Do I need to secondary this ?

[overdbus]

I started with 4 gal of unfiltered apple juice and 4 lbs
of honey and pitched wine yeast. That was in December,
so far it's cleared /looks ok nice cake on the bottom.
Now I want to add 2 lbs of strawberries{in a slurry} and
let it go for another month , then add frozen apple juice to
back sweetin then bottle and pasteurize.

I would rather not transfer this if I don't have to,Am I
going to hurt this leaving in the primary form start to
finish ?

Thanks Cheers

 

[Unferth]

much like with beer, there are varying opinions on whether to rack cider or not. EdWort's original instructions for Apfelwein doesn't require racking (though I always do); I have made some decent cider with ale yeast that I didn't rack to secondary.

However, If I'm using wine yeast or conditioning it, as you are with strawberries, I always rack. I'm just afraid the lees will give my cider a bad taste. My suggestion would be to freeze your strawberries, soak them in campden solution for about 12 hours as they thaw and rack on top of them. then when it clears up again, proceed to bottle and pasteurize as planned.

That's my 2c. Good luck

 

[overdbus]

much like with beer, there are varying opinions on whether to rack cider or not. EdWort's original instructions for Apfelwein doesn't require racking (though I always do); I have made some decent cider with ale yeast that I didn't rack to secondary.

However, If I'm using wine yeast or conditioning it, as you are with strawberries, I always rack. I'm just afraid the lees will give my cider a bad taste. My suggestion would be to freeze your strawberries, soak them in campden solution for about 12 hours as they thaw and rack on top of them. then when it clears up again, proceed to bottle and pasteurize as planned.

That's my 2c. Good luck

Thanks I have frooze and thawed the berries three times in prepration for making a slurry which worked good before , do i have to use/ need campden ? i have not used it before.

 

[Unferth]

The tablets, which you can also get in a powder as sulfite, bisulfite, disulfite, etc., will kill many bacteria. If you use enough of them it might 'pause' your fermentation.

I, personally, would use them, but you're probably OK to not use them. The berries have been frozen and you are dumping them in a pretty high ABV environment. Whatever is on there is probably not strong enough to overcome all that abuse, and if it is that strong, I don't know if a little sulfite would actually do anything. So, they are optional I guess.