KaBooom!! Cherry apple cider bombs

hroth521 said:

5 gallons fresh pressed juice - 1/4 tsp metabisulfite - wait 24 hours, pitch hydrated safale us-05 wait about 10 days, rack onto 9 lb frozen cherries. Wait 10 days, rack into carboy, crystal clear, maybe "cold crashed" on the cherries?

Wait 2 months. S.G. 1.000. Rack onto 2 lb honey - S.G. 1.016, pitch 1/4 pkg ec1118, wait 48 hours, sample every 2 days or so. After 8 days it's perfect. Heat water to 190deg F. Turn off heat. Add 8 22 oz bottles. (It's a 7 gallon pot). Put lid on pot. Kaboom. Kaboom. Lost 2 bottles at about 6 minutes.

Clean up. Refill pot. Heat to 160. Turn off heat. Add mix of 22 oz and 12 oz bottles, Cover and wait 20 minutes. Lost no bottles. Repeat.
Taste test tomorrow.

Click to expand...

truckjohn said:

190F is really close to the danger zone for pasteurization bottle bombs..... especially with well carbonated bottles....

160F is a whole lot safer...

But.. Turning off the heat isn't necessarily a good idea... There's a chance you didn't kill the yeast.... Did you monitor your water temperature throughout the pasteurization cycle? Reason I ask is that when I dunk a batch of 60F bottles into 160F water - the water temp goes down to about 120 and I have to heat it back up to 160.... While 120f will kill yeast and beasties - it takes hours rather than minutes....

I found that I had to keep it on low heat to maintain 160F through the whole pasteurization cycle, and only turn it off towards the end... My own method is to start timing it once it is back up to 160F.

Moral of the story - crack one open in a day or 2 to make sure it didn't kick back over....

Thanks

Click to expand...

dusty1025 said:

so did you pasteurized immediately after bottling? or did you bottle then sample every 2 days, and pasteurize after 8 days?

Click to expand...