total cider n00b here....

i have three gallons unpasteurized and three gallons pasteurized. can i mix it all and add the sulfite, or should i sulfite the unpasteurized separately. do i need to rack it before pitching the yeast?

thanks!

Pasteurizing means it was heated to kill bacteria. You are more than welcome to add the two different juices together , or pitch the yeast separately and see which juice makes a better cider.

I don't understand your question about racking before pitching. Racking from one carboy to another, a fermentor to a secondary, a primary to a bottling bucket is usually done to move the beer off the trub so as not to reintroduce off flavors into the product, and to allow for bottling, aging, or clearing of beer.

I'm also not sure if the sulfite is a yeast nutrient at this point, or a product for stopping the fermentation when the final gravity you want is achieved.

Help us out?

as for the racking, i thought i may need to put the sulfite into the cider to stun the wild bacteria (i don't have campden tabs, so i would use potassium metabisulfite), let it sit for 24 hours, then rack. i thought i had heard that, but could be wrong.

also, what yeast do you all suggest?

i could have sworn i heard montrachet dry yeast, but now i can't find that reference.

Don't worry about adding any tablets or anything, just mix the two juices and pitch your yeast. Theres going to be such a small amount of natural yeast in your juice that the added yeast will just take over anyways. Hell, I had fresh squeezed and pitched my yeast straight into it and it came out great. I didin't worry about the natural yeasts one bit.

I would recommend taking a hydrometer reading before pitching and if its 1.04 or below put 1/2 to 1 pound of natural cane sugar (or a sugar to your liking) into the juice and shake like crazy. Then pitch the yeast.

thanks! do you have a yeast suggestion?

I've only used Safale personally. But I would suggest reading the huge sticky on the cider main page. It goes over a list of yeasts and which ones are better than others for cider making.


Heres a Link to the post:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/results-juice-yeast-sugar-experiments-83060/

Montrachet seems to be a trend, but it all depends on what you like. Are you a wine lover? Maybe you would like Montrachet or Cote des Blanc by Red Star. Would you prefer something more like an ale, or even a sweet mead? White Labs even has a yeast just for hard cider! If you give us an idea of what kind of hard cider you want, we can point you to a good strain.

Aside from choosing the apples for your hard cider, yeast selection is one of the most personal choices you can make. It's like choosing the color of your car.

Hope your brew goes well!

well, i've kind of been commissioned to do this cider by my dad. i think he likes the dry ciders you can get on draught over in england, so i guess i'm going for that.

If you want it slate dry, go with a wine yeast, maybe D-47 or Montrachet. If you want a wee bit of residual sugars (less dry) go with an ale yeast like Nottingham or S-04. Choose your yeast like you would choose a tool, different strains will have different effects on your finished product. Regards, GF.

well, i mixed 3 un and 2 pasteurized gallons in the better bottle last night, added 2# of brown sugar, then put in 1/4tsp sodium metabisulfite. i'll pitch the montrachet tonight. i'm going to keep it about 60 degrees or so.

sound good?

sounds good to me.....might want to make that temp more around 65 F but it shouldn't really make a huge difference. Remember the colder you go the slower the yeast works and eventually if you go too cold the yeast will stop working completely.

yeah, red star says the optimum temps are 58-83. in an e-mail from JZ, he said he'd go in the normal ale range. guess 64 won't hurt since that's what my temp controlled fridge is set at.