Wrong Cider Fermenting....

I had a buddy pick up 6 gallons of cider when he was up state only to find they had potassium sorbate in the ingredient list. I left them in the basement and forgot about them for a week or two. I just went down there to look at them and 3 of them are about to burst! Should I dump them all together and see what happens? I realize this would be wild yeast activity but would it make anything drinkable?

You might as well let them ferment out, it should be fine as long as it's yeast fermenting and not some kind of infection.

So, you didn't add anything?
The potassium sorbate is just a preservative that hinders yeast activity, so nevermind that seeing you HAVE activity.
Wild yeast isn't necessarily a BAD thing...let it go. As long as you don't identify it as an infection it should turn out interesting, to say the least.

For good measure I threw in a packet of lager yeast (Safe something). Ehh, we shall see. I'll report back here

Most likely the results will be fine. Potassium sorbate only prevents yeast from multiplying, not fermenting. Stopping apple juice from fermenting into a drinkable cider is tough.

Update: Bad idea. Did not work. Thick, syrupy consistency. Sour twang, dumper.

hlumbard said:

Update: Bad idea. Did not work. Thick, syrupy consistency. Sour twang, dumper.

Click to expand...

Likely your cider was purchased from a cider place with poor sanitation (at least for those bottles.)

For the sorbate to be beat out by yeast means that there must have been a pretty healthy yeast population in your cider before they sorbated it. So it si certinaly likely that the cider had been sitting around in a warm environment for too long prior to their actually sorbating it for processing.

I believe the bateria that infected your cider were genus Lactobacillus; i.e the bacteria responsible for cider "ropiness". I myself have never experienced that kind of infection personally, but then again I press my own and am very sanitary about it.


See: http://www.cider.org.uk/part5.htm