This is why I keg.
Me too. But I thought of a method where you pack a cooler with bottles then transfer hot water from a brew pot to the cooler while leaving the cover in place. Wait ten minutes and check the temp.
This is why I keg.
I did the cooler method of pasteurizing. I filled an empty bottle with water and put a remote thermometer to monitor the temperature.. Worked awesome. No breakage, no bottle bombs... definitely a way to go
Ok. So I got unlucky and lucky at the same time. I don't think the bottles were over carbonated but there's always some variability.
When I pastuerize carbonated cider and I always have the lid as a blocker between me and the bottle in case a bottle blows. Well. One fell over on the counter and I'm not sure if I touched it with the lid or it blew first but KABOOM. Louder than I can explain. My ears still hurt hours later. Blood splatter on the back of the lid. Very lucky I blocked it with the lid. Mostly. Glass flew at least 15'.
Wowzers. One laceration to the inside of the forearm.
Be careful. Be prepared. I knew it would happen eventually and came away ok.
Should I be concerned about the others?
Oh and lesson learned to put the bottles Directly into the boxes and not into counter where they can fall over.
I'm getting a batch of cider straight from the orchard and this is totally new to me. Up until this point, I've only worked with Trader Joe's Apple Juice. Here is my plan....
1) Pour fresh cider into bucket, add honey and yeast. Ferment for 1 week.
2) Add flavor. Ferment for 1 another week.
3) Bottle with corn sugar and let sit for 2 weeks.
4) Pasteurize with method described here
Does that work and should I pasteurize it before I start my ferment. If yes, how do I do that?
Has anyone tried using a Grainfather to pasteurize? I could set the temp to 170-180 and recirculate the water with the bottles in the grain basket. It's just like mashing...but with bottles of cider
Thats a great idea
Its been a long time since I've done this. If you look back through this thread, you'll see some posts that speak more authoritatively on the temperature and time needed to pasteurize or kill off the yeast.
Lots of pages to skim through so I randomly picked page 86 and got the info I was looking for! Someone did 160 for 10 mins and was fine.
My plan is put the bottles in the grain basket of the GF, let em sit in the water while it's heating up to 160 then hold it there for 10 mins. Will report back when this is done. Hopefully I don't get any bombs! Normally I would keg, but this was my first cider and only a 1 gal batch.
Its been a long time since I've done this. If you look back through this thread, you'll see some posts that speak more authoritatively on the temperature and time needed to pasteurize or kill off the yeast.
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