Carbonation
Traditional method
A second fermentation in the bottle the cider will be sold in, followed by riddling the deposit into the neck and expelling it, so the drink is both bottle-fermented and clear.
Known as Méthode traditionnelle where it originates. Also called Méthode traditionnelle, Bottle-fermented and disgorged, Classic method.
- Stage
- Carbonation
- Traditional in
- Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Normandy
- What it most changes
- Carbonation up, body up
- Safety
- Carries a safety consideration — see below
A bottle under a full second fermentation holds a substantial pressure and can fail without warning, particularly if it is flawed, chipped at the lip, or was never rated for pressure in the first place. Use bottles specified for sparkling products, wear eye protection and gloves when riddling, moving and above all disgorging, and point the neck away from people at every stage. Chilling before disgorging lowers the pressure and reduces both the violence of the ejection and the risk of glass failure.
What it is
In the traditional method a dry base cider is bottled with a measured sugar and yeast addition, sealed under a temporary closure, and left to ferment and mature on its own deposit — often for a year or more. The bottles are then worked progressively upside down so the sediment collects against the closure, the neck is chilled, the closure removed and the pressure expels the plug of deposit, and the bottle is topped up and finally corked or crown-sealed. The result is a cider carbonated by fermentation in the bottle it is sold in, and free of visible sediment.
Why it is used
- It combines the compositional effect of a long bottle fermentation on lees with a clear presentation, which no other route achieves in the same package.
- Extended contact with the yeast deposit develops texture and a bready, savoury aroma that neither injection nor a short tank conditioning produces.
- It suits perry and cider made from high-acid, aromatic fruit, where the base is often too lean still and gains structure from the ageing.
- The finished bottle is stable and sediment-free, so it travels and sits on a shelf without the appearance problem that a conditioned bottle carries.
How it works
- Yeast ferments the tirage sugar in the sealed bottle. The gas produced cannot escape, so it dissolves and the bottle comes under pressure — the same equilibrium as any sealed fermentation, but at the scale of a single container.
- Once the sugar is exhausted the yeast dies and slowly autolyses, releasing mannoproteins, amino acids and cell-wall fragments into the small volume around them. This is what builds the texture and the toasted, biscuit-like aroma associated with the method.
- Riddling exploits the geometry of the bottle neck: repeated small turns with a progressive tilt walk the deposit down the shoulder and consolidate it against the closure, where it can be removed as a single plug rather than dispersed through the liquid.
- Disgorging usually freezes the neck so the deposit is trapped in a plug of ice. When the closure is released the internal pressure ejects that plug, and the bottle — now short by the volume expelled — is topped up before the final closure goes on.
What it changes
The direction this step pushes the finished drink in, dimension by dimension. A direction, not a measurement: how far it moves depends on the juice, the temperature and how the step is carried out.
| Dimension | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Carbonation | Raises | The bottle is a sealed vessel, so the whole of the gas produced by the tirage fermentation is retained in solution. |
| Body | Raises | Autolysing yeast releases mannoproteins into a small volume over a long period, and those colloids build palate weight and a softer texture. |
| Fermentation character | Raises | Extended lees contact in the bottle generates the bready, savoury, slightly toasted character that is the signature of the method. |
| Freshness | Lowers | Long ageing under closure converts primary fruit esters into more developed, less immediately fruity aromas. |
The chemistry and the organisms
What is actually being changed, and by what. Each entry says what that compound or organism does in cider generally; this page is one place it does it.
Compounds involved
Carbon dioxide
The other product of fermentation, which protects a cider from air while it is being made and, dissolved in the finished drink, changes both its texture and its perceived acidity.
Ethanol
The alcohol yeast makes from fruit sugar, which converts a perishable juice into a keepable drink and carries most of its aroma to the nose.
Sucrose
The disaccharide of apple juice and the sugar most often added to it, split into glucose and fructose by the yeast’s own invertase before any of it is fermented.
Glucose
The sugar yeast takes first and the smallest of the three in apple juice, which is why the last sugar left in a slow ferment is almost never glucose.
Organisms involved
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
The yeast that finishes essentially every cider, whether it arrives in a sachet or from the fruit, the press and the vessel.
Saccharomyces bayanus
A name applied both to a hybrid Saccharomyces lineage and, loosely, to a whole class of commercial high-alcohol yeasts, and one of the least stable names in fermentation microbiology.
Where it is traditional
The places this step belongs to as a matter of practice. It is not a claim of exclusivity — a method can be traditional in one region and perfectly ordinary in another.
What it is done with
Bottles and pressure: what glass will and will not hold
Sparkling-wine bottles are engineered and tested to hold several atmospheres; still-wine bottles are not engineered to hold any, and filling one with a carbonating cider is the most dangerous ordinary mistake in home cider making.
Riddling racks, freezing baths and the disgorging bench
Cider fermented a second time in the bottle has to have its sediment collected in the neck, frozen into a plug and expelled, which needs a riddling rack or a gyropalette, a chilled bath, and a bench arrangement for disgorging, topping up and closing.
Corks, agrafes and muselets
A sparkling closure is a cork compressed to a fraction of its diameter and driven into the neck, held there by a metal clip during conditioning or by a wire muselet once finished — because the pressure inside would otherwise push it out.
What can go wrong
Faults that begin at this step, or that this step makes more likely. Each one is set out with its causes and whether it can be put right.
Bottle over-carbonation
More dissolved carbon dioxide in the bottle than intended or than the glass is rated for — a presentation problem at the mild end and a physical hazard at the severe one.
Gushing
Cider that erupts from the bottle on opening, either because it is over-pressurised or because something in it is nucleating the dissolved gas violently.
Excessive sediment
More deposit in the bottle or vessel than the presentation intends, ranging from a normal conditioning yeast layer to a loose sludge that clouds every pour.
Under-carbonation
A cider intended to sparkle that has little or no dissolved gas, usually because the bottle conditioning never started or the closure did not hold.
Oxidation
The cumulative effect of oxygen on finished cider: fruit aroma flattens, colour deepens towards amber, and a bruised-apple or sherry-like character replaces the fresh one.
Styles it produces
Categories in which this step is characteristic or required. Some name it in their definition; for others it is simply how they have always been made.
Sparkling cider
Cider carrying enough dissolved carbon dioxide to produce a persistent bubble, by bottle fermentation, tank fermentation or injection.
Sparkling perry
Perry carrying a persistent bubble, a presentation that suits pear’s aromatics and residual sorbitol and has a documented history going back to the seventeenth century.
Bottle-conditioned perry
Perry that completes its fermentation in the sealed bottle, generating carbonation and lees character while the fruit’s sorbitol keeps a sweetness the yeast cannot remove.
Dry cider
Cider fermented out or finished so that little fermentable sugar remains, leaving acid, tannin and alcohol to carry the palate.
Sidra espumosa
Sparkling Asturian cider made by a second fermentation under pressure or in bottle, presented as a fine sparkling drink rather than in the still poured tradition.
More on traditional method
The English association with bottle fermentation is older than the convention that ties the method to Champagne. Worlidge’s Vinetum Britannicum of 1676 describes bottling cider with a quantity of sugar so that it would work in the glass and come out brisk, at a point when the deliberate production of sparkling wine was not yet established practice in France. This is a matter of documentary record rather than of national credit-claiming: the observation that a fermentable cider sealed in strong glass produces a sparkling drink was made in more than one place, and English glass of the period happened to be strong enough to survive it. What the Champenois later systematised was not the fermentation but the removal of the deposit.
That removal is what separates this method from bottle conditioning, and it is the whole of the extra labour. Riddling was historically done by hand on hinged pupitres, an eighth of a turn and a small increase in tilt at a time over weeks; mechanised gyropalettes now do the same work in days for producers at scale, and small cider and perry makers still do it by hand. Disgorging by freezing the neck is the modern standard because it makes the ejection controllable, but disgorging à la volée — opening an unfrozen bottle and catching the deposit as it goes — survives among makers who prefer not to chill. Either way the bottle loses volume and must be topped up, and whether that top-up carries sugar determines the final sweetness.
What a maker decides here is mostly about time and about the base cider. The method rewards a base that is dry, acidic and structurally sound, because everything the long lees ageing adds is texture and savoury complexity rather than fruit, and a base that was flabby to begin with does not gain structure by sitting on yeast. Perry from high-acid pears responds particularly well and is the reason méthode traditionnelle perries are a real category in the Three Counties. The failure modes are specific: too much tirage sugar and the bottles over-pressure and gush or burst; a deposit that will not consolidate, often from a yeast strain that flocculates poorly, and the riddling never finishes; and a disgorging done carelessly, which loses too much cider, admits oxygen, or breaks the bottle in the hand.
Related processes
Steps that sit alongside this one, replace it, or depend on it having been done.
Carbonation
Bottle conditioning
Carbonating cider by letting a second fermentation finish inside the sealed bottle, so the gas is generated where it is going to stay.
Carbonation
Transfer method
Fermenting in bottle for the character, then emptying the bottles under counter-pressure into a tank, filtering and refilling to remove the deposit without riddling.
Carbonation
Priming
Adding a measured, calculable quantity of fermentable sugar at bottling so that the fermentation which follows generates a predictable volume of carbon dioxide.
Carbonation
Tank conditioning
Running a second fermentation in a sealed pressure tank so the gas is generated by yeast but the sediment never reaches the bottle.
Maturation
Bottle maturation
What happens to a cider after it is sealed in glass — which for most ciders is slow decline rather than improvement, and saying so is more useful than implying otherwise.
Packaging
Closure selection
Choosing between cork, crown, screwcap, cage and swing-top, a decision that fixes how much oxygen reaches the cider, whether it can hold pressure, and which faults it is exposed to.
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- Does cider get better with age — Some does. Tannic, dry, bottle-conditioned ciders and ice ciders can gain for several years. Light, fruit-driven and commercially filtered ciders lose their aroma and do not gain anything in exchange.
- How is sparkling cider made
- What is priming sugar — Priming sugar is a measured dose of sugar added at bottling so that the remaining yeast produces carbon dioxide inside the sealed bottle. Too much of it is the usual cause of burst bottles.
- How many calories are in cider — Roughly 40 to 60 kcal per 100 ml for most ciders, so a UK pint falls somewhere around 200 to 250 kcal. Alcohol contributes about 7 kcal per gram and residual sugar about 4, so both strength and sweetness matter.
- Which yeast ferments cider — Saccharomyces cerevisiae finishes almost every cider fermentation, whether it was pitched or arrived from the press house. In a spontaneous ferment it is not the first organism present, only the one that survives the alcohol it makes.
- Why did my cider bottles explode — Because fermentable sugar was still present, or too much priming sugar was used, and the pressure exceeded what the bottle could hold. Never bottle a cider whose gravity is still falling, and never use bottles not designed for pressure.
Where to go next
- How cider is made — The whole sequence, stage by stage, with the choices open at each one.
- Cider science — The chemistry and microbiology the methods on this page rest on.
- Troubleshooting — What goes wrong, how to recognise it, and whether it can be reversed.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Cider and perry production technical training material
Peter Mitchell / Cider and Perry Academy · reference work · registered as competent for this subject
Searched again on 2026-08-25 and it remains the one printed source here that a bibliographic check cannot fix, because it is not a published work with an edition. It is course material issued to participants of a training programme, so there is no catalogue record to verify, no ISBN, and no lawful public copy. Its state stays `registered` for that reason rather than through inattention.
Vinetum Britannicum, or a Treatise of Cider
John Worlidge · historical source · passage verified 2026-08-24 · covers 1676
Identified on 2026-08-24 from the 1678 edition held by the Internet Archive. John Worlidge, active 1669–1698; the work ran to further editions including 1691, so a citation to it should say which. The full title is broader than the short one CiderHQ uses and matters for what the book can be cited for: it covers other fruit wines and drinks alongside cider, so it is evidence about seventeenth-century English fruit fermentation generally rather than about cider alone.
Three Counties Cider and Perry Association
TCCPA · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24