Butter flavour

Last year was my first making cider. Nearly all of my cider was backsweetened, primed, bottled and pasteurized after decent carbonation was reached. I am just now drinking the last of last year's batches while waiting for this year's to age. Recently I think I have been noticing a buttery taste (well at least a buttery feeling in my nose) when I am drinking it. I haven't had any of the unpasteurized cider in a while and I can't remember if it had a buttery taste. I don't think it did. Can the heat process kick something off that produces butter flavour after about a year? I think this batch went into fermentor in October of last year and was bottled sometime in Jan/Feb. It was made form locally picked apples, some of them a little on the green side.

Site searches turn up mention of buttery flavours in beer as a negative. I gathered that these tastes appear pretty soon and not after a year.

Buttery flavours usually mean diacetyl. In beer it's considered bad, in chardonnay it's a good thing. What yeast did you use?

gratus fermentatio said:

Buttery flavours usually mean diacetyl. In beer it's considered bad, in chardonnay it's a good thing. What yeast did you use?

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I used EC 1118 in all of my ciders last year. (This year I expanded to 71B as well as Coopers Ale.)

Diacetyl in a finished cider (or beer) generally indicates contamination, I believe pediococcus.

Yooper said:

Diacetyl in a finished cider (or beer) generally indicates contamination, I believe pediococcus.

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Would the pediococcus survive the pasteurization?

chevalcider said:

Would the pediococcus survive the pasteurization?

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I do not know the temperature needed to deactivate organisms like pediococcus, unfortunately.

I think I may have to get my last bottle of dry/carbed (and unpasteurized) cider from the same batch and sample it to see if it has a butter flavour.

Is it possible your cider got too hot while fermenting? EC 1118 isn't usually known for diacetyl as far as I remember, but a warm ferment and bottling too soon sure can be.

The buttery taste can come from a Malolactic Fermentation. This is a bacteria that turns malic acid into lactic acid and is found naturally on the apples. So if you have unpasteurized or cold pasteurized juice there is a good chance this secondary fermentation will occur giving a buttery flavor. It also produces c02 so you would see more carbonation than you expect.

I'm not too sure what to say right now...I tried my last bottle of unpasteurized cider last night (fermented a year ago in October, bottled mid-winter at the same time as the buttery bottles). I was not able to perceive any butter flavour. So far I am noticing the flavour in two different batches of cider, and only in the bottles that were primed, backsweetened and then stovetop bottle pasteurized. The bottles from those same batches that were bottled dry and still or only primed for medium carbonation do not have the butter taste. I notice a change/development of flavour in those samples over the course of the year and I like it. I just don't think I like the level of "butter" in the backsweetened samples. (priming and backsweetening with plain table sugar)

Is there a chance that the heat from pasteurization changed the structure of something in the cider that allows it to break down and age poorly? Perhaps I should post that question to the stovetop pasteurization sticky.

The buttery flavor comes from diacetly, yeast can produce some during fermentation but it's really brought out during secondary fermentation (Malolactic fermentation). Levels of Diacetly actually fluctuate during primary and secondary fermentation depending on how the cider/wine is disturbed, sits on lees, and the yeast & ML bacteria autolise (sp?). I've read that citric acid can aid in the production of diacetly along with letting the cider/wine sit undisturbed on the lees (no sur lees/ battonage).

If it isn't offensive to you I wouldn't consider it a fault in cider. There isn't a whole lot you can do in the future to prevent it.

What I am still having a hard time understanding is why two bottles from the same carboy are so different. The defining factor is the bottle pasteurization. All of the bottles that were pasteurized have developed a butter flavour and those that were merely primed with enough sugar for carbonation don't.

I have had this in a few batches of "quick" cider. My theory, which has no backing other than an idea in my head, is that the unfinished cider has this problem sometimes.

Here's how I tested my theory:

I made a batch of quick cider, starting at 1.065 and ending around 1.015. Bottled, waited a couple days and tossed into the fridge to stop fermentation.
A week or so later I tested a bottle and it tasted like butter, so I took out another bottle, let it ferment dry, then tried it. The butter flavor was gone.

That experiment led me to buy a keg setup so I no longer have to rely on bottle carbing and hopefully, no more popcorn cider.

Interesting, you have the same batch unpasteurized and pasteurized, 2 simple explanations would be that you contaminated the pasteurized ones in the process and they didnt actually get pasteurized correctly, or that cooking the bottles changed the cider. You have not mentioned the conditions you used for stovetop pasteurization. WVMJ

WVMJ said:

Interesting, you have the same batch unpasteurized and pasteurized, 2 simple explanations would be that you contaminated the pasteurized ones in the process and they didnt actually get pasteurized correctly, or that cooking the bottles changed the cider. You have not mentioned the conditions you used for stovetop pasteurization. WVMJ

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Stove top pasteurization was done as per the revised instructions on the sticky. Both samples were bottled at the same time. I racked into a bottling bucket, primed for carbonation, bottled the "dry" cider and then backsweetened for a target of 1.005 after carbonation. They were definitely over carbed so the final gravity was lower than 1.005. There are certainly differences between the various pasteurized bottles so I can't help but wonder if the different batches saw some differences in temperature. I split a bottle last night with my bottling partner (22.5 gallons in 5 hours!) and it was not really buttery at all.