Easy Stove-Top Pasteurizing - With Pics

scottycope said:

Hi everyone,

I made it about 20 pages into the thread, but didn't see anything that would answer my question. Anyway, I am in the process right now of letting my cider bottle-carbonate after using FAJC. I plan on using this pasteurization method once my plastic soda bottle test tells me it's time (i'm checking this thing almost every hour).

My question is - once I pasteurize my bottles do I need to keep them cold? I would assume the answer is no since the yeasties would be dead, but I wasn't sure.

If refrigeration is required - i guess I better start downing the bottles since I don't have the space for 2 cases of cider in my fridge.

Thanks in advance!
Scott

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You won't have to keep them cold. That is why you pasteurize it.

Thanks so much for the info. I knew that pasteurization had to be possible, but didn't know the temp and timing. I've been canning for way more years than I like to admit, and have also been making wine, but hadn't figured out the details. I have a 5 gal batch of cider that I made with l1118 yeast because it was what we had on hand, and it is getting way too strong and dry.

I used flip top bottles to run some carbonation tests, and in my case 2 days is all it takes to get it as carbonated as I want. (I'll still check again when I'm bottling since the temp in my pantry is wildly variable this time of year.

I wanted to add for the folks who keep asking that using the oven is a really, REALLY bad idea. First, the internal temp of your liquid is increased faster and more evenly in water, and second, you're way more likely to have an explosion even if using canning jars that are designed for high heat and rough handling.

On the other hand, if you have access to a pressure canner it would work great with the weight off or valve open, and provide some extra safety since the lid fastens down.

I also would always use a good rack or thick layer of towels under the bottles, since even with the stove off, the bottom of the pan will be hotter than the water itself and ny uneven temperature ups the odds of breakage.

Quick question- sorry if it's already been asked some time in the last 60 pages or so...

I'm using liter flip top bottles which probably have about 2x the diameter of a regular 12oz bottle. How much should I adjust the time they're in the water? I was thinking 15 or 20 minutes at 190f should be good, but I wanted to ask here in case anyone else was already using that type of bottle.

What I ended up doing was letting them warm up in the sink(my tap only gets up to about 130f), and then putting four of them into a pot of around 190f water for 15 minutes.

Fortunately my dad does a lot of canning, so I borrowed a big pot and rack from him. The rack has allowed me to keep the stove on without breaking any bottles(so far- I'm only 12 bottles in), which is saving a lot of time. This electric stove is slow to heat that much water, so I'm glad to not have to reheat it every time.

A few seals have worked their way partially out, but they seem to still be secure...

Edit1: Spoke too soon! As soon as I posted this, one popped. Oddly enough, it was one that was only like 5/8ths full...I would have thought the extra head-space would have made it less likely to explode?

Edit2: There goes another...time for a new tactic! I'm going to lower the temp and raise the time, and probably turn off the heat during the soak for the rest of the bottles...

yarghble said:

What I ended up doing was letting them warm up in the sink(my tap only gets up to about 130f), and then putting four of them into a pot of around 190f water for 15 minutes.

Fortunately my dad does a lot of canning, so I borrowed a big pot and rack from him. The rack has allowed me to keep the stove on without breaking any bottles(so far- I'm only 12 bottles in), which is saving a lot of time. This electric stove is slow to heat that much water, so I'm glad to not have to reheat it every time.

A few seals have worked their way partially out, but they seem to still be secure...

Edit1: Spoke too soon! As soon as I posted this, one popped. Oddly enough, it was one that was only like 5/8ths full...I would have thought the extra head-space would have made it less likely to explode?

Edit2: There goes another...time for a new tactic! I'm going to lower the temp and raise the time, and probably turn off the heat during the soak for the rest of the bottles...

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190 is too hot bro, the thread heads have changed the temp to 170 I believe...

What's the concensus on automatic dishwasher pasteurization? Don't use the heated dry cycle, just the heated wash? Still efficacious? I know it works on small bottles (or I'd have a big. mess in my house)... how about bombers?

Hi all

Pappers thank you for your thorough explanations.

I am about to start my first batch of hard cider, but 90% of the recipes I've read mention 2-3 rackings? Is it ok to bottle the cider after just one rack? I'm thinking of following Pappers' method, but i'm not too sure if I shouldn't rack the cider a 2 nd time. How much will the S.G. decrease after a 2nd racking? I'm thinking of racking it somewhere between 1.015 and 1.020.

Thank you.

kukubau said:

Hi all

Pappers thank you for your thorough explanations.

I am about to start my first batch of hard cider, but 90% of the recipes I've read mention 2-3 rackings? Is it ok to bottle the cider after just one rack? I'm thinking of following Pappers' method, but i'm not too sure if I shouldn't rack the cider a 2 nd time. How much will the S.G. decrease after a 2nd racking? I'm thinking of racking it somewhere between 1.015 and 1.020.

Thank you.

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Racking is fine, will help clarify, etc, especially if you are using fresh-pressed apples.

These days, I'm making cider by letting store bought apple juice ferment to dry, then mixing the fermented cider with more apple juice in the bottling bucket, bottling, and pasteurizing when carbed. I usually use three gallons of fermented cider and add one gallon of juice.

Question: Why do people use things like K-meta/sorbate to still a cider when you could just bring it to 170 and kill the yeast without adding... additives?

To elaborate further: I have a batch of cider that I want to crash at 1.01 for kegging. Thing is, I dont have room in the fridge right now so I am left with 3 options (as I understand).

1. Add k-meta and sorbate to halt the yeast.
2. Let it dry out all the way and add non-fermentables to back sweeten to 1.01ish
3. Pasteurize the entire batch in a brew kettle(?)

I have been reading around a bit but I never hear of anyone just bulk pasteurizing a 5g batch of cider then force carbing it in the keg.

On paper, it sounds good to me. Any thoughts?

I never hear of anyone just bulk pasteurizing a 5g batch [/QUOTE]

I did that... and it works well. Make sure you have a lid so you don't "distill" the alcohol in the process

As long as I keep the temp under 170, I don't think I should have any ethanol boil off though, correct?

i thinking of making a batch next week and I was wondering after a week or so of fermenting , I can back sweeten with some more cider, then add the priming sugar, bottle, and stove top pasteurize it, do you think that would work or not?

skidoobrewer said:

i thinking of making a batch next week and I was wondering after a week or so of fermenting , I can back sweeten with some more cider, then add the priming sugar, bottle, and stove top pasteurize it, do you think that would work or not?

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That's basically what I do often, except I let it ferment to dry before back sweetening. Also, no need for priming sugar if you're back sweetening with juice and bottling.

Pappers_ said:

Racking is fine, will help clarify, etc, especially if you are using fresh-pressed apples.

These days, I'm making cider by letting store bought apple juice ferment to dry, then mixing the fermented cider with more apple juice in the bottling bucket, bottling, and pasteurizing when carbed. I usually use three gallons of fermented cider and add one gallon of juice.

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Sorry for the stupid question, but are you backsweetening it with same juice used for hard cider or something different?

How much is lost at racking?

Thank you

I was think of fermenting 4 gal of cider, with a little brown sugar, cinnomon, then after a week adding another gal of unfermented cider to it, bottle then stove top pasteurize when it needed it. does that sound like that would work ok? or any ideas? ive been reading a lot on hard cider and theres a lot of confronting info, im trying to make a sweet easy drinking cider

kukubau said:

Sorry for the stupid question, but are you backsweetening it with same juice used for hard cider or something different?

How much is lost at racking?

Thank you

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Yup, I use the same juice for backsweeting. I only rack once, to a bottling bucket, mixing it with the backsweetening juice and then bottling. I only lose the bottom inch or two in the carboy, where the yeast has settled out.

skidoobrewer said:

I was think of fermenting 4 gal of cider, with a little brown sugar, cinnomon, then after a week adding another gal of unfermented cider to it, bottle then stove top pasteurize when it needed it. does that sound like that would work ok? or any ideas? ive been reading a lot on hard cider and theres a lot of confronting info, im trying to make a sweet easy drinking cider

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That sounds fine. I would wait more than a week, probably, to let the first fermentation complete, before adding the backsweetening juice and bottling.

I apologize if the answer to this question is tucked somewhere in this excellent thread already. I tried a search but came back lacking.

I always bottle beers in 1-liter EZ-Cap bottles. So, of course those are the only bottles that I have. Do these bottles work just as well using the stove-top pasteurization methods laid out in this thread? Do they need to sit in the water longer due to the increased size and volume? Does the cap style present any challenges or flaws that would make stove-top pasteurization unreliable?

Gipson said:

I apologize if the answer to this question is tucked somewhere in this excellent thread already. I tried a search but came back lacking.

I always bottle beers in 1-liter EZ-Cap bottles. So, of course those are the only bottles that I have. Do these bottles work just as well using the stove-top pasteurization methods laid out in this thread? Do they need to sit in the water longer due to the increased size and volume? Does the cap style present any challenges or flaws that would make stove-top pasteurization unreliable?

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they might warp or weaken the plastic

skidoobrewer said:

they might warp or weaken the plastic

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You mean of the caps themselves? The bottles are glass, of course.

Pasteurized our first 5 gallon batch last week per directions with no mishaps and good results. I did preheat the bottles in hot tap water and use a towel in the bottom of the pan and actual canning tongs to limit contact of the bottles with different temperature metals. No problems despite accidentally overheating the water for the last batch and being too tired/impatient to wait for the temp to drop below 190 f (I know, I could have added cool water - see "tired" above) I'd been doing 170-175 before that. Included an open bottle of water in one of the middle batches and the temp at the end was 155 f.

Pappers_ said:

Yup, I use the same juice for backsweeting. I only rack once, to a bottling bucket, mixing it with the backsweetening juice and then bottling. I only lose the bottom inch or two in the carboy, where the yeast has settled out.

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So you don't keep the hard cider in the secondary at all?

Do you use any formulas or add fixed quantity per gallon/liter when adding the backsweetening juice or you do it arbitrary (taste)?


edit:

I have just one more day to keep my cider in the primary.

I had today a zip and a gravity reading (1018). Do you think it'll drop under 1010 if I let it until tomorrow?

How would you describe the taste of your cider after 6 days? Mine has almost none residual sweetness left, although the S.G. is 1018 and a bit fizzy.

Ty

is general consensus to heat to 170-175 and not 190 like in the original post? i've tried to read as much of this thread as I can but I've noticed in the last week a few ppl mention 190 is too hot...I just bottled my first batch of cider last night so I'm hoping to clarify before I pasteurize. Thanks

Jaydog, I did mine at 180ºF. Put a cloth in the botom of the pot, bring it up to temp, turn off the heat, put bottles in, and put on a lid (just incase) for 10mins. I did that with no casualties.. hope that helps

branman said:

Jaydog, I did mine at 180ºF. Put a cloth in the botom of the pot, bring it up to temp, turn off the heat, put bottles in, and put on a lid (just incase) for 10mins. I did that with no casualties.. hope that helps

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Great thanks!

I did mine at 160 for 10 minutes and didn't have issues while pasteurizing nor did I have any bottle bombs or gushers after the fact. We are pasteurizing our cider simply to kill the yeast, not make the product safe for consumption. From what I have read most yeast are completely killed at 140 so holding a bottle at 160 for 10 minutes seems like more than enough time to kill them off.

I think you just go with whatever you are comfortable with. Since it was my first time and I had never done the process before, I decided to err on the side of lower temps. I keep my bottles in a cardboard case box which sits inside a rubbermaid container so any potential bombs would have been contained. I have about half a case left and they have been in there for over a month with no problems.

I am curious if I can perform stove top pasteurizing with the EZ cap beer bottles? Or do I just need to get bottles that I have to cap manually?

Question: I want to run pasteurization tests before I do the "real thing", using capped bottles full of water to see how long it takes a sink full of 180F water to heat the cider to 155-160F. My question is this: for the purposes of this testing, will water behave like fully fermented cider? That is, will water absorb and retain heat at the same rate that cider will?

Ok so I've got 10 gallons of Hard cider fermenting. This would be week 3 of the process. I would like to do this method of bottling. I plan to add juice to each 5 gallon bucket to both backsweeten and prime the bottles. Currently thinking 2 qts cherry, 2 qts apple per bucket. I have a few swing top grolsch style bottles, but not enough for this much cider. I also have a LOT of swing top 1-liter wine bottles, at least i think they are wine as i bought them on craigslist years ago and the labels have foreign writing and pictures of grapes. What would be the best method of bottling and pastuerizing these? would the water temp and lenth of time be the same?

Thanks!

Thanks for the info.

I am currently a week in the fermentation stage, maybe a week to go, I haven't taken a gravity reading yet. I was thinking of splitting my 4 gallon batch and use half for the USM updated recipe. I am going to use some of the Reeds 32oz swing top bottles, has any one have tips on these, how tall are they? I have ordered some thru Amazon. I'm kinda worried about the pasteurizing part, was thinking of trying to use my Butterball XL electric turkey fryer to get the water to the 190 mark, how long should the 32 oz sit in there? Should I turn the fryer off at the 190 mark or keep it running? The fryer has its own temperature control. Any info suggestions is great, thank you all. Edit: forgot to mention that I'm brewing some cider.

The one and only time I tried this the first bottle I put in the pot exploded. Luckily the heavy aluminum lid was on. Is there another way to do this that's safer? Bring the temperature up slowly or something? It was probably over-carbed too, but my test bottle didn't indicate that.

Great write up when I did this I had 2 bottle caps pop off (won't use Corona anymore) but other than that went great.

Thanks for the post

RebelliousVanilla said:

I am curious if I can perform stove top pasteurizing with the EZ cap beer bottles? Or do I just need to get bottles that I have to cap manually?

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Can someone answer this? Just bought two cases of 1 litre bottles...

rocketsan said:

Can someone answer this? Just bought two cases of 1 litre bottles...

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I've never done it but there's no reason why you couldn't. The volume of the bottles are the issue you need to keep track of - the ez cap bottles I use (for beer) are the large 1 liter version, so the temp/time would need to be adjusted. But you can carb and pasteurize in ez cap bottles, I'm sure.

Thank you

Okay, I read about 1/3rd of the 22 pages here but I guess I've confused myself.
I have a 5 gal carboy of Apfelwein made with 5 gal of juice and 2lb 8oz of corn sugar. Can I wait out fermentation then bottle using another gallon of apple juice so that the natural sugars will sweeten and carb my cider? From there do I have to pasteurize? What if I do not use juice but bottle with 4 oz of priming sugar to the 5 gallons?

my take on it is YES you have to pasteurize b/c otherwise the yeast will continue to eat that residual sugars along with the priming sugar creaing bottle bombs, i'm no expert so someone correct me if I am wrong. I just did my first pasteurization last night and while it was a bit of a slow process(2 hours) I had no mishaps. Kept my water between 170-175 and did about 7 bottles at a time!

cant wait to do this to the apfelwein I made last night, gonna be awhile tho

RebelliousVanilla said:

I am curious if I can perform stove top pasteurizing with the EZ cap beer bottles? Or do I just need to get bottles that I have to cap manually?

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I did my first couple of pasteurized batches in those a few weeks ago. It certainly seems possible, but I had a few explode in the pot, which is very costly compared to 12oz bottles.

That could be because I had the temp too high, and because I seem to have a hot spot on the burner I was using- I was doing 10 minutes at 190f for the first 20 bottles, while the thread seems to have agreed that 160-175f is plenty, and all of the bottles that exploded were in the same position in the pot(and it heats similarly unevenly when I cook food on that burner). Also, even with a big canning pot, I could only fit a max of four liter bottles, and the lid wouldn't close.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that if that's all you've got, give it a try. I, however, went out and bought a couple cases of 12oz bottles, and will now only be using the liter ones for long aging or still ciders.

edit- I also had a bunch of seals work their way out, but they were easily pushed back in when the bottles cooled, and don't seem to have caused any problems with the finished cider.