cider bottling question

[Arwel]

Last Autumn a friend and I made roughly 3-4 gallons of cider (we think... its a strange demijohn/jar) using a medium sized trees worth of Discovery. Anyways, it was all pretty slapdash and i later calculated that we added far too much sugar - roughly 5 kg, some of which wouldn't even dissolve. For it's first month or two we left the cider in a conservatory where it failed to do very much. We then moved it into an old person's house which, like all old people's houses, is at a constant furnace like temperature. Since then it's been bubbling like crazy (its been roughly 2 months). Right now it's nice and strong but still quite sweet, a pretty good balance in fact, and its still fermentin away. So my question (finally!) is whether, if we bottled the stuff (using a standard bottle capper bought off ebay) would it continue to ferment until all the oxygen in the bottle has been used up and give the cider a nice fizz or, will it just continue to ferment like mad because of all the sugar regardless of the limited oxygen and cause the bottle to explode? or none of the above? in a nutshell, will it be safe to bottle a cider that has a high sugar content? (sorry for such a long winded question!!)

[irigg]

me personnally would not like to be picking up all that broken glass better to let this ferment out and drink as wine

[boboff]

DON'T BOTTLE IT.

The pressure caused in 1ltr by 5g of sugar is about 5 "bar" I think. Much better to wait and add a little on bottling if you want the fizz.

It will still have a high sugar content when it finishes fermenting, when the alcohol kills off the yeast, add Campden Tablets now if you want to bottle it safely at this "sweetness"

[gregorach]

So my question (finally!) is whether, if we bottled the stuff (using a standard bottle capper bought off ebay) would it continue to ferment until all the oxygen in the bottle has been used up and give the cider a nice fizz or, will it just continue to ferment like mad because of all the sugar regardless of the limited oxygen and cause the bottle to explode?

All the oxygen is long gone already. The vast majority of fermentation occurs anaerobically - yeast don't generally produce alcohol under aerobic conditions.

[Arwel]

Hey,

Sorry it took so long to get back but i've been busy...Thanks for your replies. I decided not to bottle it and it's STILL bubbling away..I tried a wee bit and it tasted exactly like lucozade so perhaps I've discovered the secret recipe? :D Well it's still bubblin anyways. Thanks again. There's a litre of apple wine/cider/lucozade for everyone who replied and doesn't mind drivin to Anglesey