Planning my first cider, have i got this right?

[evil.soup]

Well, I currently have a batch of lager on day 14 and fermentation has stopped, so it's going into a cold crash for a couple of days then in the bottles Tuesday, so that means an empty fermentor Wednesday.

So I have decided to get a cider on the go.

The plan is, 9ltrs of Lidl apple juice plus a bag of frozen black cherries for a little twist. I won't be adding sugar as I don't want it getting much over 6%.
I do however, want some sweetness to the cider, so I am looking to use xylitol. Now this is where the questions start. I don't have a second vessel to use for sweetening, priming and bottling, so the cider will come straight out of my fermentor and into bottles to prime.

So, the first question is, can I add xylitol in at the beginning with all the other ingredients or will this cause problems? Also, from doing a bit of research, a medium sweet finish requires 10 to 12g of xylitol per litre, is this correct? I am looking for a thatchers gold level of sweetness.
Final question is, how much sugar to prime? In my lager I am going with 8g per litre because I like a good fizz in my lager, but how much do I need for my cider? I like fizz in cider also, but no more than a commercial cider may have, like thatchers gold.

I think that's all the blanks at the moment...

Forgot to mention, I am using the generic ale yeast from a coopers lager kit.

Aahhh, also tea, should I add tea and again, how much per litre?

 

[Johnny.]

How did you get on with this? I've made a few ciders from supermarket apple juice with good results, but it must be the clear juice on the shelf, not anything that need refrigerating. I decant the fermented brew off of the trub and into a bottling vessel where I then stir in the sugar and the sweetener. I used to add the sugar and sweetener direct to my bottles and it was fine, I just find it less work with a 2nd vessel.

I considered a few artificial sweeteners before I chose stevia. The stuff I get from the supermarket is powdered and just a bit finer than sugar. I find sweetener at 4g/330mL bottle is nice but a sweet tooth might like up to double that. I like the fizz I get from sugar at 4g/330mL bottle but 5 or 6 would work too. More than that tends to be a bit much in my experience.

I found it fermented well enough with the yeast from coopers kits but switched to safcider from the brew store when I ran out of the coopers.

I have also used the apple and pear juice from the supermarket and made some brews where I added lemon cordial and ginger cordial. All were good!

Cheers.

 

[evil.soup]

Thanks for the reply. In the end I bought a mangrove jacks blueberry cider kit and stuck to the instructions. Worked out OK, but not the happiest with it. Lager was very good and followed that with a coopers Irish stout kit with some choc malt added for flavour, that was also very good.

Home cider from juice is still on the cards, but not started it as yet....

 

[Johnny.]

Thanks for the reply. In the end I bought a mangrove jacks blueberry cider kit and stuck to the instructions. Worked out OK, but not the happiest with it. Lager was very good and followed that with a coopers Irish stout kit with some choc malt added for flavour, that was also very good.

Home cider from juice is still on the cards, but not started it as yet....

That's great. I love how reliable to the Coopers stuff is. I'd be interested to know how you get on with a cider.

I edited my earlier reply to fix the units for sugar and sweetener to be per bottle not per litre, whoops.

Cheers

 

[MattH1973]

a few answers where i can help
- priming sugar - 1 teaspoon per 500ml bottle works for me
- I've never added tea, i added tannin once to see what it was like but couldnt taste the difference
- Ive never added sweetener but if its non fermentable i dont see why it would cause a problem at fermentation. If you didnt want to risk it you could add when bottling with the priming sugar. But as I say, ive never done sweetener so others will know more

hope this helps.