Cider gushing when bottling with CPBF.

[troyp42]

I made my first cider with Apple, and cherry juice. Then I hit it with some Potassium sorbate and a campden tablet and 2 days later back sweetened with Pomegranate juice. It turned out great and I carbonated it for a week in a keg at 12 PSI. It tasted great and was pouring nicely but last night I bottled some using my Counter pressure bottle filler. When removing the bottle from the cork they would gush quite a bit. A lot more than any beer ever has. I'm concerned it might have still been fermenting the sugar in the pomegranate juice, although I cant see how when I used the Potassium Sorabate etc to stop the yeast and it was stored at 4C anyway. It didnt gush like this when poured direct from the keg. Is it just that Apple cider tends to release co2 more or something?

Thanks in advance

 

[dmtaylor]

Sorbate and Campden don't kill the yeast. Sorbate prevents them from multiplying and Campden only kills wimpy wild organisms. Any good healthy yeast in the cider is still alive, and regardless of temperature. They are eating your pomegranate juice.

 

[Miraculix]

Sorbate and Campden don't kill the yeast. Sorbate prevents them from multiplying and Campden only kills wimpy wild organisms. Any good healthy yeast in the cider is still alive, and regardless of temperature. They are eating your pomegranate juice.

This.

 

[troyp42]

Sorbate and Campden don't kill the yeast. Sorbate prevents them from multiplying and Campden only kills wimpy wild organisms. Any good healthy yeast in the cider is still alive, and regardless of temperature. They are eating your pomegranate juice.

So whats the point of using them to stop fermentation then?

 

[Maylar]

So whats the point of using them to stop fermentation then?

You don't. You wait for the ferment to complete (no longer changing gravity) before stabilizing. Then the remaining yeast won't eat your back sweetening juice.

 

[troyp42]

You don't. You wait for the ferment to complete (no longer changing gravity) before stabilizing. Then the remaining yeast won't eat your back sweetening juice.

Thats exactly what I did. Waited until fermentation had stopped and gravity was stable over 4 days. Then back sweetened.

 

[Pharquart]

I'm resurrecting an older thread rather than starting a new one because my recent experience has been very similar. I have let cider and mead ferment to dry, stable over the course of a week or more with no airlock activity at all, at or below 1.000SG. (Total fermentation time between 3-8 weeks, depending on the brew.) They're usually crystal clear at that point, so I don't do a cold crash. I rack off the less, avoiding as much of the lees as possible. I degas as much as possible with vigorous stirring. To the gallon of brew, I add 1/16tsp KMBS (my bisulfite is in powder form, not Campden tablets) and 1/2tsp sorbate. I leave that for 24 hours at room temp before back sweetening. This used to work to stabilize my brews, but lately I have had brews restart fermentation after the back sweetening. I usually use 71B and D47 yeasts.

I'm a mechanical engineer, not a chemist, but it seems like sorbate and sulfites are relatively stable salts that shouldn't degrade if kept sealed, dry, and stored at room temp in a dark place. Do they expire or lose effectiveness over time?

 

[dmtaylor]

I'm a mechanical engineer, not a chemist, but it seems like sorbate and sulfites are relatively stable salts that shouldn't degrade if kept sealed, dry, and stored at room temp in a dark place. Do they expire or lose effectiveness over time?

Your initial guess is correct. These salts are reasonably stable and should not lose effectiveness.

The yeast that remained was just excited to still be alive after being PO’d and neutered.

Examples like these are part of the reason that I don’t use any chemicals in my ciders.

 

[Miraculix]

Easy stove top pasteurization is the easiest and safest method of stabilisation in my experience. As a bonus, you do not have to add any additives to your brew.

 

[Pharquart]

I'm happy to avoid chemicals. I want an ABV level below the yeast tolerance, yet a sweet final product, and I would also like to avoid non-fermentable sugars since they generally taste bad to me. dmtaylor: how would you do this without chemicals? It's clear I need to stabilize the product and deactivate the yeast. If chemicals aren't reliable, is pasteurization the only other viable choice? Because my two attempts at pasteurization (I used a sous vide water bath to hold bottled product at 140F for 20 minutes) resulted in a pile of goo inside my cider bottles that I suspect is pectin denaturing and coming out of solution.

 

[dmtaylor]

I'm happy to avoid chemicals. I want an ABV level below the yeast tolerance, yet a sweet final product, and I would also like to avoid non-fermentable sugars since they generally taste bad to me. dmtaylor: how would you do this without chemicals? It's clear I need to stabilize the product and deactivate the yeast. If chemicals aren't reliable, is pasteurization the only other viable choice? Because my two attempts at pasteurization (I used a sous vide water bath to hold bottled product at 140F for 20 minutes) resulted in a pile of goo inside my cider bottles that I suspect is pectin denaturing and coming out of solution.

I know what you mean about artificial sweeteners. I've tried many, and I don't like most. I myself usually use xylitol (tastes almost exactly like real sugar) or lactose (which IS real sugar but not fermentable). Eventually I will probably try something along the lines of sous vide as you have. Not sure why your cider would turn to goo. That seems really odd to me. I don't think there's THAT much pectin... but I suppose I could be wrong.

If those are not good options for you, well... maybe sweeten it with simple syrup in your glass when you pour it. Or, maybe, I might not be the right person to ask.

 

[Pharquart]

Thanks for the help so far. If only it were as simple as plain "sweet." But I like to use the back sweetening process to also characterize. For example, I'll start with basic apple juice fermented to dry. Then I'll add a can of frozen apple juice concentrate to give it a strong apple flavor. Or a can of pineapple juice concentrate makes it like Ace Cider - Pineapple. Or I'll add some cherries to characterize a different way. I do the same with my meads: start with a basic recipe and characterize in secondary. I find it much easier to predict and reproduce the outcome flavor if I add the flavoring after fermentation rather than in primary.

In the meantime, I've stuck my latest 3 batches in the fridge to cold crash because the airlock continues to go up after back sweetening, despite the presence of the sorbate. Maybe the cold crash will put the yeast to sleep enough that the sorbate that's in there will keep them asleep even after things warm up again.

 

[bracconiere]

don't they sell filters that are like 1 micron? filter it when it tastes right? i think heating it would do some serious taste damage...

https://www.morebeer.com/products/beer-filter-kit-10-canister.html
https://www.morebeer.com/products/bevbright-beverage-filter-1-micron.html
it says it might clog, but an idea i'm tossing out....could wait for the yeast to seetle, then back sweeten and filter though?

 

[TheBluePhantom]

I'm resurrecting an older thread rather than starting a new one because my recent experience has been very similar. I have let cider and mead ferment to dry, stable over the course of a week or more with no airlock activity at all, at or below 1.000SG. (Total fermentation time between 3-8 weeks, depending on the brew.) They're usually crystal clear at that point, so I don't do a cold crash. I rack off the less, avoiding as much of the lees as possible. I degas as much as possible with vigorous stirring. To the gallon of brew, I add 1/16tsp KMBS (my bisulfite is in powder form, not Campden tablets) and 1/2tsp sorbate. I leave that for 24 hours at room temp before back sweetening. This used to work to stabilize my brews, but lately I have had brews restart fermentation after the back sweetening. I usually use 71B and D47 yeasts.

I'm a mechanical engineer, not a chemist, but it seems like sorbate and sulfites are relatively stable salts that shouldn't degrade if kept sealed, dry, and stored at room temp in a dark place. Do they expire or lose effectiveness over time?

I like my cider sweet and carbonated, so I normally use Pot sorbate and pot meta. The method I am used to seeing and use myself is the same up to the sweetening. I add the chemicals then wait two weeks for them to work. then backsweeten and wait another two weeks under airlock to see if the ferment restarts. Then I keg and carb.

Relatively stable doesn't mean these are Twinkies, and even those have a shelf life. Potassium metabisulphite is pretty good even at room temp. Potassium Sorbate degrades faster, doesn't like light, or humidity, and I am not sure about heat. Personally I have taken to storing it in the fridge in a mylar zipper bag and replacing at about 18 months.

 

[sparkymctrowell]

Easy stove top pasteurization is the easiest and safest method of stabilisation in my experience. As a bonus, you do not have to add any additives to your brew.

@Miraculix - I'm working on my second batch of nectarine cider. The first batch got too dry, so I want to stop the fermentation before the second batch does too. I prefer to keep down the amount of chemicals I use. Can you point me at a reliable description of stove top pasteurization?

 

[Kees]

In the meantime, I've stuck my latest 3 batches in the fridge to cold crash because the airlock continues to go up after back sweetening, despite the presence of the sorbate. Maybe the cold crash will put the yeast to sleep enough that the sorbate that's in there will keep them asleep even after things warm up again.

I am afraid the yeasts will wake up as soon as they are brought back to room temp.

 

[NTBeer]

@Miraculix - I'm working on my second batch of nectarine cider. The first batch got too dry, so I want to stop the fermentation before the second batch does too. I prefer to keep down the amount of chemicals I use. Can you point me at a reliable description of stove top pasteurization?

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-with-pics.193295/

 

[Chalkyt]

There was a lot of discussion about heat pasteurising last year. Pappers' sticky at the top of the forum is the "Grandaddy" and as suggested above, is worth digesting. JimRausch (16 April 2018) has a "cooler" method that is worth looking at as is Bembel's post of 11 May 2016. Just use the search function at the top of the page to find them.

Attached is a paper that I did last year for our local use which goes into a fair bit of detail on how I have gone about the heat pasteurising approach that I often use. In particular I use a sous-vide at 65C for only ten minutes or so.

As far as the "goo" in the bottles is concerned, I haven't struck this but have found that in some pasteurised batches there is a clumping of sediment which breaks up if the bottles are shaken so might be similar to your issue.

As our "cider season" isn't until April/May I haven't been able to look into the cause yet, but suspect that it happens to batches where I try to stop fermentation "on the way down". i.e. batches where there is still a lot of matter in suspension. I am inclined to think that this won't happen on batches which have been sitting in secondary for a long time and the sediment has settled out and not transferred to the bottles. These batches are fully fermented and have sugar or AJC added to bring them back up to the sweetness that I want before they are pasteurised.I will certainly be looking at this when I start with my next ciders.

Hope this helps.

Cheers!