a question for all cider gurus.....

[mrswadders]

Hi,
i've made cider again this year(well last year) normally it turns out dry very scrumpyish however this year its very,very dry. My question is can I add sugar or sweetners to it and is it safe to still have it in glass,screw top bottles or are they likely to explode like elderflower champagne?

Any suggestions most welcome as my tongue seems to stick to the roof of my mouth when I drink it!!!!!!

[SarzWix]

If you want to be certain, you can either add campden tablets to ensure fermentation has stopped before adding sugar or sweet apple juice til you get the taste you want. Or you can add artificial sweeteners which won't ferment. Personally, I'd go for the campden tablet and a combo of sugar and apple juice, because I loathe artificial sweeteners

[Alison]

I think that you can also use glucose as I seem to remember that doesn't ferment.

[littlemark]

Sulphite (via Campden Tablets) will not kill yeasts unless added at quite high levels, though even modest amounts of sulphite will 'supress' yeast activity for some time. If you are going to bottle with added fermentable sugars (including Glucose I believe), the only truly safe way is to correctly pasteurise, otherwise the cider 'will' re-ferment eventually, giving you at best a dry sparkling cider, at worst incredibly dangerous bottle bombs.

One alternative is to sweeten with sugar syrup/honey etc. just prior to drinking. Another option is to use artificial sweeteners to adjust the sweeteness at bottling. Many small-scale commercial cidermakers are now going over from Sacharinne to Sucralose as an artificial, non-fermentable sweetener. Sucralose has the advantage over Sacharinne of having a more 'natural' flavour, without the nasty 'bitter' aftertaste which many find with Sacharinne. Sucralose is very concentrated, and quite expensive, but the heavily cut-down domestic version 'Splenda' is quite cheap and much easier to use. Definately worth experimenting with I'd say.

Cheers, Mark

[marchogaeth]

If you want to be certain, you can either add campden tablets to ensure fermentation has stopped

If you are going to do this, check you are not one of the few people who can taste campden tablets. I can and it renders whatever it is in undrinkable no matter how serious my alcohol deficit is!!

[Hilary B]

Alternatively you can give the 'paint-remover' flavoured stuff to my OH who prefers cider like that! It's geting harder to find the 'really dry' stuff. Personally I can't stand anything that dry and acid!

[SarzWix]

Or instead of bottling it, you could put it in a beer barrel, which has a pressure release mechanism. It might end up flat by the time you get to the bottom of the barrel, but still scrumpy is quite normal really.

[mrswadders]

thanks folks
we went down the sweetners route as we don't mind them. Seems to have worked, still fairly dry but has definately taken the 'edge' off, will be quaffing a few this evening just to make sure!

again many thanks!