Sugar quantity for priming?

[Dave Headland]

Being a novice brewer into my second year of cider making I'd like to ask the cider gurus on here a couple of questions regarding the sugar levels required for carbonation.

Last year I made 2 different batches (single variety, and blended variety) and added 1 level teaspoon of dextrose per 750ml PET bottle. For the single variety I used "cider yeast" from my local homebrew shop (no further information was on the packet) and found the carbonation amount to be disappointing. The second batch used Vintner's Harvest SN9 yeast and I found when opening the bottles they would gush out very slightly but produced good carbonation.  All along I have assumed this difference may have been due to the apple variety used or perhaps pH of the batch but reading posts here tonight leads me to think it is the yeast that controls this.

This year I'm using smaller 500mL swing top glass bottles rather than PET and would like to get the levels right and not produce excessive pressure on the bottles!  For the record I'm using wild apples (a good strong flavour with high tannins) blended with some store purchased "sweet" desert apples as my orchard has not started producing. SG of the wild apples was 1.070 and the desert apples 1.040. The pH was 3.6.

I'm using the SN9 yeast again and planning on fermenting the batch as far as it will go until bubbling stops. On day 39 it's ticking over nicely with bubbles every 20/30secs at around 8-9 degrees C.

1st question: Does it make much difference what sugar you use? Some people here have used castor sugar. There's brown sugar and white sugar too. Does it affect carbonation levels? Is Dextrose a good choice?

2nd question: What amount should I use? Andrew recommends 10g per litre but I've seen different amounts used by others. The yeast I'm using is recommended for "high alcohol, most wines and ciders" and doesn't appear to be a Champagne yeast. I plan on adding the sugar directly to the 500mL bottles, racking the fermented brew into a clean plastic bin and then bottling immediately.

I don't have scales with high accuracy in such small amounts so I was planning on using 3/4 teaspoon of Dextrose per 500mL bottle rather than add larger amounts to the 20L batch and risk adding air by stirring.

Thanks for your help on this.

Dave

[Andrew Lea]

On 23/06/2014 13:18, Dave Headland wrote:

>
> *1st question*: Does it make much difference what sugar you use? Some

> people here have used castor sugar. There's brown sugar and white sugar
> too. Does it affect carbonation levels? Is Dextrose a good choice?

Any refined cane or beet kitchen or table sugar (here in the UK sold as
'caster' or 'granulated') is just fine. They are 100% sucrose which is
broken down ('inverted') by the acid of the cider to equal parts of
glucose and fructose each of which is fully fermentable. You can use
less refined 'brown' sugars but you may pick up caramelised flavours
from them. Your choice.

Dextrose (often known as corn sugar in the US) is pure glucose. Some
home brewers swear by it because it doesn't need 'inversion' as sucrose
does, and at the high pH of beer that takes longer than at the low pH of
cider. But the end result is just the same and most yeasts possess an
'invertase' enzyme which does the job anyway.


>
> *2nd question*: What amount should I use? Andrew recommends 10g per

> litre but I've seen different amounts used by others.

10 g/L sugar gives 5g/L CO2 which at 15C will give you 1.5 bar pressure
which is a gentle petillance. (Depends somewhat on how much CO2 is left
in solution from the primary yeast fermentation.). If you drink it from
the fridge at 5C it will give you less than 1 bar pressure.
http://www.cider.org.uk/carbonation_table.xls

>
> I don't have scales with high accuracy in such small amounts so I was
> planning on using 3/4 teaspoon of Dextrose per 500mL bottle rather than
> add larger amounts to the 20L batch and risk adding air by stirring.

So for 20L you need 200 grams of sugar. Make that up with some of the
cider to a 500ml volume of syrup and blend that syrup gently into the
bulk. That will minimise the stirring needed. It's very tedious to have
to prime each bottle individually.

(I presume you are planning to use solid dextrose? If it's as a liquid,
check the syrup strength and allow for the extra water.)

Andrew


--
near Oxford, UK
Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Dave Headland wrote:

I don't have scales with high accuracy in such small amounts so I was planning on using 3/4 teaspoon of Dextrose per 500mL bottle rather than add larger amounts to the 20L batch and risk adding air by stirring.

I am not sure if I interpret your comment correctly, but this leads me to thinking you are actually putting a dose of sugar into each bottle. It works better to add the sugar to the batch, and insures more consistency from bottle to bottle.

Try this way: first dilute your sugar in a bit of water to make a syrup - you may heat this, it will dissolve faster. Once well dissloved, start racking your cider in a large pail. As the cider starts to flow, simply pour the sugar syrup in (and if you have rehydrated yeast, pour in the yeast also). The flow of cider will mix everything well, no need for stirring.
Then, from your pail, you can fill the bottles.
Claude

[Dave Headland]

Thanks both Andrew and Claude for your replies.

Yes I was considering adding the sugar to each individual bottle as it worked fairly well last year, although I used exactly 1 level teaspoon so it was easy to get exact amounts. It makes sense to add the sugar to the whole batch before bottling, if done carefully.

I was not intending to use more yeast before bottling but I see in your book (Claude) you recommend it so I might consider it. The one thing I'd like to check with you one more time is the amount...  Andrew recommends 10g/litre (but is that without adding yeast?) and according to your book Claude, 12g/litre requires very strong Champagne bottles. If I use 10g/litre and yeast is that going to be too much for swing top bottles? Do I really need more yeast after using the SN9 yeast for the primary & secondary fermentation?

So from what I can gather, the amount to use is:  10g/L without adding yeast, or 6g/L with yeast. Would that be about right? I'm looking for carbonation levels something similar to a commercial bottled cider.

Dave

[vince wakefield]

The addition of yeast is to guarantee your bottle conditioning works and helps it complete quickly, if there is any yeast present, wild or cultured, all of the sugar you add will be fermented so you don’t change the amount of sugar to do with the yeast you change it to change the amount of carbonation you want.

 

Vince

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[Andrew Lea]

On 24/06/2014 09:25, Dave Headland wrote:

>
> So from what I can gather, the amount to use is: 10g/L without adding
> yeast, or 6g/L with yeast. Would that be about right?

Vince has answered that. The level of sugar you add is to achieve the
carbonation you want. Doesn't matter whether you add new yeast or not.
In either case it's yeast that does the work. Doesn't generally matter
if it's carried over or newly added. Unless the cider is _very_ old,
there will almost certainly be enough yeast left, it just may take a
while to grow up again. Adding new yeast may make it happen a bit
quicker, that's all.

> I'm looking for carbonation levels something similar to a commercial bottled cider.

Typical bottled ciders at least in the UK are carbonated to '3 vol' or 6
g/L CO2. The 10 g/L of sugar I quoted will give you 5 g/L CO2 as I said
before. But that assumes there is no CO2 left from your primary
fermentation (and indeed that the cider is already at SG < 1.000 so
contains no residual sugar of its own). But there could be anything up
to 2 g/L of CO2 remaining in the cider (even more, if it's still very
fresh and supersaturated). Claude refers to this in his Table 15.3 which
is constructed on the assumption that the cider contains 1.2 g/L CO2
left over from primary fermentation.

Obviously we don't know this figure in your case. If you add sugar as I
suggest you would probably get between 5 and 7 g/L CO2 in your bottles.
That is in the same ballpark as a commercial bottled cider. Crown capped
or swingtop bottles should cope with that resultant pressure unless you
leave the bottles in an extremely hot place. Take a look at the
carbonation spreadsheet I referenced yesterday to see how pressure
increases with temperature.

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Dave Headland wrote:

Yes I was considering adding the sugar to each individual bottle as it worked fairly well last year, although I used exactly 1 level teaspoon so it was easy to get exact amounts. It makes sense to add the sugar to the whole batch before bottling, if done carefully.

I think that once you will have done it once this way, you will not want to go back to the old way after...
 

I was not intending to use more yeast before bottling but I see in your book (Claude) you recommend it so I might consider it. The one thing I'd like to check with you one more time is the amount...  Andrew recommends 10g/litre (but is that without adding yeast?) and according to your book Claude, 12g/litre requires very strong Champagne bottles. If I use 10g/litre and yeast is that going to be too much for swing top bottles? Do I really need more yeast after using the SN9 yeast for the primary & secondary fermentation?

For my part, with beer or swing-top bottles, I go for a petillant dosage at 6 g/L of added sugar. Probably the bottles would take a bit more, but this is plenty enough to give a nice sparkle.

As of adding yeast, this was well answered already.

Claude

[Tim]

http://winecalc.software.informer.com/2.3/

Tim in Dorset

[vince wakefield]

On the subject of priming sugar I take it this should be accounted for in the declared ABV of the finished product.

Using the calculator tim linked to it suggests 0.6% Acl.

Is this the figure others use on top of the calculated ABV from the starting SG?

Cheers

Vince

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Vince wrote:

On the subject of priming sugar I take it this should be accounted for in the declared ABV of the finished product.
Using the calculator tim linked to it suggests 0.6% Acl.

Yes...
May I suggest you try the model I made as an Excel spreadsheet (to go with the book)? It will do all those calculations automatically, and even take into account the water you use to dilute the sugar. It will give you the ABV, and carbonation. And, in my opinion, it is a lot more complete than the calculator Tim suggested.
www.chelseagreen.com/model
Claude

[ric...@tangentbooks.co.uk]

Hello, I am working at Glastonbury Festival from Tuesday June 24 and will be back in the office on July 1.

I will have limited internet access until July 1 and will deal with your email as soon as possible.

Richard Jones
Publisher
Tangent Books
07890 267983
ric...@tangentbooks.co.uk
www.tangentbooks.co.uk

[ric...@tangentbooks.co.uk]

[ric...@tangentbooks.co.uk]

[ric...@tangentbooks.co.uk]

[Dave Headland]

Thanks again to everyone for your helpful advice. That has cleared up the confusion about the yeast and because the brew will be bottled immediately fermentation is complete, and matured for around 6 months or more I'll skip adding the extra yeast.

That spreadsheet looks interesting and very useful Claude and requires an evening set aside to study it in full. Thank you.

Dave

[Mark Rudge]

Can I ask a hypothetical question?

I have racked my cider a number of times during fermentation and have achieved a final SG of say 1010. If I want to achieve 'petillant' fizz, would I just bottle as is? I would assume that there is no benefit to adding sugar as there is still sugar present. In this case perhaps I would just add a small amount of yeast to generate the required fizz, instead of sugar?

Is that right?

Thanks

Mark

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Dave Headland wrote:

That spreadsheet looks interesting and very useful Claude and requires an evening set aside to study it in full. Thank you.

Yes... You can play with it as much as you want! The most important is to not overwrite the yellow fields, but if you do, you can download a fresh version of it. You have mentioned you have my book, so look in Appendix 2 for complete instructions on how to use it most efficiently.

Claude

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Mark Rudge wrote:

Can I ask a hypothetical question?

This is no hypothetical question - this is what I do for most of my ciders!
 

I have racked my cider a number of times during fermentation and have achieved a final SG of say 1010. If I want to achieve 'petillant' fizz, would I just bottle as is? I would assume that there is no benefit to adding sugar as there is still sugar present. In this case perhaps I would just add a small amount of yeast to generate the required fizz, instead of sugar?

First question is: is your cider well stable at this SG of 1.010 - do you have 2 measurements at this SG with at least one month between these 2 measurements?
If well stable, indicating a fermentation speed of zero and exhaustion of yeast nutrients, you could then simply add about 5 to 8 ppm of DAP (diammonium phosphate yeast nutrient) - this should permit a further in-bottle refermentation of about 2 to 3 points of gravity for a petillant cider.

Normally, you should have enough yeast still present in the cider so in presence of a small quantity of DAP, it will multiply a bit just to give you the required in-bottle fermentation. It might take a while however before you obtain the desired fizz - like 4 to 6 months.

Adding yeast is dangerous for it may very well bring your cider all the way to dryness. I have done a few tests adding minute amounts of yeast (less than 0.1 gram in a 20 liter carboy) and it seems to hasten the refermentation, but it is still too early for me to give recommendations on this. I need to make more tests. I know in France, they look for a yeast population of approximately 2 to 5 10^5 cells per ml at bottling to get the desired fizz, and if the counting they do indicates less, they add some. On the other hand, if the counting indicates more, they will filter / rack / centrifuge to remove some cells to get within this range. What I mean here, is if you don't do a yeast count, it can be quite dangerous to add yeast... Now, in your case, it might not be that bad as your SG is not so high, and in the worst case you would get a drop of 10 points of SG in bottles - Champagne bottles can cope with this without exploding, but your cider would be perfectly dry - which is not what you want.

Second possibility is if your cider is clear but not stable at SG 1.010...
In this case, you may bottle it without nutrients addition and it will continue fermenting slowly in the bottles. If your fermentation speed is below 10 FSU, this is quite safe and you will get petillant cider. If speed is over 10 FSU, this becomes more risky - you should use full weight Champagne bottles.

In any case, you need to experiment... Have fun but be prudent - don't overdo it.

Claude

[Mark Rudge]

Thanks Claude - very helpful.

After asking the question (appreciate I should have done it before) I looked in your book and noted about the nutrients. I love this approach as it makes sense to me. 

Now the challenge - you state in your book that commercially you can't do it because it is too inconsistent. I am looking to produce on a small commercial scale (3-4000 litres) but I really want to avoid, if at all possible, the 'safe' approach of sterilising everything and then carbonating afterwards. I want a totally natural, semi-sweet cider with a petillant fizz in 500ml beer/cider bottles. Am I searching for a 'holy grail'?

Thanks

Mark

[Andrew Lea]

On 26/06/2014 09:53, Mark Rudge wrote:

> I want a totally natural, semi-sweet cider with
> a petillant fizz in 500ml beer/cider bottles. Am I searching for a 'holy
> grail'?

Mark, I think you are in the UK. Look around the shops and ask yourself
why are there no such products on the mass market? The answer is because
it's very very difficult to do this reliably on a commercial scale. It
_can_ be done but you have to know your fruit, be on top of your
nutrient status, use wild yeasts, be prepared for keeving or repeat
rackings, bottle 'au point' etc etc. These products died out in the UK
commercially after WW1 because of all those difficulties. They are not
well-suited to a modern fast moving commercial world where consistency
and safety is expected and demanded. Exploding bottles in the store or
the consumer's home are not regarded as acceptable any more ;-)

If you study Claude's book or my book carefully you will understand the
challenges. So yes, your quest is for something akin to a 'holy grail'.
If it were simple, everybody would be doing it - and they aren't. It is
done more commercially in France but the major producers of such ciders
are actually quite 'high tech' about what they do. Claude mentioned
yeast counts for instance but that's only a part of the control that
they exercise.

You will find a few keeved ciders on the UK market which fit your
specification, but they are normally presented in champagne bottles for
safety reasons. Mostly they have restricted local sale. To think of two
producers whom I know read this list, there is Rose Grant in Dorset and
Butford Organics in Herefordshire. They are not the only ones - just 2
examples which come to mind. But it is a specialist pursuit.

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Mark Rudge wrote:

Now the challenge - you state in your book that commercially you can't do it because it is too inconsistent. I am looking to produce on a small commercial scale (3-4000 litres) but I really want to avoid, if at all possible, the 'safe' approach of sterilising everything and then carbonating afterwards. I want a totally natural, semi-sweet cider with a petillant fizz in 500ml beer/cider bottles. Am I searching for a 'holy grail'?

I pretty much agree with what Andrew said earlier, but it might not be as difficult as he suggests...
My interpretation of the actual british market is that such products disapeared between the 2 wars as Andrew said, yes, and were replaced by mass market consistent quality products. However with currents trends in food/drinks, and return to older/slower ways of doing it, maybe there would be place for such a product - but I am in no way a specialist in marketing!

Many French producers that I visited last fall in France were not high tech at all, and they did succeed. I didn't meet one that had centrifugation facility. Most had filtering however. I think a smaller one didn't even filter and did only rackings.
They do have support however, like in Brittany, they send cider samples to the Cidref in Quimper before bottling, for yeast count and nutrients analysis.

My suggestions would be to go and see what small producers do in France, to experiment a lot before putting such a product on the market, and to use only heavy weight Champagne bottles.
Claude

[Andrew Lea]

On 26/06/2014 15:00, Claude Jolicoeur wrote:

> They do have support however, like in Brittany, they send cider samples
> to the Cidref in Quimper before bottling, for yeast count and nutrients
> analysis.

Claude, do you know what the nutrient analysis consists of? Is it just
YAN (Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen)? Do you know what threshold levels
Cidref recommend?

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Andrew Lea a écrit :

Claude, do you know what the nutrient analysis consists of? Is it just
YAN (Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen)? Do you know what threshold levels
Cidref recommend?

 

No, I didn't ask specifically for that. I just asked for the yeast count numbers. But I could ask the question to the person in Cidref that I talked to.
I know that quite complete lab analysis is available for the producers. And I know that if I was a producer, I would like to have a YAN analysis before bottling ...and putting my bottles on a store shelf.

But again, there are 2 possibilities - If the cider is well stable at time of bottling, we can be pretty sure there would be no more YAN available - as if there would be any, then the fermentation would not be stopped.

On the other hand, in France the producers usually bottle at a SG of about 1.015 to 1.025, and the cider is not necessarily stable at time of bottling - fermentation is slow but not stopped. Hence there might be a bit of YAN left... What I don't know is how much - if any - would be left after the final racking / filtering.

By the way, would you be aware of a study on the rate of YAN use through the fermentation - we know most of it is used in the beginning to build the yeast population, but would all of it be used then, or would there be some left and used during the later stages of the fermentation. I wish I had a graph showing the yeast population, YAN amount, and sugar content plotted against the time for a typical slow cider fermentation...

Claude

[Mark Rudge]

Claude, Andrew

This is incredibly helpful - thank you. I am all up for experimenting as much as possible - and this year is when I hope to do it. I have a colleague from Environmental Health who is studying an MSC (including brewing) so I am hoping we will be able to formally experiment approaches together.

As I live in Cornwall - France (especially Brittany) isn't too far away from me. Perhaps you could PM me some names and contact details and I can look to planning a research trip.

Do you know if YAN testing is often done in other brewing industries? There a number of vineyards here, producing excellent wines and of course the ever growing St Austell Brewery. Are they likely to have equipment that could test YAN and other things, if needed?

Thanks again

Regards

Mark 

[Andrew Lea]

On 27/06/2014 10:28, Mark Rudge wrote:

>
> This is incredibly helpful - thank you. I am all up for experimenting as
> much as possible - and this year is when I hope to do it. I have a
> colleague from Environmental Health who is studying an MSC (including
> brewing) so I am hoping we will be able to formally experiment
> approaches together.

If you have never made cider before (it's not clear from your postings)
I would earnestly recommend that you spend your first season learning
the basics before you branch out into the much more complex world of
keeving, arrested fermentations etc. Walk before you run. I also urge
you to read around the whole topic extensively and maybe attend a cider
training course.

>
> Do you know if YAN testing is often done in other brewing industries?
> There a number of vineyards here,

I suspect most UK vineyards unless they are big operations don't measure
YAN or if they do they would have it done on contract eg
http://www.ukvine.com/qa-%E2%80%93-wine-analysis-with-custom-crush/
Nitrogen profile and management in brewing is not the same as in cider
and wine making so would probably not be too helpful. Also you would be
looking for very low YAN levels to do what you want (stuck
fermentation), whereas winemakers are looking for much higher levels
because they don't want stuck fermentations.

[Mark Rudge]

If you have never made cider before (it's not clear from your postings) 
I would earnestly recommend that you spend your first season learning 
the basics before you branch out into the much more complex world of 
keeving, arrested fermentations etc. Walk before you run. I also urge 
you to read around the whole topic extensively and maybe attend a cider 
training course. 

Sorry Andrew, yes didn't make that clear. I am by no means an expert but have been making cider for 3 years now and have learnt alot from my experimentations thus far. This year I am upscaling on quantities as I have access to far more trees and therefore have greater scope for experimentation.

I am reading more extensively this year but struggling with cider training due to infrequency, distance and cost.

Thanks again for your comments - much appreciated. 

[Andrew Lea]

On 27/06/2014 11:17, Mark Rudge wrote:

> have been making cider for 3 years now and have learnt alot from my
> experimentations thus far. This year I am upscaling on quantities as I
> have access to far more trees and therefore have greater scope for
> experimentation.

Sounds as if you are just at the right place to start branching out!

Good luck

[Andrew Lea]

On 26/06/2014 21:25, Claude Jolicoeur wrote:

>
> By the way, would you be aware of a study on the rate of YAN use through
> the fermentation - we know most of it is used in the beginning to build
> the yeast population, but would all of it be used then, or would there
> be some left and used during the later stages of the fermentation. I
> wish I had a graph showing the yeast population, YAN amount, and sugar
> content plotted against the time for a typical slow cider fermentation...

Such a study was done by Challinor and Burroughs over 60 years ago and
was reported in the Long Ashton Annual Report for 1948. It was also
described in this review paper by Challinor in 1955
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2672.1955.tb02079.x/abstract

[Alan Stone]

For Keeving specialists please look at Nick Poole West Milton Cider, Martin Berkeley of Pilton Cider and Barry and John Topp of New Forest Cider - they are all doing over 10,000 bottles and winning many awards

Sent from my iPhone

[Andrew Lea]

Yes thanks for adding to the list Alan. I should say that all three of those you mention have studied their subject in quite some detail and over several years to refine their techniques. I don't think they would mind me saying that none of them found it easy at first and it took a while to develop their current commercial confidence. At least one of them to my knowledge has taken instruction in France.

I admire anyone who chooses that route! It is still not an easy thing to do.

Andrew

Sent from my iPhone