Easy Stove-Top Pasteurizing - With Pics

dinnerstick said:

Most of the batch was bottled in 750ml swing-top bottles (used) procured from a belgian beer seller and the rest in regular crown cap beer bottles. and one in a test 500 ml plastic fizzy water bottle. In went the small bottles, with a towel over the top and then the lid, at about 15 minutes there was a pop sound. honestly i thought it was the plastic one, as this was no screaming shrapnel bang. but sure enough it was glass. i hoped it was just a flaw in the bottle and carried on (very carefully) with the big ones. meanwhile the plastic one looked like i photoshopped it into a bloated hippo. it expanded like crazy and the liquid level was lower, don't know if that was due to increase in volume or if it somehow leaked. don't really care
1st batch of big ones went fine but at the end the water was very cool, 45 or so. don't know if they really got to temperature. labeled them so if they go bomb i know why. upped to 80 degrees for the next batch. after a few minutes they were really fizzing at the rubber seals. they fizzed for a while. the last batch also at 80 degrees fizzed less but there was fizzing. i'm sure these got up to temperature.

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an update on this, I broke down and opened a couple of these 750 ml swing top bottles, all bottles were fine (ie intact) after aging a few weeks after pasteurization, so i am assuming they reached kill temperature during pasteurization. they opened with a satisfying pop and the level of gas was right where i wanted it. didn't compare to the crown cap bottles which could not have leaked so i don't know what the consequence of leaky seals was, don't really care. i got perfect semi-sweet fizzy sulfite-free natural yeast cider! i'm calling it a resounding success despite the loss of one small bottle. thanks

I assume that the priming sugar added will be eaten up by the yeast during the bottle conditioning/carbonating, hence it will have no affect on abv.

j-rad said:

Pappers:

I have 2, 1 gallon jugs of unfiltered, pasteurized cider (whole foods brand) fermenting right now with just some pectic enzyme and ale yeast. I want to do use your method to make a sweet sparkling cider and could use your advice on a couple things.

Both gallons SG were 1.051.. if I get it down to 1.010 and add 2 oz priming sugar (assuming I should do 1 oz per gallon.. let me know what you think about this much), how do you know what the actual final gravity is to calculate your ABV? Do you just take a gravity reading once done carbing?

I am curious as to how much it would bump up the ABV by carbing it.. 1.051 -> 1.010 = 6%, so do you know an estimate on what it would ultimately end up at?

Thanks for the guide, very helpful.

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Hello.
I did my second batch. SG was 1,065. Used safale s04 yest and pasteurized cider, it fermented for a week till gravity was 1,015. I then racked cider to secondary ant bottled right away. Left it in cool place at 57F temperature for some time and nothing happened, then I took it in warmer place 64F and it is sitting there for second week, but carbonisation is very low( about inch of foam then poured in glass) I want much more. Btw cider is very tasty. Now I started second batch Sg was 1,060 (added 17 ounces of brown corn sugar to get it there). I am thinking about at stoping at 1,020 to get sweet highly carbonized cider ( as in shop) So what do you think, will I get desired result?
P.s. I didnt use priming sugar, maybe it was the problem with first batch? Or do I need to wait more? Any advices are welcome.

Pappers_ said:

I assume that the priming sugar added will be eaten up by the yeast during the bottle conditioning/carbonating, hence it will have no affect on abv.

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Shouldn't it have a tiny effect as you've fermented one more ounce of sugar?
My calculations were as follows:
one oz sugar in one gallon of cider adds 3 gravity points
Cider at 1051 fermented to 1010 is 5.34%
Adding 3 points bumps the OG to 1054, 1054 to 1010 is 5.74%
However you have to consider the extra water you dissolve the sugar in (let's assume 1 cup)
Now you have 16 cups of cider at 5.74% + 1 cup at 0 = 5.40% ABV
Using half a cup yields 5.56%

So in reality its basically a wash, I doubt you can taste the difference between 5.34%, 5.40% and 5.56%

robert9 said:

Hello.
I did my second batch. SG was 1,065. Used safale s04 yest and pasteurized cider, it fermented for a week till gravity was 1,015. I then racked cider to secondary ant bottled right away. Left it in cool place at 57F temperature for some time and nothing happened, then I took it in warmer place 64F and it is sitting there for second week, but carbonisation is very low( about inch of foam then poured in glass) I want much more. Btw cider is very tasty. Now I started second batch Sg was 1,060 (added 17 ounces of brown corn sugar to get it there). I am thinking about at stoping at 1,020 to get sweet highly carbonized cider ( as in shop) So what do you think, will I get desired result?
P.s. I didnt use priming sugar, maybe it was the problem with first batch? Or do I need to wait more? Any advices are welcome.

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What I do to get a light, sparkling cider is let it go down to 1.010 and add priming sugar. That works for me, but there are many other styles of cider.

Veinman said:

Shouldn't it have a tiny effect as you've fermented one more ounce of sugar?
My calculations were as follows:
one oz sugar in one gallon of cider adds 3 gravity points
Cider at 1051 fermented to 1010 is 5.34%
Adding 3 points bumps the OG to 1054, 1054 to 1010 is 5.74%
However you have to consider the extra water you dissolve the sugar in (let's assume 1 cup)
Now you have 16 cups of cider at 5.74% + 1 cup at 0 = 5.40% ABV
Using half a cup yields 5.56%

So in reality its basically a wash, I doubt you can taste the difference between 5.34%, 5.40% and 5.56%

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So what is the way to get a semi-sweet sparkling cider using heat pasteurization?

If I ferment from 1.051-->1.010 and add 1oz priming sugar, my gravity will be 1.013 according to your calculation (3 gravity points), correct? Seems pretty dry to me.

I just tested a semi-sweet sparkling cider I bought from a local orchard - 1.018 gravity. Not sure if you can test it accurately when carbonated, but regardless... this tastes just slightly sweet @ 1.018, so 1.013 seems too dry.

How do I get a slightly higher (~1.020-1.025) FG and bottle carb, then heat pasteurize?

j-rad said:

So what is the way to get a semi-sweet sparkling cider using heat pasteurization?

If I ferment from 1.051-->1.010 and add 1oz priming sugar, my gravity will be 1.013 according to your calculation (3 gravity points), correct? Seems pretty dry to me.

I just tested a semi-sweet sparkling cider I bought from a local orchard - 1.018 gravity. Not sure if you can test it accurately when carbonated, but regardless... this tastes just slightly sweet @ 1.018, so 1.013 seems too dry.

How do I get a slightly higher (~1.020-1.025) FG and bottle carb, then heat pasteurize?

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1.020 - 1.025 is going to be a very sweet draft cider, to my taste buds. Quite a big more sweet than the standard commercial varieties (Woodchuck, etc.), I think.

For me, around 1.010 gives me a good dose of sweetness, apple flavor, tart and light. One approach you might take is to start there or slightly sweeter and see how you like it.

Also, with my ciders, when its at 1.025, fermentation is still very active and I would not want to bottle it when its bubbling away fiercely.

Pappers_ said:

1.020 - 1.025 is going to be a very sweet draft cider, to my taste buds. Quite a big more sweet than the standard commercial varieties (Woodchuck, etc.), I think.

For me, around 1.010 gives me a good dose of sweetness, apple flavor, tart and light. One approach you might take is to start there or slightly sweeter and see how you like it.

Also, with my ciders, when its at 1.025, fermentation is still very active and I would not want to bottle it when its bubbling away fiercely.

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I read in a recipe thread that woodchuck is 1.026 so that is what I was basing it on.. Do you normally stop at 1.010? Ill give this a try and see how I like it.

can you test the gravity of a carbonated drink or do the bubbles skew the reading? Im just wondering what this sparkling cider would be as I like the semi-sweet taste.. not nearly as sweet as a woodchuck.

j-rad said:

I read in a recipe thread that woodchuck is 1.026 so that is what I was basing it on.. Do you normally stop at 1.010? Ill give this a try and see how I like it.

can you test the gravity of a carbonated drink or do the bubbles skew the reading? Im just wondering what this sparkling cider would be as I like the semi-sweet taste.. not nearly as sweet as a woodchuck.

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You may be right about Woodchuck, I don't know. I am drinking a sparkling cider right now and I bottled it right around 1.010 and really wouldn't want it much sweeter. But that's my taste, of course, not yours. That's the great thing about handmade cider and beer - you can make it the way you like it!

I know when I take gravity readings of beer 'in process' that I sometimes have to wait for the CO2 to dissipate before the hydrometer reading is accurate - I'd assume it would be the same for a fully carbonated cider, only it would take longer.

Well, I just sampled one of the ciders that I bottled some time ago. This was from the batch that I attempted to pasturize, and got nothing but bottle bombs. So I opened all the rest of the bottles, dumped them back into the fermenter and just let it ferment out. I didn't keep good notes on this one, but I did backsweeten (primed) it with honey. It had set for quite a while and when I racked it, there wasn't much vaible yeast in the cider. It took a very long time to carb up, but it is finally at the level that I like. I am going to try and pasturize these now, to keep them at the level they are at now. I will update my session after I finish.

I also have two other ciders that I just bottled 3 days ago. I will let them go another day or two before I start checking the carb level.

So here are my results from my pasturizing of my cider.

I prepared the cider before putting them into the hot water bath. I just partially filled another pot with water right from the sink, as hot as I could get it. I then placed all my bottles in this pre-bath. My thinking was that if I bring the temp up somewhat, the shock of putting them in the hot bath won't be as bad.

I went lower than the OP suggested, and after the bottle bombs last time (my fault), I didn't want to chance it.

I used the data that somebody posted (JoeSponge - Thank you) with the different temps and times.

I decided on 170*, once my water was there I shut the burner off and placed 6 bottles of cider and a test bottle to check on internal temps. The first six were maintained at 148* for 6 minutes. Total time of about 15 minutes. The second batch I didn't get a good reading because I used the same preheated tester, but I let it go the same time duration, 15 minutes. The third batch I used a fresh tester and the cider was maintained at 145* (clock started) and climbed to 148* (8 minutes in temp range).

All my caps were swelled, but no hissers, pissers or bombs.
I think they swelled because they were a bit over carbed, but not gushers.

I let them cool on the counter overnight and put them in their case this morning. Everything looked good. I can't wait to see how well they turn out.

My next attempt will be soon. I have a cranberry cider and a mead (cyser) bottled and carbing away. I will check the first one tonight to see how things are coming along.

In addition to posting here, if you want to reach me, please feel free to pm me, as I anticipate being away from the forum for awhile. PM's go to my email, so I will be more likely to see them.

Does anybody know if carbonation is affected by the temperature the bottle are resting in ? My room in at a steady 73 and carbonation is reached in as little as 3 days ! Would I get better bubbles if I put the bottles in my basement where it is around 68 ?

There was a young man from the east
Who mixed apple juice with some yeast
Pasteurizing went well
Till the last batch blew hell
Now the wife isn't sure in the least


Great thread here, and pasteurizing definitely seems like the way to go if you want natural sparkling cider with any residual sugar and dead yeast. I just completed my first batch of cider which was nicely fizzy, but definitely nowhere near over-carbonated. Zero chance of bottle sprays when opening (just some light bubbles coming up from the bottom after taking the cap off and a light fizz).

Pasteurizing went well until the last batch...30 seconds before the 10 minute timer went off, one bottle blew up dramatically, blasting the lid off the pan and spraying water/cider all over the kitchen. Scared the you-know-what out of us and the dog. The bottle cap stayed on, but the neck blew off and the side of the bottle blew out. Probably a bottle with a weakness somewhere, but I'm glad it didn't wait another minute. I might have been pulling the bottle out of the pan at that point.

I'm an very cautious person, so I've been wary while working with these bottles, knowing the risks. But I would reiterate that you do need to treat the bottles like potential bombs until at least they've cooled down and proven themselves resistant. I've been thinking about trying to make a secondary lid for the deep pan's pasta insert, so that the bottles can stay fully inside an enclosure until they cool down...

I've used S4 with store bought juice that I bumped up to 1.052 and racked at 1.010 using your stove top method. It usually take 3 to 4 days for my cider to get carbed but I opened one today after 3 days and it almost flat ?

I can also see right through the bottle and the cider is exceptionally clear just as if the yeast died ? It strange as the cider was really still bubbling like crazy when I bottle it 3 days ago ? I usually see that the cider is not clear when it's carbing in the bottle but it's super clear right now.

Is it possible the racking stooped the fermentation and what to do next ?

Would I still need to use priming sugar if I racked this and bottled at 1.025-ish? I would think no? Or, should I cold crash first and then bottle for a slower in-bottle carbination before pasteurizing?

Just wanted to drop in and say I followed the instructions in the original post with great success. I started at 1.060 and Nottingham yeast, waited until 1.016, then bottled. I knew from my hydrometer readings that the yeast were eating about .003/day, and knowing that I normally prime with .003 units of sugar, I figured they would probably be carbonated after 24 hours, and sure enough, they were nicely fizzy after just one day.

I didn't get any swollen caps or hissers or anything during my pasteurization, and have since consumed 2 more bottles (a day later) that are not additionally carbonated, so I would say that the kill temp was reached. The cider is also substantially clearer, probably because of the yeast dropping out when they died. (I didn't use a secondary, so much yeast was left in suspension at bottling) It's true that the cider doesn't have time to clear before bottling with this method, but I suspect it will clear nicely in the bottle as I let it age. But, the yeast actually add a unique and nice flavor to the cider, so I may shake the crap back into the cider like you might a hefe.

the problem with this website is, i get up on a saturday, late morning, have a coffee, read a post like the one above, and i just get so damn thirsty~! i'm trying to age my autumn batches a few months and now i just want to drink everything

A few posts ago I said I was going to try this pasteurization method on some cider. The holidays got too busy, so after bottling I just tossed the whole batch in the fridge at low temp and left it there (except the ones I drank, which were delicious!). Anyway, the problem is that I can't give bottles away or enter them in competitions because they need to stay refrigerated to keep fermention in check. Plus, my spare fridge is now doubling as a cheese cave (too many hobbies!) and I have to keep it at 55 degrees.

Which brings me, finally, to my question. I'm thinking of using the mash tun in my eHERMS setup to pasteurize what's left. I figure this has a number of potential advantages over stove-top processing:

• large capacity
• excellent temp control
• pretty much bullet-proof container in case something blows
• I can ramp up the heat gently and then drain to cool, thus never having to handle hot bottles

Has anyone tried this approach? Any comments? (Btw, I have already checked to make sure the bottles, or at least samples thereof, are not over-carbed)

Perhaps a dumb question . . . .

Has anyone tried this with Grolsch "Flip Top" bottles?

AzuredEyed said:

Perhaps a dumb question . . . .

Has anyone tried this with Grolsch "Flip Top" bottles?

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i have. essentially, it worked, but the seals fizzed on most of the bottles despite using a lower kill temperature. i described what happened previously in this thread. i didn't check/change the seals since they held water fine when shaken violently. so far all have retained carbonation well despite the fizzing. one was actually a gusher when opened, as i failed to get the first batch of four bottles hot enough, but the subsequent batches are fine. suggesting that not THAT much gas was lost through fizzing?? dunno
i guess you could test the seal by buying a bottle of grolsch (is there a non-dutch person anywhere in the world who can pronounce grolsch) and heating it

So I just pasturized two batches of cider, yesterday, and had no issues until the last batch of 6 bottles, just like mattco. I used the same procedure from the previous page and everything went perfectly until the very last batch. I was in the house and heard a strange sound, and then it dawned on me that it sounded like a bottle exploding. So I went into the garage and sure enough, the lid on my pot was almost off. I took a quick peak inside, and the bottles were all laying down. I still had 4 minutes for the batch to finish, so I just covered them batck up and waited. When the time finished, I very gently removed them one at a time. I got 4 of them out and was reaching in for number 5, when BOOOOOOOM, one of the four exploded. Firtunately I was facing away from them at the time. I only got splashed on my pant legs and shoes with a little hot cider. Most of it ended up on the garage floor. Once I got the last bottle out. I took the pot in the house to let them cool for a few minutes, and to pour off the water so I could get the glass out of the pot. I then brought them into the house, after cleaning up the glass shards strewn about the garage. Then proceded to soak up as much of the cider I could. Thankfully this happened in the garage, and SWMBO was gone too. I know the batch of cider that had the bombs was a bit over carbed, but not enough to prevent pouring one in a glass and not having it foam over. So it must have been just a couple weak bottles. All in all, the pasturization has been working very well. All my ciders are done for the time being. Now it's just time to brew beer and enjoy the cider I have.

Have done cider now two years in a row now. Last year just kegged, and filled some bottles off a keg and then kept cold. Really wanted it shelf-stable this year, so gave pasteurization a try this. So after primary, backsweetened with extra juice and concentrate, then bottled. About a week later they were carbed and ready to go.

Followed Pappers' method to a T. Put my brew pot on the stove and did them in batches of 10 bottles. That was on 1/9. Bottles have been at room temp since, and every bottle opened is at the exact carb level it was before pasteurizing. I'm ready to call it a success!

Thanks Pappers!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted that I was planning to try the pasteurization process in my eHERMS. It was a great idea, but in the meantime my bottles had, apparently, warmed up a bit (I was keeping them well chilled in the fridge, but needed the fridge for other purposes), resumed fermenting, and 9 of the 12 bottles ended up blowing up like cider-grenades when I brought them up to temp. All of the explosions in the basement got some raised eyebrows from the wife and definitely woke the dog, but all was safely contained in my keggle. In case you're wondering, though, this is what one of those babies looked after processing. Obviously, as others have observed, there's enough force and shrapnel here to do some real damage. So, caveat emptor!:cross:

wow man so after reading in how many ways this can go wrong isn't it better to ferment dry to FG 1.000 and then use only a little sugar to bottle carb and leave the bootles alone?

Heineken_Draught said:

wow man so after reading in how many ways this can go wrong isn't it better to ferment dry to FG 1.000 and then use only a little sugar to bottle carb and leave the bootles alone?

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I've done that too, but ended up with a very dry cider. If you want to keep a bit of sweet to offset the acid, you have to do something to keep the yeasties from eating all the sugar. There are various ways to end up with a sweet, sparkling cider. This just happens to be the noisiest.

Man - I've read through 19 pages of this and I still can't say that I have any confidence whatsoever...

I've got a cider fermenting right now - been bubbling heartily for 5-6 days and is about to reach the 1.02 range... I basically want a "more-dry" Woodchuck Draft Cider (anyone ever have Five Seeds by Toohees in Australia? That's what I'm aiming for...) I definitely want "sparkling."

I used a champagne cider which I didn't realize would consume ALL the sugar - still learning all the science of this... Obviously I don't want it to do that, so I need to stop fermentation, but still want sparkling - it's begining to get confusing...

I think what I'm going to do is letting it hit 1.02, then putting it in the garage which is still quite cold (Western PA - temps in 30's still) to let it cold crash a little bit, then racking to a bottling bucket with a priming sugar and bottling. I'll keep it in the garage to slow the carbonation process, and also use one plastic soda bottle to "test-squeeze." Then I'll cautiously try Pappers's method - though I strongly think a safer method would be to put the bottles in the water at room temp and slowly heat the water to the desire temp, instead of dropping bottles into hot water (would obviously want a temp diffuser at the bottom of the pan though). Basically I'm going to do everything I can to keep the carbonation process SLOW, so as to prevent missing a potentially-narrow window of opportunity to do this safely.

Thoughts?

@Viperman

You are doing things significantly different than I do (champagne yeast rather than ale yeast, 1.020 sg rather than 1.010 or 12, plus the cold crashing). Have you considered letting the cider ferment to dry, then adding both sugar to carbonate and non-fermentable sweetener (like splenda) to backsweeten? No need to pasteurize then.

For what it's worth, I've made dozens of five gallon batches using the pasteurizing method described without a broken bottle.

I still think the best way is to gee a kegging set up, even if basic. Once you have that you have the tools to back sweeten and carb without the risks of bottle bombs.

Just like in canning, the more you re-use the bottles, the more likely it is that you will wear them down and get a bottle to crack and break.

With a keg it is easy and reliable. Ferment dry, cold crash 24 hours, rack off lees into bottling bucket, add sorbate, add backsweetening sugar and malic acid if needed, sulphite at 30 PPM and to your keg to force carb. You can always bottle after they carb in the keg.

A basic single keg set up is pretty reasonable. If you are a cider junky, well work the investment.

Thanks for the replies.

I really don't want to back-sweeten as I want the natural apple sugars to come through (I started with a non-pasteurized, ultra-fresh cider that was the most amazing stuff I ever tasted...)

I stopped home at my lunch break and decided to check on things, and discovered that I'm already at 1.02. Problem is, we're expecting temps in the 40's and even 50's this week, so I'm not sure how well cold-crashing is going to work (don't have a fridge big enough to fit a bucket in.)

But I stuck it in the garage anyways (currently 47 degrees) to start slowing it down - I figure if it gets to a 1.015 or so I'd still be alright with it. (By the way I tasted it - good, but way too much cinnamon.)

One quick question I have is this: What is the end effect if I let a bottle carbonate, open it, then reseal it? If it's really cold, will it hold enough carbonation or taste funky/flat? My thought was to bottle it, let it carbonate, then open the bottles and drop in some crushed campden tablets to kill the yeast.

The campden tablet bottle says to add more caplets just before you bottle wine, so my guess is it doesn't add any pressure, flavor, or otherwise harmful "stuff", and should be okay to recap after adding. Of course, I could be wrong...

The only other idea I have is to rack it, get it as cold as I can, rack it again, then bottle it, and hope that just enough yeast sticks around to bottle carb...

The yeast will reproduce either way.

Camden doesn't kill commercial yeast, it suppresses it. The only way to do what you are trying to do, is bottle pastuerize or force carb in a keg and then bottle

CidahMastah is correct - Camden won't do the job for you.

Your idea about cold crashing and racking would work well if you are making semi-dry still cider, but is problematic for bottle carbonated cider. Think about it - if you cold crash to make the yeast go dormant and flocculate, then rack off the yeast bed, the point is to stop fermentation. CvilleKevin has posted quite a bit about cold crashing - I think he uses this technique with still cider.

Another option would be to chill the bottles after they are carbonated, making the yeast dormant. You must keep the bottles cold, though, because if they warm up, the yeast will start eating sugars again.

Bottle conditioned, semi-dry, natural cider is a challenge, hence the pasteurization method I use. As CidahMastah said, this is not an issue for folks who keg.

Edit: I just remembered that you used champagne yeast and I don't know the effects of temperature on that yeast, as I have never used it for cider. So, I can't say for certain that my suggestion about chilling the bottles post-carbonation would work.

Yeah - I obviously had much less "figured out" when I started the process than I thought...

Been reading on these pages and other pages of people who still get bottle carbonation after cold crashing - apparently enough yeast gets left that it can bottle-carb.

Plus, the champagne yeast seems to ferment so hard that even from the primary, there seems to be mild carbonation. I tasted some of mine last night and was surprised - it felt bubbly on the tongue. Also very acidic, which I can't imagine is from the 4 oranges worth of zest that I added. I also added a pound of honey and pound of brown sugar. Perhaps I should have added even more?...

So here's what I'm trying: I'm cold crashing the cider now in my fridge at 34 degrees (as cold as it gets.) I'm assuming from the champagne yeast that I won't get it all out. (I'm using the 11118 stuff.) I'm going to rack it - possibly even a few times to try and get MOST of the yeast out. I'm also going to closely watch the gravity over the next 2 days in the fridge to see if fermentation stops or keeps going.

by Thursday/Friday'ish, if I don't see any more fermentation, I'm going to probably rack it again, then add store-bought apple juice WITH PRESERVATIVES to the bucket - enough to bring it back to five gallons. I'll probably add a smidge of priming sugar, but not the full amount since the apple juice will be sweetened with most-likely fermentable sugar. Then I'll bottle. I'll leave it at room temp with a few extra bottles and even a plastic soda bottle to see if it carbonates, and how much carbonation I get. I'm hoping that while it's carbonating, the preservatives in the apple juice will keep it from going too fast, or possibly even stall it out. Of course, it might stop it all-together, though I doubt it'll work that quickly. When it seems carbonated enough, I'll refrigerate it all again and hopefully stop the fermentation again.

If I discover in the next few days that it won't stop fermenting, then I'll have no choice but to let it finish out, and do the whole "concentrated apple juice and splenda" trick, and then wait a bajillion months for it to taste decent again.

I'll start researching kegging, but I really have no interest in assuming that expense right now. Summer time is approaching the Viper needs new tires ;-)

Thanks.

one thing to add to this ongoing discussion,
the first time i tried this procedure, i was pasteurizing a batch fermented with a wild yeast (from a friend's orchard outside paris) and despite some teething problems things seemed to go fairly well, at least the bottles got to the target temperature. i tried a few bottles several weeks later and they were great. but a month later the one i opened was a total gusher. and it was dry rather than semi-sweet! last weekend i found a final crown cap bottle (all the rest were in swing-tops) that i didn't realize i still had, and the cap was bulging! luckily it was in one of those short stout belgian ale bottles which are pretty strong. i fridged it as soon as i saw it, of course it was dangerously overcarbonated, and very dry. since this batch i have pasteurized two other batches, both using safale04, with the same conditions (70-75 degrees for 30 minutes) and they were absolutely fine. so the message is: know your yeast!! sterile juice fermented with a commercial yeast will be absolutely fine but if there is a rogue strain or bacterium in the background that is heat tolerant, and you kill off the predominant yeast, those rogue guys take over in the bottle. and then you are in big trouble. if i ever pasteurize wild yeast cider again (don't think i will since i like these dry anyways) or a cider that is likely to have something waiting in the wings, i will use a high temperature and much longer time, a temperature closer to that used by the author of this thread, who by the way has been taking a roasting in various threads of this site, despite the multitude of disclaimers at every corner, and i don't blame him (i don't actually know the gender of anyone here) at all for my failure. i think i had good reason for changing the conditions form the ones he recommended, well- one reason- the fear of flying shards associated with a very high carbonation level, and i now see that it was risky to assume that this lowish temp would kill off the whole flora of microorganisms in a wild brew, and so it tuned out to have been a failure, albeit an educational one, which is why i hope others can learn from it.
the really odd thing is that it was a french yeast that refused to surrender...

Per my experiments, it took about 5 minutes for the liquid inside a beer bottle to reach 140 degrees in a pot of 162('ish) degree water with the burner off. After 15 minutes, the pot had dropped to around 155 and the liquid in the bottle hit 145. This doesn't reflect any possible variances that might be caused by the bottle being capped (obviously I had a thermometer stuck down into it) but I somewhat expect the impact would be minimal. Experiment was performed with a standard "long-neck" bottle, stainless steel pot with silicon insulator on bottom, electric heat (yeah yeah yeah, I know....)

EDIT* Sorry - I thought I was replying to a post about temp differentials inside bottles... I guess I was on a previous page...

ViperMan said:

Per my experiments, it took about 5 minutes for the liquid inside a beer bottle to reach 140 degrees in a pot of 162('ish) degree water with the burner off. After 15 minutes, the pot had dropped to around 155 and the liquid in the bottle hit 145. This doesn't reflect any possible variances that might be caused by the bottle being capped (obviously I had a thermometer stuck down into it) but I somewhat expect the impact would be minimal. Experiment was performed with a standard "long-neck" bottle, stainless steel pot with silicon insulator on bottom, electric heat (yeah yeah yeah, I know....)

EDIT* Sorry - I thought I was replying to a post about temp differentials inside bottles... I guess I was on a previous page...

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I admire your scientific approach Viper. I pasteurized another batch two nights ago. I've lost track of how many batches I've pasteurized now, but its been dozens, with no bottle bombs, either while pasteurizing or afterwards.

I'm thinking about doing a test batch of simple sparkling cider with some pomegranate juice added to it, just to see how it turns out. Although I am reminded of my ginger apple cider experiment - I learned why you never see ginger apple pies, what a horrible combination.

way off topic, but i'll be quick. i agree in principle about ginger apple combo in cider, i have tried it, and it was far from what you would call delicious, tasted like medicine in fact, but most mornings i have fresh apple ginger carrot juice from my juicer and it is really (honestly!) spectacular. two tart apples, one large carrot, a thumbnail size of ginger. try it once if you have a juicer. don't ferment it

That does sounds good, Dinner!

ViperMan said:

Per my experiments, it took about 5 minutes for the liquid inside a beer bottle to reach 140 degrees in a pot of 162('ish) degree water with the burner off. After 15 minutes, the pot had dropped to around 155 and the liquid in the bottle hit 145. This doesn't reflect any possible variances that might be caused by the bottle being capped (obviously I had a thermometer stuck down into it) but I somewhat expect the impact would be minimal. Experiment was performed with a standard "long-neck" bottle, stainless steel pot with silicon insulator on bottom, electric heat (yeah yeah yeah, I know....)

EDIT* Sorry - I thought I was replying to a post about temp differentials inside bottles... I guess I was on a previous page...

Click to expand...

Is anyone here smart enough to extrapolate how long it might take to reach the proper temperature in a quart bottle (32oz) based on the above information. Because i'm sure not bright enough to pull it off.

Damnit! I had my whole process figured out, but missed one little dern thing. I bottle 750ml Champagne bottles, so I wasn't as concerned as others with the bottle bombx, knowing the glass could handle the extra pressure.

So I bottled my 2.5g batch, 12bottles and 2 500ml plastic soda bottles for pressure testing. I had back sweetened with the same non filtered juice that I made the cider with. After ~36hrs (last night) I tested one of the plastic bottles that was firm, and it wasn't yet at the carb level I was hoping for. Today I tested the 2nd as the bottle was nice and hard from the carbing. It was perfectly carbonated.

So I go ahead and start the pasteurizing process as stated precisely in the OP. I was doing 4 bottles per batch in the 190deg water, leaving a few inches and the caps out of the water.

Little did I think that I use PLASTIC CORKS! After the ten minutes I pulled out the bottles and all four caps are slightly melted and 2 are pissing a slight amount of air out!

I'm not sure what my options are now. I can't put the next 8 bottles into the pot, or I'll risk them as well. I can't just leave them be, or they will eventually blow as there is a fair amount of sugars in those bottles. And I don't have the fridge space for all of them, especially considering these bottles were designated for summer time consumption.

Any thoughts?

Please note I am on a little bit of a tight schedule. They can afford to carb a bit more, but I need to do something today.