French Cider Question.

I just sampled my first French Cider. The alc was around 5.5%. There were no preservatives added but it was moderately sweet. How is the fermentation stopped?

I’m not sure, but French ciders may contain sulfites; I will check tomorrow at the supermarket.

Wouldn’t that possibly stop the fermentation?

By the way, which one you had?

Usually the French define cider as Doux and typically it has 2-3% ABV
Demi-sec (4% ABV)
Sec or Brut (5-5.5% ABV)

Although the perception of sweetness is subjective...

Christian Drouin. It states no additives. I was thinking they might pasteurize it somehow either UV or heat. I’m very interested in trying something like this with wild yeast.

Someone once mentioned that they kill the fermentation by racking the cider off the yeast when it reaches the desired gravity and sugar content. I think the same thing could be done by cold crashing the cider when they got there.

Originally posted by bierkitty
Christian Drouin. It states no additives. I was thinking they might pasteurize it somehow either UV or heat. I’m very interested in trying something like this with wild yeast.

They use a process called defecation to remove most of the nutrients from the apple must. There is enough that there may still be a long slower in bottle fermentation but not enough that you’ll end up with bottle bombs. You can read a little more about it here. It’s similar (I believe) to keeving in the english cider tradition.

http://www.cider.org.uk/part4.htm

Nearly all real ciders contain some sulphites as a preservative, even when the bottle label makes no mention of it.

Originally posted by Sigmund
Nearly all real ciders contain some sulphites as a preservative, even when the bottle label makes no mention of it.

My mistake: the abv was 4.5 and it was Couer de lion

Originally posted by fiulijn

Originally posted by bierkitty
Christian Drouin. It states no additives. I was thinking they might pasteurize it somehow either UV or heat. I’m very interested in trying something like this with wild yeast.

Here at RB we don’t have any cider at 5.5%
I just checked their website, pure 90’s style (shit):
http://www.coeur-de-lion.com/produits_pommeau_cidre.php?lang=fr
There is not much info.
But they say that the cider is refermented in the bottle to obtain the carbonation; so the yeast can’t be dead by then.

There are many small cideries in France.
They can’t invest in equipment; that’s why in Europe still so many small businesses create products in the old ways.
I doubt that any of them would use pasteurization or UV.

Thanks for the link. It will take me some time to adsorb all the information.

Originally posted by JoeMcPhee
They use a process called defecation to remove most of the nutrients from the apple must. There is enough that there may still be a long slower in bottle fermentation but not enough that you’ll end up with bottle bombs. You can read a little more about it here. It’s similar (I believe) to keeving in the english cider tradition.

http://www.cider.org.uk/part4.htm