Sparkling cider help needed

[88firefly]

Hi Folks, first-time cider maker here.

I have 5 gallons of cider, made from fresh apple juice, based on the purple book recipe. It has been racked 3 times for clearing and topped up with pasteurized (no preservatives) apple juice each time. It has just a few bubbles rising now and has an SG of .995. I have enough wire/rubber flip top bottles. I would like to make sparkling cider. Do I taste and add a bit of sugar to my taste if necessary..then bottle normally?

What are my next steps to bottle it?

 

[PhilDarby]

Someone else will likely churp in here, but, I think roughly a teaspoon of sugar in each one liter bottle, is about right to make a sparkling drink (in general) also, the safest bottles are probably pet bottles, as in those plastic types that cheap cider comes in, they have a very high burst pressure and if anything untoward does happen there is no glass hanging around, which, is probably why the cheap cider comes in them, they should also be quite easy to get hold of, for those reasons.

Be sure there is no active ferment still, it sounds like there is still a slow ferment to me a bit there, the comment about bubbles and the addition of the unpasturised juice (which will contain sugars) has made me mention this, I would definately go with pet bottles if i was you (just my own thoughts) as mentioned, about one teaspoon of sugar per bottle is about right and the slow ferment might actually be advantagous using plastic pet bottles.

The taste, sugar wise will likely change during storage, definately dont add huge amounts of sugar, before, bottling (if you have a sweet tooth).

Someone else will likely add to this, as this is just a general rule of thumb.

 

[tradowsk]

My preference is to rack off the sediment, mix in 1oz sugar so it's evenly dissolved, then bottle to carbonate. It's much more consistent than trying to put the same amount of sugar in each bottle. Some get a little more, some less, etc.

Note this will result in a dry sparkling cider. If you want to retain some sweetness, you would have to use a non-fermentable sugar or try and pasteurize.

 

[Rice_Guy]

ref New Cider Maker‘s Handbook by Jolicoeur
perlant ,, 2 gm/ liter CO2 , sugar 2gm/liter producing 0.9 atm pressure, any bottle
petulant ,, 3-5 gm/ liter CO2 , 4-8.5gm sugar> 1.5-2.8 atm, ,, beer bottle/ mineral water
sparkling ,, 7-11 gm/ liter CO2 made with 12-20 gm sugar > 4-6atm, ,, champagne bottle