Cold crashing, bottle conditioning and pasteurizing - Will it work ?

[kukubau]

Hi all

I'm 2 days shy of starting my first cider batch.

After reading a great amount on this forum I'm planning on cold crashing, racking it at 1.015-1.010, bottle conditioning to carb it a little and finally pasteurizing using the stove method.

Has anyone tried this approach? Will I get something tasty?

I don't intend using any sulphites or sorbate. My juice's OG is 1063.

Thank you and waiting for your input.

 

[TexasWine]

Hi all

I'm 2 days shy of starting my first cider batch.

After reading a great amount on this forum I'm planning on cold crashing, racking it at 1.015-1.010, bottle conditioning to carb it a little and finally pasteurizing using the stove method.

Has anyone tried this approach? Will I get something tasty?

I don't intend using any sulphites or sorbate. My juice's OG is 1063.

Thank you and waiting for your input.

Hey kuku. I've got a few questions to clear things up a bit. Why do you want to cold crash? And second are you back sweetening?

Technically your method should work. You'll have plenty of residual sugar left for the yeast to eat at 1.010. But you might consider skipping the cold crash step all together. Just rack and bottle it when you hit the gravity you're looking for. You'll want to rack and bottle all in one session because the yeast will continue to chew through the sugar even after racking. Pasteurize a few days later.

I don't know that you need to cold crash for a couple reasons. One, people use cold crashing to arrest fermentation. You don't want to arrest fermentation because you're bottle carbing. If you cold crash you're just going to have to let the cider warm back up to let your yeast become active again. Two, cold crashing is also used to drop the yeast and clarify things. Again, since you're bottle conditioning this isn't a real issue because you're going to have yeast settle out in the bottle as it carbonates your cider. But you should still rack off the lees into a bottling bucket to avoid sucking up a bunch of gunk into the bottles.

Hope this helps. And good luck!

 

[kukubau]

Hi

I forgot to add that I'm thinking of back sweeten it with apple juice or apple concentrate.

I thought of cold crashing for the clarifying effect. How many racks do you think is necessary so I don't have any lees settle out in my bottles?

How much will the S.G decrease after each rack? How much of the hard-cider is lost after each rack?

Thank you

 

[TexasWine]

Hi

I forgot to add that I'm thinking of back sweeten it with apple juice or apple concentrate.

I thought of cold crashing for the clarifying effect. How many racks do you think is necessary so I don't have any lees settle out in my bottles?

How much will the S.G decrease after each rack? How much of the hard-cider is lost after each rack?

Thank you

To answer your first question, for the same reason you can't avoid lees in your primary fermenter, you can't avoi d having yeast settle out in your bottles if you bottle condition your cider. That's just what yeast does.

Second question, SG is not affected by racking. SG will drop as the yeast convert the sugar to alcohol. SG will increase if you add sugar.

As far as how much is lost, it depends. I say that because different yeast form different yeast cakes. Some are dense and compact. Others are fluffy and hard to rack off of. Also, sometimes the amount lost depends on your personality. Sounds silly, but some folks like to live on the edge and push the envelope of what they can recover. Others are more conservative and will leave perfectly good cider behind to avoid picking up any of the gunk in the bottom of the fermenter.

OK, so after all that, I'll say what I would do in your situation. I would let the cider run until the yeast have stopped working. I wouldn't try to stop the fermentation. If I was shooting for a clear cider I would let it sit at room temp until it cleared (this could take several weeks). Then I would taste it. If I thought it needed to be sweeter I would then backsweeten and bottle. A few days later I would pasteurize.

Let me know if this clears things up a bit!