0.5 and 0.9 volumes depending on how old it is, so adding 2.4 volumes from the sugar should be making a reasonably robust fizz, unless your cider has matured to the point where the residual carbonation has mostly gone away.

I know this doesn’t answer your question but maybe gives you some direction to pursue if others can’t help with their own carbonation experience.

[terryc...@gmail.com]

Hi Allen,

 I had been pondering your problem for a bit and realised that Buskey is probably big enough to spare a few bottles for an experiment (you can always drink the contents anyway!!!)

Assuming that you normally serve the cider at 10C, the 2.4 volumes of CO2 from the priming sugar will create a bottle pressure of 1.06bar (or 15psi if you prefer to think in psi) according to Henry’s Law and more conveniently Andrew Lea’s Carbonation Table.

As this pressure doesn’t produce the “pop” that you want, then it seems to me that you can simulate a higher pressure (i.e. higher apparent CO2 volumes) by simply opening a bottle at a higher temperature until you get the “pop” that you want.

This “pop” pressure simply needs to be converted back to Volumes of CO2 at 10C and hence sugar needed  to get this amount of CO2 and “pop”.

As a guide, I plugged some numbers into the Carbonation Table and got the following. Anyhow that is how I would go about addressing the problem.

2.4 vol CO2 @ 10C bottle pressure is 1.06bar (15psi)

2.4 vol CO2 @ 15C bottle pressure is 1.40bar (20psi)

2.4 vol CO2 @ 20C bottle pressure is 1.75bar (25psi)

2.4 vol CO2 @ 24C bottle pressure is 2.07bar (30psi)

For example, if 1.75 bar (25psi) gives the right amount of "pop" then 3.2 volumes of CO2 (13.5g of sugar per litre) served at 10C should achieve this. Obviously you need to plug in your own serving temperature and desired "pop" pressure.

To me this would seem to work, but I won’t be offended if more knowledgeable people shoot the idea down in flames!

Cheers.

[Allen Crump]

Thanks Terry! I hadn't even thought to change the temperature variable. We'll run some trials and I'll report back to the group when I have some more information to share. I appreciate your help!

[will g.]

I have been increasing my carbonation for the past few years and I’ve hit what I feel to be a limit this year. I ferment to dry, allow my cider to clear during a 6 month bulk maturation period, and add corn sugar before bottling with crown caps on champagne bottles.

This past year I added corn sugar to hit 4.2 vols of CO2 and while the bottles open perfectly after being refrigerated to 45-50F, they gush when opened between 65-70F. Sometimes I get nervous about gifting bottles even with the instruction of, “Please refrigerate before serving!!!”.

I will shoot for 3.5 vols next year!

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[gareth chapman]

Champagne is secondary fermented at around 24g/l which results in about 5.5 vols of CO2, in practice we have found that quite hard to handle when disgorging, so we run at about 17-20g/l for our traditional method. The biggest issue with higher pressures without disgorging is that the release of pressure when you open the cork will result in a massive stirring up of the lees.

[Antoine Kain]

Hi!

I didn't want to start a new topic, as it is fairly connected to this one. I know that there are different methods of adding the priming sugar before bottling. Some add it to the barrel/container and then bottle, some add directly to the bottle and than fill with cider.

On a small scale it is fairly easy, but what about larger amounts? Adding large amount to the whole cider seems easy, but how do you make sure that all is properly mixed, and at the same time you don't expose the cider to oxidization? I would be slightly worried that if the sugar is not evenly distributed I could end up with different levels of carbonation.

Cheers,

Antoine

[gareth chapman]

We use a stirred mixing tank, don't really worry about oxidation as you're going to ferment it again.

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[terryc...@gmail.com]

Hi Antoine

Although I am simply a home craft cidermaker with a very small orchard my method seems to work quite well. I add sugar or juice to bring the bottling SG of the bulk cider up to the sugar level needed to produce the mount of C02 i want (roughly 2 gravity points per volume of C02. The Llanblethian orchards paper mentioned in my above post explains it all. Cheers!

[Erik Nilsson]

A bit late maybe, but you could make a syrup to add sugar so it's dissolved more easily.

[Antoine Kain]

Not late at all, we are still at the production setting up stage, so all comments are more than welcome! Indeed, Erik, I thought about using a concentrated sugar syrup.

As for now, I have decided to go with the IBC as the mixing tanks, use a flowmeter to determine the amount of cider I have and the priming sugar/syrup we will need to add. I plan to add a mixing rod port at one of the UBC lids, alongside an Argon inlet port so we will be able to limit the possible oxidization. I am still finding the right bits and pieces, but the videos from Alan are quite helpful (https://youtu.be/2WQ-zW750pI?si=9ju8ohRnJ8PHt_q2).  

Nevertheless, if you have any comments, I am happy to learn more about other ways of doing it.

[Brent Miles-Wagner]

I'd definitely make a syrup, a quick invert syrup would work quite well as you can just use some finished cider to boil with the sugar. Then once you add to the mixing tank and mix you can manually check if the S.G. is what it should be, if it's not you can mix more. 

I also don't think you need to worry much about oxidation pickup because you are refermenting it, but you can avoid excess O2 pickup by pulling from the top of the IBC and going in the bottom (vs pulling from bottom and splashing through the top). Or just go in through the top but submerge the hose in the cider a bit and pump slowly, but I think going in through bottom should provide better mixing esp as the sugar tends to sink so agitating the bottom can be quite good.

[Martha Lowry]

Hi! 

Two things - if you're going higher - make sure your bottles are rated for that pressure. Or you're going to have bottle bombs. But I would not recommend going higher than 8g/L (maybe 9 if you're cider is very clear) sugar addition if you aren't filtering and disgorging. You will almost certainly have gushers. Nothing makes a customer angrier than loosing most of thecider they purchased all over their family dinner party. 

Making a sugar syrup for mixing it in is ideal. But that will not change the fact that there are nucleation points from having bottle conditioned, you'll have all kinds of lees that will make it gush.

Cheers,

Martha

[Alexandra Beaulieu Boivin]

Hi all,

Really enjoying the perspectives shared here. Something that can add precision (and sometimes reduce the guesswork) is to treat carbonation as a two-part equation:

1. Measure what’s already there – Dissolved CO₂ at bottling can vary more than we think (especially depending on bulk storage, racking, etc.). Using a carbodoseur (I also use it when bottling still ciders). 

2. Calculate what you actually need to add – Rule of thumb is ~4 g/L fermentable sugar per bar of pressure. But the sugar addition should be adjusted for the CO₂ already present and corrected for the inevitable losses during bottling (I typically assume ~10%). 

So, instead of simply aiming for “X g/L total,” I’ve found it more reliable to aim for:

Sugar to add = (target CO₂ – CO₂ present(-10%)) × 4 g/L/bar

The way you measure sugar at tirage is also crucial. A more precise hydrometer (range 0.994–1.010) helps a lot at these low residual sugar levels, but it’s worth remembering that specific gravity isn’t a perfect proxy for fermentable sugars. At this stage, sending a sample to a lab for actual sugar analysis can be a key step if you want the highest precision in your carbonation outcome.

On blending: I’ve seen better consistency when priming sugar is first made into a syrup (sometimes even with cider itself but hot water 2 or 3:1 works better) and blended into the tank. It dissolves completely, reduces stratification, and makes the SG of the whole batch easy to check before bottling (make sure it is the same at the top, middle and bottom of the tank). I will set a timer every 30 minutes during bottling to recirculate the cider; probably not a necessary step but it ensures that it remains homogeneous throughout the bottling day. And it does help to run bench trials before, especially when you have a large batch to bottle. 

Cheers,
Alexandra Beaulieu 
@alexandravinumartisan

[Erik Nilsson]

Hello!

There is a previous discussion on carbonation for example here: https://groups.google.com/g/cider-workshop/c/ZvO1bvJ6aco/m/H1hjmJR1CgAJ

Attached is a summary graph i made of different carbonation variables at different temperatures.

When reading up on this I also realized that residual CO2 will of course be dependent on storage temperature before bottling, but to a large extent also on the time that the cider is exposed to air at bottling (even 10-20 minutes will give a quite large drop in residual CO2).

I think the point that has been made about agitation of lees that has been made here is important for the presentation of the cider.  I think agitated lees will also give "nucleation" of CO2, therefore increasing gushing. I dont think increasing the serving temeprature is a very good solution, since the cider will be more enjoyable if slightly cold.

My plan this season (as a hobby/beginner cidermaker) is to try fermentation at pressure (~3 bar) and bottling at cold temp, to get enough resudual CO2 so that when bottling i might not need to add sugar and thus no lees in the bottle. Because of limited pressure tolerance of the spunding valve, this will only enable a carbonation level like in a lager beer (~3 bar or maybe a bit more depending on temp). As I understand it cider is usually ~3.6 bar (-1 bar if referring to gauge pressure).  

My (limited) experience is that the same addition of sugar for carbonation can give markedly different levels of "pop" in the bottle, so getting concistency this way might be a challenge. Maybe in my case it was due to differences in nutrient depletion between batches.

Best wishes,

Erik