Pasteurization methods to stabilize bottled fermented apple cider

This method pretty much takes care of 2 birds with one stone, locks in carbonation by killing the yeast, and would keep your cider good almost indefinitely. Wondering why this isn't more commonly used as a way to stabilize brews?

Easy to do on stovetop, tall pot, get water to 160F, and submerge bottles 1/2 for 10 minutes. Done. No noticeable flavor loss (most of our apple juice/ciders have been pasteurized once, what's one more time?)

S. VALOIS and O. I. Padilla-Zakour. Food Science and Technology, Cornell Univ., New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, 630 W. North St., Geneva, NY 14456-1371

Processed apple products constitute an important part of New York's food industry. Hard (fermented) cider is made by yeast fermentation of juice and represents a small but growing portion of the market for alcoholic beverages, providing an alternative utilization of apples for specialty value-added products. Our objective was to evaluate the effect of various pasteurization treatments on the microbial stability and quality of bottled hard cider prepared without chemical preservatives. Hard cider (6.5%alcohol) was pasteurized and packaged in ten ounce glass bottles with screw caps using two methods: hot-fill-hold and water bath process. Ciders were hot-filled at 60°C, 63° C, and 65.5° C with a hold time of 3 minutes before cooled in 24°C water. Bottled cider samples were pasteurized in a water bath at 74° C for 10, 20, and 30 minutes and submersed in 74° C water for 5 minutes. Bacteria, yeast, and mold counts were measured before and after treatments. Ciders were analyzed for pH, titratable acidity, residual sugars, alcohol, Hunter color and evaluated by a sensory panel to determine if panelists could find a difference between the methods. All trials were conducted in duplicate. All hot-fill-hold and bottle pasteurization methods eliminated spoilage organisms that might decrease the shelf life, indicating that a short process at low temperature is sufficient to stabilize the cider. There were no significant differences between the treatments for alcohol, sugars, color, pH or titratable acidity. Taste panels showed a noticeable difference between treatments and control as well as between pasteurization treatments. Lower temperatures and shorter times resulted in best quality. Small wineries or cider producers could use a short time in bottle pasteurization, which would only require a source of hot water, or a low temperature hot packing line in order to have a stable hard cider while maintaining flavor profile and eliminating use of preservatives.

That's rather surprising. I wouldn't have expected enough heat would transfer in 10 minutes. But as a Cornellian myself, I trust the folks in FS&T.

I wonder how well this would work on soda? The biggest problem is preventing too much carbonation. Killing the yeast in the bottle would be perfect.

Well you would need an extra tall pot with a lid if you have big bottles, and lid must be on to keep temp in. A thermocouple shows that the bottle core reaches 150 in about 5-7 minutes, its pretty quick. Yeast is dead shortly thereafter. But the bottles should be room temperature obviously, the warmer the better. Put cold bottles in and you have a lukewarm bath of nothing.

I'd make sure you read the post Results of my first in-bottle pasteurization experiment! in Equipment /Sanitation by Pintofbitter. You will want a cover on that pot in case a bottle does blow. One guy uses a pressure cooker with the presssure relief valve extracted. I'v read that post from the Geneva experimental station before and have stopped to talk to the lady twice but she was not there. (I live just a few miles away) When I get some info from her I will pass it on.
I understand the water bath process but what is the hot fill hold process. Sorry for being stupid!! Can anyone explain that?

RugenBrau said:

I understand the water bath process but what is the hot fill hold process. Sorry for being stupid!! Can anyone explain that?

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Hot-fill-hold is pretty self explanatory once you break it up-

1. hot-fill (fill with heated product at or above pasteurization temps)
2. hold at that temperature for a specific time

It would only seem to make sense when you have a method for quickly bringing the product up to the pasteurization temperature... if you're leaving it in a pot at 160 degrees for a long time anyway, it's kind of pointless. Well, except for the fact that it would be killing anything still in the bottles.

Anybody have comments on the effect, if any, on taste? I have a batch of cider going now and this looks pretty interesting!

~M~

RugenBrau said:

I'd make sure you read the post Results of my first in-bottle pasteurization experiment! in Equipment /Sanitation by Pintofbitter. You will want a cover on that pot in case a bottle does blow. One guy uses a pressure cooker with the presssure relief valve extracted. I'v read that post from the Geneva experimental station before and have stopped to talk to the lady twice but she was not there. (I live just a few miles away) When I get some info from her I will pass it on.
I understand the water bath process but what is the hot fill hold process. Sorry for being stupid!! Can anyone explain that?

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this was my experiment, and I'd suggest you have some protection measures in place if you try any heat method. my pressure cooker worked great, but you need to remove a seal or something to keep pressure to ambient.

I'd also suggest monitoring the in-bottle temperature and make sure you're hitting the right temp for the right duration per the pasteurization tables. The bath temp and duration are not the whole story, there are other variables at work, like the relationship between the thermal masses of the bath, bottles, and beverage.

maybe a stupid question but would you leave the top of the bottles on or off??

has any1 tried this in the oven?

bump

curious about the oven????

I wouldn't try the oven due to the uneven heating that will happen. You'll end up with some bottles that explode and some that don't get pasteurized. Submerging in water keeps everything nice and equal, as well as increases heat transfer. In pasteurization, temperature rise time and fall time play an important role in killing baddies.

And bottles must be capped or CO2 will be driven out.

I'm getting ready to try my first cider batch. Some of it is going to be given away in bottles and it's going to need to be both carbonated and back-sweetened. Is this the best method to do this?

What do I do, ferment it out, transfer to secondary for clarification, back-sweeten/bottle carbonate and then when the desired carbon level is hit after a few test openings pasteurize to stop the process? I've seen discussions on sweetening and carbing but they don't usually seem to work together.

Just be aware that you need to take a lot of care in order for this to work. I would suggest shooting for a lower carbonation level and having a safe way to heat the bottles. Again, I hafta recommend the pressure cooker with the removed seal. Make sure you're measuring temperatures. There's a fine line between bottle bombs due to inadequate pasteurization and bottle bombs due to overheating.

I personally would not feel comfortable doing this with a bottle conditioned beer or drink, due to the fact that there could be thousands of times more yeast in those bottles than beergun filled bottles. Leaves you with a lot less margin for error. That being said, it *should* work as long as you're diligent.

I wanna use champagne bottles to back sweeten and carbonate then pasteurize. Are there any alterations you would make?

thx

What about using the sanitizing mode in the dishwasher?

Wpwhittle said:

What about using the sanitizing mode in the dishwasher?

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Oooo. I do that to sanitize the bottles, even though I give a Star-san bath before filling. I can't see why it won't work. Place for liquid to go if there was an accident. Extra cleaning process on the outside.

Wpwhittle said:

What about using the sanitizing mode in the dishwasher?

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In the dishwasher you are using the hot water to sanitize the exterior surface of whatever you put in there. For the stuff inside the bottle you would have the same problem as the oven method, uneven heating, and poor heat transfer.

Would the dishwasher trick work to pasteurize beer-filled and carbonated bottles as well?

PintOfBitter said:

Just be aware that you need to take a lot of care in order for this to work. I would suggest shooting for a lower carbonation level and having a safe way to heat the bottles. Again, I hafta recommend the pressure cooker with the removed seal. Make sure you're measuring temperatures.

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Looking at this from a pressure stand point, wouldn't you want the pressure inside the pot to build up? These bottles have a risk of exploding due to higher internal pressures, if the anbiant pressure inside the pot is closer to the internal pressure of the bottle, isn't there lest risk of bottle bombs?

That's an interesting point. The main reason to keep temp ambient would be to keep the water temperature from spiking too high. My experiment required a remote thermometer into a control bottle, so I wouldn't really have been able to carry it off without the seals removed, anyway.

If you had another way to control the bottle internal temperature, or if you were willing to live with very long dwell times at a controlled bath temperature (measured on the outside of the vessel), you could operate under slight pressure and somewhat reduce the chance of bottle bombs.

Necro thread; did this few weeks back. Had enough to fill 2 750ml vodka pop top bottles (small batch). Put a pureed raspberry in there along with a little sugar, closed it, let it carb for a few days (only did 4days ish, so it may or may not be carbed enough)

anyway, utilized my sous vide machine @165 (165 was a mistake meant to hit 160 but w/e). Threw em in there for about 20 mins and pulled them out. Sous vide machine kept temp constant and circulation going. Would rec. And if you dont own a sous vide machine, get one. Best food ever.

littlejon326 said:

Necro thread; did this few weeks back. Had enough to fill 2 750ml vodka pop top bottles (small batch). Put a pureed raspberry in there along with a little sugar, closed it, let it carb for a few days (only did 4days ish, so it may or may not be carbed enough)

anyway, utilized my sous vide machine @165 (165 was a mistake meant to hit 160 but w/e). Threw em in there for about 20 mins and pulled them out. Sous vide machine kept temp constant and circulation going. Would rec. And if you dont own a sous vide machine, get one. Best food ever.

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+1. not to mention if you get the stick kind of sous vide unit you can use it to hold mash temps perfectly, and hopstand/whirlpools as well. i love mine.

as for cider- yes, this works. yes you should open a bottle and sample until you hit right carb level. then pastuerize- with lid on in case of explosion. and be very carefuly about subjecting bottles to too much temperature fluctuation- cold bottle into hot kettle, or 160F bottle from kettle into cold ~50F tap water. lots of ways to cause bottle bomb. although i guess if you cool too fast then that's an implosion of the bottle- an anti-bomb?

anyways, speaking from experience. this all works. just be careful.