Rooster286
Member
Just wanted to pass along my success story with my first cider I made. I have a number of brew sessions under my belt for both beer and mead. The long and short of the sorbated cider was I had it on a grocery list and didn't specify and the wife picked me up 4 gallons of local (but sorbated) cider from BJ's wholesale.
Assuming gloom and doom, I decided to take a crack at getting this thing diluted a bit with non sorbated cider or alternately blueberry juice (I used Wyman's which is not 100% blueberry but is mostly, and the remainder is made up of apple and grape juices). After reading a long list of issues (and some successes) with sorbated juice, i decided to make a strong starter:
32oz pasteurized and preserved (ascorbic acid as the only preservative) apple juice. I literally just poured out half the juice in a 64oz container, pitched in a packet of Safale S-05, 1/4 tsp nutrients, and 1/8th tsp yeast energizer and loosely screwed the top back on.
18 hours later I had a VERY vigorous fermentation in the starter with a nice cake on the bottom already.
Proceeded to fill a 7 gal fermenter with the following:
4 gal cider (sorbated)
1 gal blueberry juice (wymans)
1.5 lb brown sugar (dissolved into the leftover 32oz of apple juice)
1 TBSP yeast nutrient
1 tsp yeast energizer
pectic enzyme as directed (1.25 tsp maybe?)
gave it a good agitating to oxygenate and pitched in my S-05 at 68 degrees, sealed it up and put it in the basement.
4 days have passed, and it's really going to town. SG was 1.064 and has dropped to 1.03, I'll be stopping it at 1.016 to keep it sweet but the yeast is having no trouble at all so far with the sorbate and there are no off smells or tastes in the sampling I took to measure SG so I don't believe it's struggling at all.
Just wanted to get advice into the search index that you can absolutely ferment even if sorbated commercially, and you can do so without a struggle as some folks have reported, so don't give up if you make a mistake when shopping.
I have no idea if it's related to the dilution of 1 gal blueberry juice and .5 gal of apple juice used for the starter, or the giant healthy colony I threw in, or a combination of all the aforementioned factors but it worked like a charm.
I'll update everyone after I bottle and pasteurize and get a taste of it at it's FG. I'll try to throw up a pic or two as well. I imagine it'll stay pretty cloudy even with the pectic since I'm not conditioning or bulk aging but i'm ok with that provided it tastes great
If anyone has any questions, please let me know.
Assuming gloom and doom, I decided to take a crack at getting this thing diluted a bit with non sorbated cider or alternately blueberry juice (I used Wyman's which is not 100% blueberry but is mostly, and the remainder is made up of apple and grape juices). After reading a long list of issues (and some successes) with sorbated juice, i decided to make a strong starter:
32oz pasteurized and preserved (ascorbic acid as the only preservative) apple juice. I literally just poured out half the juice in a 64oz container, pitched in a packet of Safale S-05, 1/4 tsp nutrients, and 1/8th tsp yeast energizer and loosely screwed the top back on.
18 hours later I had a VERY vigorous fermentation in the starter with a nice cake on the bottom already.
Proceeded to fill a 7 gal fermenter with the following:
4 gal cider (sorbated)
1 gal blueberry juice (wymans)
1.5 lb brown sugar (dissolved into the leftover 32oz of apple juice)
1 TBSP yeast nutrient
1 tsp yeast energizer
pectic enzyme as directed (1.25 tsp maybe?)
gave it a good agitating to oxygenate and pitched in my S-05 at 68 degrees, sealed it up and put it in the basement.
4 days have passed, and it's really going to town. SG was 1.064 and has dropped to 1.03, I'll be stopping it at 1.016 to keep it sweet but the yeast is having no trouble at all so far with the sorbate and there are no off smells or tastes in the sampling I took to measure SG so I don't believe it's struggling at all.
Just wanted to get advice into the search index that you can absolutely ferment even if sorbated commercially, and you can do so without a struggle as some folks have reported, so don't give up if you make a mistake when shopping.
I have no idea if it's related to the dilution of 1 gal blueberry juice and .5 gal of apple juice used for the starter, or the giant healthy colony I threw in, or a combination of all the aforementioned factors but it worked like a charm.
I'll update everyone after I bottle and pasteurize and get a taste of it at it's FG. I'll try to throw up a pic or two as well. I imagine it'll stay pretty cloudy even with the pectic since I'm not conditioning or bulk aging but i'm ok with that provided it tastes great
If anyone has any questions, please let me know.