Cider Tastes Chalky - Help

[robhale]

Hey all,
I've been making cider for about two years, and have recently run into a problem I can't figure out. I have cider that starts around 1.055 and ends around 1.01-1.008. I transfer it from primary to secondary after about a week, week and a half when the gravity is in the upper teens. It tastes great here! Then, I let it sit in secondary for another week or so as it gets closer to 1.01-1.008 and transfer it to bottles. Again, I taste it and love it! Then I leave it in bottles from anywhere from a week to a month or two and try it again and I hate the taste. It tastes almost chalky. At first the cider is nice, but then it leaves a bad chalky, biting / harsh taste around your mouth. Leaving you wanting to rub the taste off with your tongue. It is almost skunky. I do add a little priming sugar to some (1/4 tsp to a 16oz bottle) and none to some, but the taste is the same.

Here is the weird part. I clean all my bottles, siphons, carboys, hydrometers, etc. with PBW and then Star San (wash it out a little with boiling water). I am pretty confident everything is clean!

Here is what I think might be wrong:
1. The bottles are about a year or maybe a little more old (swing top), is that too old?
2. There is something in my siphon or bottle that just won't come out with cleaner...
3. Is it just the taste of carbonation with a higher gravity?
4. I have no idea!

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas? I know some people swear by letting it go longer, but why would it taste great before being bottled and then bad afterwards if that was the case?

 

[Maylar]

1.008 - 1.010 isn't completely fermented yet for most yeasts. I suspect that you still have active fermentation going on when you bottle and you're tasting yeast.

Do you have any sediment in your bottles when you pour?

 

[robhale]

Thanks, Maylar.

There may be a small amount of sediment in the bottom, but I use Pectin Enzyme to let the sediment fall to the bottom of both primary and secondary (before bottling). I also am careful to not draw up any sediment from the bottom of the carboy when I bottle. Do you have any other strategies that may help reduce the sediment? Perhaps I could just let it settle in a cold space so the gravity stays the same (see the next paragraph), but the sediment is more filtered out.

If not, my concern is the following. When my ciders ferment more (get closer to 1.000-1.005) they start to lose a lot of flavor. It is not that they just aren't sweeter (happy to back sweeten), its that the apple flavor appears to be stripped out. That is why I have found that when I stop them at a higher gravity they taste great in secondary. If I go the route of a lower gravity / more fermentation, how would you suggest balancing this and flavor?

I had thought about adding acid blend, but I don't think this will help this problem, will it?

Sorry, one last question, how would yeast nutrient impact this problem? I add a little (1/4 tsp) per gallon.

 

[Fuzzymittenbrewing]

Try using Brewers Best Cider House Select yeast. Even fermenting down to 1.0 leaves a nice apple flavor behind.

 

[robhale]

Thanks fuzzymittenbrewing. I have a few yeasts that I do feel like have promise, but will take that into consideration.

If I were to keep the yeasts I have, any (one have) other thoughts on the potential cause of the chalkiness, or how to maintain a higher gravity in the bottle?

 

[cujocon]

I would second that the flavor is the result of in-bottle fermentation.
I've found that you can use a huge variety of yeasts with good results if you force them to work slowly (COLD).
I pitch my yeast into 5 gallon buckets of fresh cider and leave it at 55-60 for at least a few months before racking to glass carboys and leaving them there for another 6 months at low temps.
At low temps the fermentation is so slow that you retain lots of apple flavor...in my experience.

 

[Maylar]

Your concerns are fairly universal among cider makers. How to let the cider complete fermentation, clear, and still have apple flavor left.

As Fuzzy mentioned, different yeasts yield different results. Starting with orchard cider or fresh pressed leaves more apple flavor than store bought juice will. Sweetening with FAJC at bottling time works well but you have to deal with the added sugar (cold cash or pasteurize). There are also apple concentrates that you can add in tiny amounts to add back some apple-ness.

Bottling before the cider is "done" can lead to funky flavors, as you've found out.

 

[Lodestone]

I find that with brewing any fruit cider/melomel/wine etc. time is the KEY ingredient. You can pay it up front with low temp slow fermentation or with aging but either way you will still pay. Time can turn a funky mess into a beautiful concoction, not every time mind you. So use your best judgement. I personally find that a slow fermentation produces much better taste faster and leaves more of the fruit flavor in the brew.

 

[robhale]

Thanks Lodestone, Maylar, and Cujocon.

I'll head this advice. My question for you, though, is what happens when the cider is in the bottle that makes it go from tasting good in secondary to bad when you taste it? I would have thought that the yeast/chalky taste would have also been tasted in secondary if its also tasted in bottling. I know the yeast is still active, but I can even get this odd taste after bottling for 3-7 days. Wouldn't have thought it would have warped the taste that much in the bottle.

 

[acemannw]

My neighbor got me into home brewing. He had a batch of brew where every other bottle of Beer came out with an off flavor. The only thing we could figure out was that something in the bottling hose was contaminating half the bottles. I would buy some new hose, then experiment with pasteurizing your bottles to see if you an stop any further fermentation.

 

[WVMJ]

Is it chalky or biting and hard, those are 2 different things. Are your bottles continuing to ferment and you are getting CO2 that is throwing off the taste? Maybe you have a severe case of bottle shock, when you bottle something sometimes you need to give it time in the bottle for it the settle back down. It doesnt sound like you are using sulfites in your primary so no matter how clean your bottles are if the cider you put in them isnt microbe stable you might be getting something else working in the background giving you a funky taste. WVMJ

 

[gratus fermentatio]

What's the source of your juice? Store-bought & pasteurized or fresh pressed?
When are you adding the pectic enzyme?
Are you certain you're rinsing thoroughly after the PBW? PBWis a buffered alkali solution, that would be my 1st guess as the source of a mineral/chalky flavor.
Are you rinsing after using Starsan? If so, don't; it's a "no rinse" sanitizer.
Do you also sanitize the rubber gaskets? Both sides?

Some fruit/juice has a has a higher mineral content than others simply due to where & how it was grown. Often those flavors are masked by the sweetness of the fruit. Remove the sugar & unmask those flavors. I've gotten a bitter flavor from pure McIntosh apple juice after fermentation.
Just tossing some ideas out there.
Regards, GF.

 

[Maylar]

Thanks Lodestone, Maylar, and Cujocon.

I'll head this advice. My question for you, though, is what happens when the cider is in the bottle that makes it go from tasting good in secondary to bad when you taste it? I would have thought that the yeast/chalky taste would have also been tasted in secondary if its also tasted in bottling. I know the yeast is still active, but I can even get this odd taste after bottling for 3-7 days. Wouldn't have thought it would have warped the taste that much in the bottle.

You bring up a good point. If it tasted good in secondary it shouldn't have become yucky after bottling, unless something in the bottling process contaminated it.

A friend of mine makes red wine and he gave me a bottle of it to sample. I couldn't drink it, there was a definite "chemical" taste. He attributed that to the solution he uses for sanitizing bottles.