Large Production

Anyone with experience with larger productions care to share any pitfalls, tips, pointers, or issues? Is there anything dramatically different? By larger productions I mean like a hundred gallons or 250 gallon batch? I've only done small batches i.e., under 6 gallons, but like to think big....

Archer said:

Anyone with experience with larger productions care to share any pitfalls, tips, pointers, or issues? Is there anything dramatically different? By larger productions I mean like a hundred gallons or 250 gallon batch? I've only done small batches i.e., under 6 gallons, but like to think big....

Click to expand...

Currently I have 2x500 litre tanks fermenting away. Clean everything. Last year we made 23 carboys of cider. This year we stepped it up a bit. Bottling is our concern as it is difficult to bottle large volumes.

For larger volumes you need a pump. It needs to be food safe and easily cleaned, but doesn't need to be powerful because if you have to wait 10 or 20 min for a tank to fill it doesn't matter too much. You also need to sort out bottling, you can't put that much into kegs. Any mistakes with large volumes can be very serious, so you need to be sure your processes are good and reliable. I use 200L fermenter bags, that way I don't need to bottle it all at once, I can do 50L bottling at a time and the airspace doesn't get any bigger.

Are the proportions the same with big batches with respect to the amount of yeast you add or the amount of pectic enzyme, campden, etc.?

Do you have any issues with the bag allowing air to pass in...I read if you used plastic carboys you need to buy the 1/2 inch thick ones, not the 1/4, as the thinner ones suffer from air passing through them effecting your cider flavor and in a worse case contaminating it.

Thanks for responding!:rockin:

The bags have a metallised barrier layer that keeps most o2 out. The opening is a 2" fitting that gives an excellent seal so not much air gets in that way. The bags are good for at least 6 months storage, you probably want to bottle after that anyway. The disadvantages of bags are that you can't rack, you have to leave the cider on the lees. From what I have read, 6 months on lees is fine for cider but some people like repeated rackings to clear their cider. Also the bags can get co2 between the layers so you shouldn't fill them too much, I leave room for some big bubbles forming between the layers.
Quantities of yeast etc are easy for larger volumes because the big packets of yeast come with full instructions.


This is the instructions off a packet of cider yeast, Maurivin AWRI350