Completely unpasteurized cider?

[Sol_Om_On]

Hi everyone! I'm new both to this forum and brewing but have been lurking around reading up on cider making for a week or so. I'm interested in doing a semi-sweet still cider really without adding anything other than yeast. I really like to try to keep it basic and clean, so I won't add anything (including sugar) and will use Nottinham and coldcrash it. I'm thinking at about FG 1.015, do you think this would give me a semi-sweet cider?

My other question, related to the title of this thread, is that I would like to do it without pasteurization or other methods, because I want to keep it "healthier" and clean - pasteurization kills vitamins and probably affects the taste, and I'm not interested in adding chemicals to the cider. Do you think it would be possible for a newbie or do you recommend me to pasteurize the first batches I make in order to have a higher chance of success?

Perhaps I should specify that when I say pasteurize I mean heating up the initial unpasteurized apple juice before pitching yeast.

Thanks!

 

[CJ1]

My dry ciders end up about 0.96, so cold crashing at 1.015 should be sweet enough for you.

Pasteurizing before fermentation does give the cider a slightly different taste, but it is an improvement. The yeasts that are naturally in your cider are probably not what you would choose, but they will do some of the fermentation, and you can often taste it. Pasteurizing also prevents you from making apple cider vinegar.

Vitamins are not alive, so they are not killed by heat. They are slightly cooked out. I have never worried about it, as I don't count on my alcohol choices to provide vitamins for my diet.

You can get the same effect as pasteurization by adding a bit of potassium metabisulfate, and it leaves the vitamins alone.

 

[phug]

You can avoid bottle pasteurizing if you cold crash and keep them cold/ near freezing until you drink them. I recommend small batches and plastic soda bottles as you may still have a small amount of fermentation if you have an exceptionally hardy strain of yeast.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[podz]

I'm thinking at about FG 1.015, do you think this would give me a semi-sweet cider?

Try it at 1.020 first and see if you like it. If not, let it go for a while longer.

 

[Retrofit]

I buy unpasteurized cider from the local cider house, add yeast, keg it.
No pills, powders, or drops.
No problems.



Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[podz]

I buy unpasteurized cider from the local cider house, add yeast, keg it.
No pills, powders, or drops.
No problems.

It's not called "cider" until it's been fermented.

 

[lousbrews]

It's not called "cider" until it's been fermented.

Not necessarily. Apple cider from and orchard is just unfiltered pressed apples, which is what I believe the previous poster was referring to. Source: I got an apple orchard up then road from me. Buy that good stuff this time of the year!

 

[podz]

Not necessarily. Apple cider from and orchard is just unfiltered pressed apples

Thats called "apple juice". Same way when you press oranges you get orange juice, lemons : lemon juice, grapes : grape juice. Filtering or non-filtering : still just "juice".

 

[CJ1]

It's not called "cider" until it's been fermented.

It's cider either way. "Sweet" cider vs. "hard" cider, but it is all cider.

 

[wilcode190]

Well I had apples gifted to me this year all I did was give them a dunk in some star San and then juice them just about two gallons. Threw some notty in went pretty dry 1.009 at bottling tasted great. Decided to carbonate to 3.2 should be done in a couple of days. Only thing is it turned out pretty hazy but I am not concerned with that.

 

[MindenMan]

You can get as technical as you want, but people that drink un fermented apple drinks, call the crystal clear stuff apple juice, and the unfiltered cloudy stuff apple cider.
You of course, may call it whatever you want, but if I have the cloudy non alcoholic version, I call it apple cider. If we are talking the alcoholic version, whether it be cloudy or clear I call it "hard" cider.

 

[Retrofit]

The original post wanted to know if he had to pasteurize unfermented apple liquid before he fermented apple liquid into hard apple liquid. He does not need to pasteurize apple liquid before or after fermentation.



Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Roadie]

On the issue of "juice" vs. "cider" outside the U.S. they call unfermented apple juice "juice" and fermented apple juice "cider". Here in the U.S. both terms are used interchangeably.

 

[podz]

On the issue of "juice" vs. "cider" outside the U.S. they call unfermented apple juice "juice" and fermented apple juice "cider". Here in the U.S. both terms are used interchangeably.

I understand that the ambiguity regarding the term is a remnant from prohibition and I am just being a little bit facetious. George Washington didn't refer to unfermented apple juice when he spoke of cider and neither should you!

 

[lousbrews]

It's cider either way. "Sweet" cider vs. "hard" cider, but it is all cider.

Agreed.