Pastuerizing

I have read the stovetop pasteurizing thread and had a DIY project in mind to simplify the reheating of the water. How long should I keep the bottles in the water covered if the water is only 160 deg? I was thinking atleast 10 minutes from everything ive found around the internet but wanted to be perfectly sure.

devoidelk said:

I have read the stovetop pasteurizing thread and had a DIY project in mind to simplify the reheating of the water. How long should I keep the bottles in the water covered if the water is only 160 deg? I was thinking atleast 10 minutes from everything ive found around the internet but wanted to be perfectly sure.

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A technique that worked for me was to fill a bottle of the same size you are pasteurizing with tap water. Let it come up to the same temperature as your cider bottles. Stick a probe thermometer in the "dummy bottle" and put it in the water along with the bottles filled with cider. When the water temp in the "dummy bottle" is 150 +/- you're there. Pull them all out.

Thanks for the idea I can actually incorporate that into my little project

Had one explode in my hand trying the technique advocated on the HBT thread.
Flying glass shard whizzed right by my left cheek. Scared the s**t out of me and decided there and then that there had to be a safer way to do this.

Cheers!

I'll remember this for next year's cider project.

Well my thoughts are I have a ball valve on my brewing kettle for when im making beer and an old coffee pot that has since been broken as of the start of this thread. I plumbed the kettle through the water line on the coffee pot to give a continues flow of water to the pump and heating element. With a few crossed wires (and fingers) I managed to get it to work properly and at a stunning 180 degrees continues output. So I will try to use that to maintain the proper pasteurizing temperature without the use of my gas stove.

I will post pictures of how I rigged it up soon.

I'll be waiting with some beer and peanuts. Glad I'm already subb'd

The dishwasher method seems to be the easiest and safest. Am I wrong?

I put a thermometers in my dishwasher on a rapid wash ( about 39 mins) and it reaches 150. So I pasteurise in that now!
All successful so far

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The dishwasher method may depend on what your hot water is set at; 120-140 is common. If your dishwasher isn't adding heat then you may not be able to pasteurize if your hot water tank is set too low. I could be way off though- Blackthorn's obviously gets to temp.

prohl84 said:

The dishwasher method may depend on what your hot water is set at; 120-140 is common. If your dishwasher isn't adding heat then you may not be able to pasteurize if your hot water tank is set too low. I could be way off though- Blackthorn's obviously gets to temp.

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Most dishwashers heat the water beyond the temp of the hot water heater.

Yeah I should have known that- mine actually has the option to run extra hot. Now that I think of it- it only has one line-in (definitely the cold line) so all the heat is generated by the machine.

Thanks for the correction.

Puddlethumper said:

Had one explode in my hand trying the technique advocated on the HBT thread.

Flying glass shard whizzed right by my left cheek. Scared the s**t out of me and decided there and then that there had to be a safer way to do this.



Cheers!

Click to expand...

How's the hand???


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I've done mine in electric steamer/fryer with towel over top. Put bottles and water in at room temp. Set for 150. Let hit temp. Shut off and let sit until cool.

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The one and only time I pasteurized, I did it in a pressure cooker. I didn't do it under pressure, it was just so I could seal the lid in case of explosions. Glad I did, considering 11 out of 48 blew...

I waited too long before pasteurizing and they were just under too much pressure from the carbonation.

I really like the idea of putting one bottle in with a thermometer inside of it. I'm going to try that next time. Maybe I can get the stem of the thermometer to go through the vent hole on the pressure cooker...

rocketsan said:

How's the hand???

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Thanks for asking. I was holding the top of the bottle in a pair of tongs lifting it out of the kettle. When the bottle exploded the glass went all over the place but didn't hit me anywhere. The hand was shaking, but that's about all.

I have done several batches now in my brew kettle with a false bottom.

- Put the bottles in the sink with hot tap water to pre-heat.
- Bring brew kettle water up to 170
- Place bottles in kettle and cover.
- Leave for 2 hours or so. I once left them over night because it was late.

All batches have been left out at room temperature after until chilling before drinking. They all have been carbonated at the level when I pasteurized them.

Mad4sax said:

I have done several batches now in my brew kettle with a false bottom.

- Put the bottles in the sink with hot tap water to pre-heat.
- Bring brew kettle water up to 170
- Place bottles in kettle and cover.
- Leave for 2 hours or so. I once left them over night because it was late.

All batches have been left out at room temperature after until chilling before drinking. They all have been carbonated at the level when I pasteurized them.

Click to expand...

Sounds like a great technique. Simple and easy. I like it.

Well something strange happened the bottles I was carbonating ended up only taking 24 hrs to carb instead of the 3 to 5 days from the recipe. so none of them made it and ended up gushing everywhere.

devoidelk said:

Well something strange happened the bottles I was carbonating ended up only taking 24 hrs to carb instead of the 3 to 5 days from the recipe. so none of them made it and ended up gushing everywhere.

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Where can you go from here?

devoidelk said:

Well something strange happened the bottles I was carbonating ended up only taking 24 hrs to carb instead of the 3 to 5 days from the recipe. so none of them made it and ended up gushing everywhere.

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Either you weren't done fermenting or you used too much sugar or you picked up a funky infection...


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I wasn't to made I only tried to carb 24 bottles to see how it would taste but I had almost 3 gallons of still cider to enjoy.