Brewing/Storing Cider in China (hot and humid!)

[Litchfield]

Hi All, a friend and I have started a mission to brew cider in a sub-tropical region of China and would be grateful for some advice and/or thoughts on the best way forward. We are fairly new to this, so apologies for any questions that seem dumb. This is our process as stands -

Day One (Juice Day)
• Wash and juice Xinjiang Apples into sanitized food grade bucket. Remove as much pulp as possible. 1kg = >/<500ml.
• Raise OG to 1055 with white sugar, if necessary. Begin with 100g increments, dissolve into juice then introduce back into the batch.
• Add pectic enzyme to juice, according to instruction.
• Raise the acidity to a pH level of 3.4. Increments of 1g Malic Acid per litre of juice if original acidity is around 4, try less if not.
• Introduce SO2.

Day Two (Begin Fermentation)
• 24hrs after SO2 addition, transfer to sterilised carboy, add in Lalvin EC-118 yeast. > 2.5g/5gal is sufficient.
• Keep at room temp <20 degrees C.

Racking
• After 9-14 days, when air lock has stopped bubbling, rack into new, sterile carboy. Leave behind sediment. FG should = 1000.
• Leave in this state to condition and clear. At least one month. If large amounts of sediment appear, rack again to condition.
• Avoid breaking air seal.

Blending and Bottling
• Dilute by 25%. Add sweetener/sugar/acid to taste. Looking for a balanced sweet sharp taste.

This has produced a nice cider during winter time where temperatures would naturally stay between 15-20 degrees C. However, we are now moving towards the summer and constant temps of above 30 degrees C. So, two questions -

1) Is it OK to leave cider in secondary at higher temps? We use a temperature controlled room, but for safety reasons it is difficult to keep it cool for long periods of time. What would happen if we let our cider condition at higher temperatures for a period of a month or two?

2) We have been experiencing problems with bottling. That is, we are consistently getting off flavours developing after a few days of being in the bottle. As far as I can work out this is either due to poor sanitation, oxygenation of the juice or perhaps due to the sweetener we are using (I cannot reliably tell you what this is as the packet is in Chinese, it is some kind of apple flavouring). The next thing we will try is sticky's stove top method of pasteurisation which will hopefully solve the problem without adding further sulphites. I've read about pasteurisation causing a haze, will this still be the case post fermentation? We are taking our next batch to a festival to needs to look and taste as good as poss!

Thanks

Tom

 

[Mr_fleabite]

Why are you diluting at "blending and bottling" by 25%?
Off hand this seems like a lot, at this step I could see various opportunities for sanitation to slip.

If you have no other options, storing your secondary at higher temps is what you'll have to do, but this is far, far from "best practices". I'd opt for a few days in a fridge over weeks at 30C. If you have to improvise can you build an insulated ice box for your secondary, do you have access to CO2/ dry ice, regular ice? With temps at 30C (86F) my goal with secondary would simply be to settle as best I can, SO2, and prep it for bottling.

...sidebar...
"but for safety reasons it is difficult to keep it cool for long periods of time"... WHAT?!
...

See if you can't get straight cane sugar or beet sugar or hell even confectionary sugar, try a batch w/o that flavor packet. There are so many variables it's hard to pin down via an internet post, if your cider is solid up till bottling it obviously must be something in your process after this point. Keep it simple to start with and add one variable (to the extent possible) at a time.

 

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

Use a heat tolerant yeast strain, dunno if you can get your hands on anything there, but K1v-1116 is good for hot climates and makes good cider. A couple tings about your process. I also am confused about your diluting the cider, this is definitely a way to dull down the full flavor only to replace it with acid/sugar etc. Make your cider and don't dilute, then bottle, see how that goes. Also, I would recommend against adjusting acidity prior to fermentation unless the pH is above 4. Then use Tartaric acid, (lowers pH without affecting total acidity too much) to adjust your cider post-fermentation to the desire pH prior to racking. Let it settle, then prime and bottle. Also, packet of apple flavoring probably contains either potassium sorbate or ascorbic acid and the off flavor you're getting is from yeast stress in reductive conditions (bottled, no off-gassing) and it's reducing H2S (hydrogen sulfide, rotten egg stink) into worse compounds like ethyl mercaptans etc. I would highly recommend making cider in a large batch with K1v-1116, aging it for long periods (4-6 months) and then bottling, priming, and aging even more. The difference will astound you. From the sound of what you're doing with dilution it's robbing the natural flavor of the cider and being replaced with chemical additions/sweeteners which can make things taste flat/chemical etc. I know this probably isn't the help you're looking for, but it's a different perspective at least. Many things to consider.

-brew on

 

[Litchfield]

Ah, spent a while writing a reply yesterday to have the page crash upon posting - the joys of the Chinese internet!! Here goes attempt no. 2.

Thank you both for such helpful and prompt answers - it's great to see a community like this so active. I'll try to clear up a couple of your questions and let you know how we intend to move forward!

"Why are you diluting at "blending and bottling" by 25%?"
"I also am confused about your diluting the cider"

I know this seems like heresy and, in an ideal situation, I'd avoid this too in the aim of producing a high quality craft cider. Cider, bar a few expensive imports, is hard to come by here so, as well as producing something that we and our expat friends miss drinking, we're working towards a commercial brew. We'd like to produce a drink everyone can afford so the diluting is to help with costs but also to help us have consistency. We found 25% to be a happy medium, only slightly affecting the flavour. I've heard of some commercial brands diluting up to 70% which seems insane! Chinese people, generally, are completely unfamiliar with cider so, for the time being it needs to be as accessible as possible!

"If you have to improvise can you build an insulated ice box for your secondary, do you have access to CO2/ dry ice, regular ice?"
""but for safety reasons it is difficult to keep it cool for long periods of time"... WHAT?!"

An improvised ice box is an excellent idea, thank you. Thinking about it properly, the room we use is fairly small. We might start by insulating that as much as possible. At the moment we use an air conditioner to control the room temp. Whilst this is fine for short periods, it is not unheard of for them to catch fire so we want to minimise use! In a couple of months, we'll be able to afford some big fridges that have been tweaked for brewing - cannot wait.

"Use a heat tolerant yeast strain, dunno if you can get your hands on anything there, but K1v-1116 is good for hot climates and makes good cider".

I had been wondering if EC-1118 was the best way forward but unsure of what else to use so this is great, thank you. Searched on the Chinese version of Ebay and found it!

"Also, I would recommend against adjusting acidity prior to fermentation unless the pH is above 4. Then use Tartaric acid, (lowers pH without affecting total acidity too much)"

Tartaric acid might be a little more difficult to come by but will have a look. Unfortunately, we have been unable to find apples with good cider qualities. The search continues. In the mean time we are using the best dessert apples we could find but these, after juicing, have a pH greater than 4. Last time we introduced a fair amount of malic acid and reduced the pH to 3.6. We were actually quite worried about the brew because after this the juice was completely undrinkable! Interestingly, after 6 weeks conditioning it had completely mellowed out and actually greatly benefited from a little more malic acid. This time we will introduce more pre fermentation in the aim of avoiding having to add it again at bottling.

"Also, packet of apple flavoring probably contains either potassium sorbate or ascorbic acid and the off flavor you're getting is from yeast stress in reductive conditions (bottled, no off-gassing) and it's reducing H2S (hydrogen sulfide, rotten egg stink) into worse compounds like ethyl mercaptans etc."

This is excellent information, thank you. We are still very much learning about all the biochemistry behind brewing and it seems to become more complicated the more you learn! Will try to avoid all artificial sweeteners/flavouring from now on.

Once again, thank you both for your answers. For the next brew we will aim to bottle as soon as the cider clears, then use cane sugar to sweeten and pasteurise to kill off any baddies that may be in the drink. I strongly suspect the apple flavouring was the main culprit! We're really hoping to solve bottle problem as the cider has been extremely popular so far! As you can see there are quite a few difficulties to overcome here as well as a lot of learning to do. We'll be starting the next brew shortly - I'll update on here if you're interested? Please feel free to add any further thoughts you have!

 

[Mr_fleabite]

Hello again,
Commercial cider is largely made with concentrate (brix = 60+) so they dilute just to get it to ferment. I'd still urge you to not cut it back; I'd wager that the malic acid adds you did to drop the PH worked, then it went through secondary fermentation and this causes the PH to rise hence the need for another addition. On the tartaric front you should be able to get this in China, they make quite a lot of it for export in fact. Lastly I think pasteurizing may be an unnecessary step (if you cut out the 25% dilution, just before bottling) and it can alter the flavors; sometimes making a cooked/jelly/canned fruit like flavor. For what it's worth, I think the biggest boost to your quality/consistency would be to eliminate the dilution.
If you're looking to make a crisper, brighter, more acidic flavor you may be able to experiment with "Lysozyme" this prevents malolactic/"secondary" fermentation.

 

[MindenMan]

"Cream of Tartar" used in baking is powdered tartaric acid. I haven't tasted the two side by side, so I can't be of help regarding the proper amount to use per gallon. I understand the dilution of your cider due to availability of apples and the amount of work required to acquire juice. If you can find apricot extract, a small amount of it added to your cider will "boost" the apple flavor, this I do know by personal experience and a little goes a long way. As mentioned above, aging cider is always a good idea to improve flavor. I wish you all the best of luck, and we are always here to help anytime we can. Thank you for your post.

 

[bernardsmith]

I wonder if there may be something in the water that creates off flavors - chemicals added to purify and make potable the water... If you are diluting your cider after fermentation then it may make more sense to ferment the juice as it is expressed rather than increasing the potential ABV by adding sugar only to reduce it later by diluting the concentration of the fruit. Here's an experiment. Take a glass of the apple juice. Taste it. - Now add enough water to dilute it by 25%. Is that something you would drink?