Bottling sweet apple juice

I have been experimenting with some different local apples over the past few years and some of the varieties I have pressed are much better unfermented than hard. I like having some juice around for mulled sweet cider and such and in the past have frozen it and pasteurized/canned it with a water bath. Does anyone have experience bottling it in 12 oz bottles and capping with crown caps? I am presuming I could bottle it hot into sanitized bottles and then give it a water bath...or would bottling right out of pasteurization work, leaving out the water bath? I haven't found much information on university extension websites but there is plenty of canning and other preservation info out there.

So what varieties have you found that are not good in hard cider, that list is as important as the list of ones that are good! Some of the cidermaking books have a section about pasturizing cider in crown cap bottles, I dont think they heat up the cider first but put it in a water bath and measure how hot they get and then time them, seems some put the cap on first and some later, there is never any reasoning given for either way, I wonder if the sealing material on the caps fail if heated to much or to long if the cap is on but then they put the cap on after heating and then lay the bottles on their side to heat up the cap so who knows which is better. WVMJ

WVMJ said:

So what varieties have you found that are not good in hard cider, that list is as important as the list of ones that are good! Some of the cidermaking books have a section about pasturizing cider in crown cap bottles, I dont think they heat up the cider first but put it in a water bath and measure how hot they get and then time them, seems some put the cap on first and some later, there is never any reasoning given for either way, I wonder if the sealing material on the caps fail if heated to much or to long if the cap is on but then they put the cap on after heating and then lay the bottles on their side to heat up the cap so who knows which is better. WVMJ

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I am in the northern prairies - Southern Canadian prairies. We are in USDA hardiness zone 3 with some dreadful cold weather in the winter and blasted heat in the summer. Most varieties that grow here are unknown in cider apple growing regions. We have an apple crab variety called Trail that tastes good as an eating apple and the fresh juice is pleasant to drink. I think it usually tests 1.06 or better OG. I've just found it to have an off putting bitter after taste after fermentation. I have a blend with it aging right now. I froze a bunch of juice in fall and then pulled a concentration off of the ice. I pitched EC 1116 in February. I'll see soon how it tastes. Another variety is called Goodland. It was developed by Agriculture Canada at their fruit research station (now relegated to field crops only) in my town. It produces a rather bland cider (last year's OG 1.053) and I'd like to blend it with some bitter crabs this fall to see what happens. I find myself wanting body/mouthfeel when I drink it. The short story is I'd like to bottle the Trail juice fresh as something to enjoy without alcohol. I honestly have access to more apples than I should rightfully turn into hard cider!

I've bottle pasteurized hard cider and would prefer not to do it anymore. I'm thinking that bottle pasteurizing un-carbonated product would be less nerve wracking! I've never found that the seals in caps lost their effect after pasteurizing.

I also pressed a variety called Kerr (Dolgo and Haralson parentage) that is super acidic. lack of acidity isn't an issue I've found in our home grown apples. I might consider the Kerr as an acid boosting blend should I need one.

Bottling with crown caps straight out of pasteurization should work fine. The only concern I would have is spoilage from oxygen, but it seems that larger companies like Sun Rype don't purge their containers with anything before filling, so even that shouldn't pose a problem.

Apple juice really needs to be pressure canned or done in a boiling water bath to be safe in a home environment, which means mason jars.

Why?

javalin said:

Why?

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Because foods without alcohol will spoil if not canned properly. It's the same reason you don't leave OJ or milk out at room temperature but you can buy canned milk.

but if it's pasteurized, and poured from the pasteurizing vessel into sterilized bottles there should be no spoilage.

Yooper said:

Because foods without alcohol will spoil if not canned properly. It's the same reason you don't leave OJ or milk out at room temperature but you can buy canned milk.

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Yoopers, I hold your opinion and advice in high regard. Here is a Google view of a selection from Cider, Hard and Sweet ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/1581572077/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 ) that covers bottling in crown top bottles and then doing and immersion pasteurization much like the sticky at the top of the cider forum here.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=dU...=canning apple juice in crown bottles&f=false

Starting at page 70 and going on for a few pages from there the author outlines the fresh juice pasteurization process with crown tops being mentioned. Could I get your opinion on this?

My first thought is to get a dedicated freezer and freeze your juice in 1 gal. square plastic tubs.
But if you really want to bottle your juice there are some you tube videos available as well as several articles, just search "bottling home made juice"
and you'll find all kinds of info.
Here's a decent article, Good Luck!!

http://blog.countrytradingco.com/2014/02/27/how-to-preserve-fruit-juice/

chevalcider said:

Yoopers, I hold your opinion and advice in high regard. Here is a Google view of a selection from Cider, Hard and Sweet ( http://www.amazon.com/dp/1581572077/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 ) that covers bottling in crown top bottles and then doing and immersion pasteurization much like the sticky at the top of the cider forum here.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=dU...=canning apple juice in crown bottles&f=false

Starting at page 70 and going on for a few pages from there the author outlines the fresh juice pasteurization process with crown tops being mentioned. Could I get your opinion on this?

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I don't think "pasteurization" is enough. It's not a high acid food, and there is no alcohol, and there is a lot of sugar. For safety, it probably should be canned properly or frozen.