Split Batch, Ale Yeast and Wild Ferment?

[JohnSand]

When I was a kid, we fermented cider by leaving it on the counter. I just bought two gallon jugs of pasteurized cider from different producers. I plan to split it three ways, one each variety to ferment with S-04 or Nottingham, and a mix of the two to ferment wild. The young man working for one orchard told me the 'flash pasteurized" cider will still spontaneously ferment, just more slowly. Has anyone had that experience? Otherwise I'm thinking of using some fruit to start it fermenting, or leave it in the yard with cheesecloth over it to start. Any suggestions?

 

[JohnSand]

I made some moves today. I sanitized a growler and poured in some from each jug. Now that the jugs have headspace, I added half a pack of expired S04 to each. (I'm not worried about expired dry yeast in very small batches) The mixed part will be the wild ferment. I'll pour a few ounces of that into a sanitized mason jar with some crab apples. Meanwhile, the rest of it is in the growler. If enough yeast survived pasteurizing to ferment the growler, I'll let it ride. If not, hopefully the crab apples will provide some.

 

[JohnSand]

It didn't take long for the pasteurized cider to start fermenting on the counter.
The S04 batches took right off, but one much more active than the other.

 

[Cider Wraith]

New territory for me ...

 

[JohnSand]

The mix which got no yeast is quite active now, but the krausen is very different, consisting of large clear bubbles.

 

[JohnSand]

Bottled today, poorly. I've been kegging too long. Good thing my wife was out.
The two cider brands (Jericho NY and Kauffman PA) looked and smelled quite different. All three jugs came down close to 1.000. I added carb tabs to each bottle, and four teaspoons of frozen concentrated apple juice to half of them. That amount was based on testing a sample with increasing amounts of fcaj. I saved a sample of the last bottled, my wife liked it both with and without juice. In spite of the stressful bottling day, I'm enjoying this whole process.

 

[Loonylark]

Bottled today, poorly. I've been kegging too long. Good thing my wife was out.
The two cider brands (Jericho NY and Kauffman PA) looked and smelled quite different. All three jugs came down close to 1.000. I added carb tabs to each bottle, and four teaspoons of frozen concentrated apple juice to half of them. That amount was based on testing a sample with increasing amounts of fcaj. I saved a sample of the last bottled, my wife liked it both with and without juice. In spite of the stressful bottling day, I'm enjoying this whole process.

Hi, sorry to be a dunce (repeat newbie to brewing and cider's a whole new ball-game for me) but what's a carb tab?
And what's the concentrated apple juice for? Body? Acid?

 

[JohnSand]

Hi, sorry to be a dunce (repeat newbie to brewing and cider's a whole new ball-game for me) but what's a carb tab?
And what's the concentrated apple juice for? Body? Acid?

I'm new to cider too.
The carb tabs are sugar drops that can be added to beer that is bottle carbonated. Instead of priming the whole batch you put sugar in the individual bottles. The juice is to sweeten some for comparison. When I think they're carbonated, I'll pasteurize the bottles to stop fermentation and leave some sugar. Others might use unfermentable sugars like lactose.

 

[Loonylark]

I'm new to cider too.
The carb tabs are sugar drops that can be added to beer that is bottle carbonated. Instead of priming the whole batch you put sugar in the individual bottles. The juice is to sweeten some for comparison. When I think they're carbonated, I'll pasteurize the bottles to stop fermentation and leave some sugar. Others might use unfermentable sugars like lactose.

Great, cheers for the reply. I've done something similar to make sparkling rhubarb wine in the distant past, using ordinary white sugar in the bottle, if memory serves. Much easier with drops, I imagine.
Will have to see how the tiny quantity of cider I've just started progresses, a while to go before having to make that decision.
Nice idea to use apple juice as a final sweetener too.

 

[mashpaddled]

If it's flash pasteurized and started fermenting fairly quickly either the orchard has a problem with their pasteurizer or some dirty jugs.

 

[JohnSand]

If it's flash pasteurized and started fermenting fairly quickly either the orchard has a problem with their pasteurizer or some dirty jugs.

I suspect the pasteurization is not as thorough as it could be. So far, none of it is sour.

 

[pvtpublic]

Good call on using the crabapples so long as you included the skins without heating them. A flash pasteurization could weaken the yeast enough that something else could take hold before the yeast could. And the "bloom" on the crabapples would easily provide a healthy dose of cowboy yeast.

 

[JohnSand]

I tested the cider on the family yesterday. It got approval, though I don't know how much of that was politeness. The wild ferment was definitely a little tart, probably has some lacto. They were all different, and I thought all were good.