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Other ways to carbonate a cider
Well it seems like I suffer the same issue as many of you and have tart hard cider. I was looking around, thinking about just adding lactose and seeing what happens but then I came across Munton's CarbTabs & Coopers Carbonation Drops. Does anybody know how these things work? Do they comsume sugers or could I kill off the remaining yeast then sweeten to taste and chuck these in. Lemme know what you all think.
I'm going to try sweetening by adding lactose, and carbonate by primiing with corn sugar. About 2oz. lactose (or to taste) & 1 oz corn sugar per gallon. I've been doing mostly 1 gal. experiments.
drood - The carb tabs are just sugar tabs that allow you to add the exact amount of sugar per bottle. But the carbonation requires live yeast. These essentially replace adding a priming sugar syrup to the entire batch before bottling; same concept though.
The lactose idea sounds interesting, although I would be a little weary about this as well especially if anyone has done a wild fermentation. There could be bacteria in the cider that don't make an off flavor but might be able to metabolize the lactose. Just put the bottles in a safe place just in case you get bottle bombs.
Following wine making instructions to kill off wild yeasts & bacterias, dissolve 1 campden tablet (Sodium Metabisulphite) per gallon, add to the cider.
Seal it up tight and wait 24 hours for its action to abate, then introduce your yeast of choice.
I guess I'm going to go with the lactose method. I used an ale yeast, I've never used lactose anything special I should look out for?
Not really that I can think of. I wouldn't just put in the 2oz/gal & hope it's ok. Might do some taste testing first.
what is the batch size here? Lactose isn't all that sweet.
Its cheap, so dissolve 2 oz in a volume of water equivalent to your cider batch size, taste it to see if you think its "sweet".
Don't fool yourself either. Pour a glass of water too with out lactose to see if you can tell the difference.
I'm just doing a gallon experimental batch, I like brewchez's idea and will probably do something along those lines. My only real issue is that the LHBS is closed on Mondays so I'll have to wait till tomorrow.
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