Easy Stove-Top Pasteurizing - With Pics

[mtnman68]

Can you use this method with plastic pop bottles?

Thanks

mtnman68

 

[torilen]

I'm not the one who wrote this thread, and I am new to pasteurizing. But I would not suggest it. To get the water hot enough to pasteurize, roughly 160F or so...there is a good chance you're going to start melting the plastic. Plastic bottles don't do well in heat like that.

 

[Blue-Frog]

Interesting question.
Don't know the answer.
Agree with previous commenter, perhaps not melting per se, but decreased resistance to the the increased pressure, leading to early failure of the cap --> bullet shooting... WARNING!
I may do some tests next time & will post any observations
if so....

 

[Maylar]

When a plastic bottle gets to about 45 PSI the pressure will make it "pop" out the bottom.

 

[Blue-Frog]

45PSI for the bottle to disfigure?
Interesting.

Have you found this true for most all "soda" bottles or are there sig. differences?

Other thoughts...
Any idea what the pressure of plain water is at 70 C.?
How much carbon dioxide would be needed to get to 45 PSI at room temp?
and how much does it increase when the temp is 60~70C?

 

[Maylar]

45PSI for the bottle to disfigure?
Interesting.

Have you found this true for most all "soda" bottles or are there sig. differences?

Other thoughts...
Any idea what the pressure of plain water is at 70 C.?
How much carbon dioxide would be needed to get to 45 PSI at room temp?
and how much does it increase when the temp is 60~70C?

I drink Sprite, so I had green bottles. Haven't tried any others. That one in the pic had been carbed to about 2.4 volumes of CO2 (25 psi at 65F) and plunked into a pot of 175F water. Two other samples did the same thing.

Water doesn't have pressure unless it's carbonated (or boiling).

The formula for pressure vs temperature for a given carbonation level is

P = -16.6999 - 0.0101059 T + 0.00116512 T^2 + 0.173354 T V + 4.24267 V - 0.0684226 V^2

Where,
P = Pressure in PSI
V = Volumes of CO2
T = Degrees F

 

[Blue-Frog]

Oh OK so that was at almost 80 C.

Water doesn't have pressure unless it's carbonated (or boiling).

???
I guess you mean of any real significance (?)

I would imagine that as the temperature rises there is always an increase in the vapor pressure but that at some point it becomes "significant" enough to "lift" more than just the water molecules near the surface.

On the other hand, I am falling asleep as I write this - maybe I should take another look in the morning.

Thanks for the formula!

 

[torilen]

I doubt you'll be using normal drinking water bottles - but just in case:
I put water from a kurig into one, and while it didn't melt, it deformed
greatly and easily. Can't say what it leached into the water, but it
can't be good.

 

[bembel]

I use an Excel sheet to actually monitor the accumulated PUs that my ciders undergo during pasteurization and I have found that high temps are overkill and can lead to dangerous levels of pressure, as well as off flavors

Here is a link to my thread that goes into the specifics of time and temp required to adequately stabalize your ciders at much lower temps than have been discussed in various other threads.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=581913

I will post a download link to the Excel file shortly

 

[Ike]

Here is a link to my thread that goes into the specifics of time and temp required to adequately stabalize your ciders at much lower temps than have been discussed in various other threads.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=581913

oooooohhhhh... the ex-engineer in me just had a little bit of a nerdgasm. Great data, that.

I've run a similar test, albeit a bit less technical, and included my data a page or two up-thread. Although I do not have sous-vide available (wish list!) I found that batch treatments were effective at much lower temps. I was reaching 140* internal bottle temp in my batches (10 bottles in my brew kettle, filled to 1" below caps) after 10 mins if I started at just 175* "strike water temperature" , and after 15mins if I started as low as 165*. So far, only one blown cap and one broken bottle.

Obviously, your data would suggest even lower starting temps would be possible. Do you have any links to threads or pages that discuss variables (yeast variety, ABV, and/or SG) and the related PUs necessary?

 

[Ike]

I use an Excel sheet to actually monitor the accumulated PUs that my ciders undergo during pasteurization and I have found that high temps are overkill and can lead to dangerous levels of pressure, as well as off flavors

FURTHERMORE: What is this magical mango and cherry cider of which you speak, and how can I convince you to post the recipe?!

 

[Blue-Frog]

...I have found that high temps are overkill and can lead to dangerous levels of pressure....

oooooohhhhh... the ex-engineer in me... So far, only one blown cap and one broken bottle... Do you have any links to threads or pages that discuss variables (yeast variety, ABV, and/or SG) and the related PUs necessary?

I am writing without thinking this through so please cut me some slack if I say something stupid... but I suspect the differences in temperature are not the primary source of danger in the unwanted creation of bottle bombs... Primary consideration is the amount of carbonation at the start of pasteurization.... this is the biggest determining variable in my opinion.... imagine if you were "pasteurizing" pure water... at what temp would one begin to get bottle bombs? I imagine someone out there has sufficient mastery of the science and physics to calculate this, given accurate bottle specs (which I haven't found yet) nevertheless, I can only imagine that plain (uncarbonated) water could withstand a much higher temperature before becomming an exploding catastrophy.

I am not saying temperature is not important, just that bottle bombs and PUs are different animals.

I haven't seen any mention of yeast type, (different yeast die at different temperatures) cell counts etc.
Where is the hard core science stuff? I would like to see the full (with exponents and all) formulas to the PU theory...
if you have a nice concise link.

 

[bembel]

Yes the existing carbonation is a key factor, you have to know that before hand, that's the point. The other factor in getting your requires PUs from less temp/time is flavor retention, you don't want to cook your cider.

As for a chart of PUs required for different yeast strains, that's up to you. I found that beer makers use 12-15 PUs, milk and dairy more, and in conversations with small scale commercial cider makers that 25-50 is the rule of thumb. More so for fresh juice.

Maylar mentioned possibly testing out bottles at different PSIs to see what they can take before blowing up. This will be good info to share

If I can rig up a pressure gauge a set of experiments will follow with water carbonated to diff. Volumes and heated till explosion. I just have to rig up an old cooler to do this in, since I don't want to destroy my kitchen just yet

 

[bembel]

I am writing without thinking this through so please cut me some slack if I say something stupid... but I suspect the differences in temperature are not the primary source of danger in the unwanted creation of bottle bombs... Primary consideration is the amount of carbonation at the start of pasteurization.... this is the biggest determining variable in my opinion.... imagine if you were "pasteurizing" pure water... at what temp would one begin to get bottle bombs? I imagine someone out there has sufficient mastery of the science and physics to calculate this, given accurate bottle specs (which I haven't found yet) nevertheless, I can only imagine that plain (uncarbonated) water could withstand a much higher temperature before becomming an exploding catastrophy.

I am not saying temperature is not important, just that bottle bombs and PUs are different animals.

I haven't seen any mention of yeast type, (different yeast die at different temperatures) cell counts etc.
Where is the hard core science stuff? I would like to see the full (with exponents and all) formulas to the PU theory...
if you have a nice concise link.

Just did a quick look at temp /pressure using the spreadsheet that Maylar created, and there is a definite advantage to staying at the lower spectrum of temp to reduce pressure, regardless of carbonation levels, ill plot them out later but look at the data here. At starting volume of 2, which is about where my ciders are, if I keep the max temp to 150 I still get the required PUs but the pressure never goes about 68, as soon as I climb past 160F im getting into explosion territory. Maylar learned that breweries test new bottles to 100PSI and that used bottles are considered safe up to 58, def need to get more data on that, but either way, safe to say that if you want less than 100 PSI stick to lower temps

 

[bembel]

FURTHERMORE: What is this magical mango and cherry cider of which you speak, and how can I convince you to post the recipe?!

In my past I have been lucky enough to work in the kitchens of some well known restaurants in both Germany and the US and have survived under the tutelage of some amazing yet egotistical chefs. One of the most valuable lessons I learned was that if you wanted any dish to feature a flavor or aroma, you added the aromatic element as close to the end of the process as possible, so as not to degrade the nature of it. ( OK, except garlic)

When I started making ciders I added all sorts of things a the beginning based on my brewing experiences, and never had any control over the final outcome, as fermentation is just too transformative. Plus you need huge amounts of additions in the primary to get much result in the end.

So now I make ciders straight, nothing added ( except for New England Style which I do have a 'recipe' for ) and add any flavor elements ( dried fruit, freeze dried fruit, fresh fruit, spices, herbs) just prior to bottling or kegging, based on experimenting with 100ml at a time of the straight cider and adding small amounts of infused 'teas' to get the flavor & color & aroma I am looking for, then scale up the batch.

The Mango and Cherry were actually 2 separate ciders I just happened to be pasteurizing at once, but in hindsight it sounds like a combo that would be fantastic!

The mango cider was flavored with Trader Joe's freeze dried mango, about 2g per 100ml, .25ml green cardamom 'tea', .5g fresh ginger and 2 drops of rose water.

The cherry was just Kirkland dried, sweetened cherries added at about 2g/100ml.

I then scale up the aromatics, put the solids in a fine mesh hop bag and place that in a small keg that I have purged the oxygen out of, then I pressure transfer the straight cider from the larger keg into the smaller one until I get the right amount (postal scale is a lot cheaper than a flow meter)

I let that sit a few days and then filter, bottle and pasteurize.

For small batches, the 1.6 gallon 'Torpedo Keg' is a fantastic tool for doing this, and allows you to create 4 batches of different ciders from one 5 gallon starter cider.

 

[echardcore]

Great thread. Was looking around for this info for awhile.

Info: I have a 3 gallon batch of 100% natural cider that I have added nothing to. I let it go with its native yeast since November. The juice was brought to me from CiderDays. OG 1.050, Last time I checked, FG was 1.002ish. I also have 3 separate gallons to experiment with.

Here is my plan.

I am going to heat up water in my brew kettle to 180 - 190 and put it in a big cooler. When it reaches 175ish, I'll put the prewarmed bottles in and let them sit with the lid closed for safety.

My issue I am struggling with is the addition of sugar. I plan on using raw honey mixed with preboiled water. I saw Pappers say that he now does one gallon of fresh juice to 3 gallons of fermented juice. I wanted to keep it simple like this but I really dont want to change the flavor of what I have. This is a special blend of apples specifically for hard cider. In fact, it tastes better than any other still, dry cider I have had so far.

For the big 3 gallon batch, we have decided on 8 oz of raw honey in half a gallon of boiled distilled water. We are looking for a low carb, low sweetness beverage showcasing the cider as plain and enjoyable as possible. We have a short window to pasteurize in. We plan on bottling on Friday and pasteurize on Sunday or Monday.

Some info we used to figure out 8 oz of honey -
Natures Promise AJ - 240 grams of sugar in half gallon.
Raw honey - 374 g. in 16 oz.
This would equal 10.26 oz. honey for the same amount of sugar (according to my accountant/SO). We are going with 8 to keep it safe, on the dry side, and low carb.

Does this sound good?
Anything wrong with raw honey?
Thanks in advance.


P.S.

I think it would be REALLY REALLY helpful to include some baseline numbers (in the OP) to go by when calculating sugar amounts for back sweetening / carbing.

This might even help people prevent some of the bombs.

EDIT:

After reading through more of this long thread I found some useful info.

The philosophy is that you want to sweeten until you are happy, then add the amount of carb sugar you need.

We sweetened 1.003 FG to about 1.008. We used organic brown sugar from whole foods in boiled water mixed in the bottling bucket. 6 oz. /4 c. (only used about 3 c. of the mixture). It still tastes dry but has more apple flavor. Exactly what we want.

We used the NB carb calculator (http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator) to get to about 2 carb vols. This was about 0.25 c in about 2 cups of water.

We did this last night and the plastic bottle is slightly firmer than an identical bottle filled with water this morning.

We only filled the bottles to just over the bottom of the longnecks. I even went so far as to weigh out the bottles. Empty, some were under 7 oz and some over. We kept the heavier bottles.

The batch is safe in a tupperware tote with some dumbells on top. Finally found a good use for them.

This is fun.

 

[eigua]

Just did a quick look at temp /pressure using the spreadsheet that Maylar created, and there is a definite advantage to staying at the lower spectrum of temp to reduce pressure, regardless of carbonation levels, ill plot them out later but look at the data here. At starting volume of 2, which is about where my ciders are, if I keep the max temp to 150 I still get the required PUs but the pressure never goes about 68, as soon as I climb past 160F im getting into explosion territory. Maylar learned that breweries test new bottles to 100PSI and that used bottles are considered safe up to 58, def need to get more data on that, but either way, safe to say that if you want less than 100 PSI stick to lower temps

I have to add my voice to the cautions when pasteurizing in glass as described by the OP. I did my first attempt at pasteurization last night, using a much safer, less stressful process, and yet I still had 3 of 4 bottles develop what looks like a long stress crack.

Pasteurizing rice wine (not carbonated).

My method:
To reduce pressures and risk of explosions, I slowly heated water up to around 150 in two separate pots in stages, starting around 100, then 120, 140, 150. I added my uncapped beer bottles of rice wine to the water, moving the bottles between each pot as I need to step up temperature in the other to avoid adding heat with the bottles in the water. I did this over the course of probably 1 1/2 hours. When I got to around 150, I removed each bottle and capped. The idea was to cap at an already warm temperature to avoid the pressures of increasing 100+ degrees with a cap on. This way I'd only have to deal with pressure increases of +20 degrees. I then stepped up the water to about 170, transferred the capped bottles, and let them cool to around 125 in that water before removing. To my great surprise, it appears that 3 out of 4 bottles STILL developed what I believe are stress fractures. (see pic - it's the wavy, hazy looking line running vertically all the way up) Each bottle has one of these stress lines running up the entire length of the bottle, not all in the same place and not all shaped the same. These bottles were from commercial beer, but have never been reused before this.

If my gentle, low-temperature pasteurization process with non-carbonated liquid can produce stress fractures in these bottles, I imagine they would have exploded for sure if pasteurized as described by the OP with carbonated liquid inside.

I may be wrong about these being stress fractures, but I do not recall seeing them before this and none of my other unused bottles show anything similar.

 

[highplains]

Eigua, your gentle method may have been gentle in heating, but you created a vacuum in the bottles! Unlike heating a closed system that then returns to a reduced state of pressure, you have bottles that had essentially no pressure, which increased (negatively) as they cooled. Beware of putting these bottles in your fridge......

 

[eigua]

Eigua, your gentle method may have been gentle in heating, but you created a vacuum in the bottles! Unlike heating a closed system that then returns to a reduced state of pressure, you have bottles that had essentially no pressure, which increased (negatively) as they cooled. Beware of putting these bottles in your fridge......

I knew the pressure would be less once sealed and cooled, but I doubt that the negative pressures are that great. This is the same thing that happens when home canning or doing preserves. You bottle at high heat and cool afterwards. I've never heard of a bottle of preserves imploding. In addition, the lines on the bottles were already there when the temperature was still in the 150's. I'm beginning to doubt these are cracks however.

 

[bembel]

"The philosophy is that you want to sweeten until you are happy, then add the amount of carb sugar you need"

Echardcore

I'm sure your cider will be fantastic, the juice is likely from Pine Hill farm and last years blends are turning out great!

One thing, you can't sweeten to taste, and then add more sugar to carb unless you precisely measure the pressure being created and then stop the yeast by pasteurization at exactly the level of the SG that you back sweetened to. Without a pressure gauge hooked up to a test bottle this is next to impossible. Especially with 3 gallons worth.

It is very difficult to try this out first time. Essentially you are trying to guess when the yeast have eaten enough sugar to get to your desired carb level, then stopped them by pasteurization. Now sure, you can guesstimate and just pasteurize when the bottles feel firm, but you probably won't end up with the FG that you intended based on the sweetening to taste. - you might, but this would be good fortune and hard to replicate-

If you were just trying to stop fermentation at a desired sweetness without worrying about carbonation I you can simply taste the cider and then bottle and pasteurize when it's to your liking, but once they are bottled you loose the ability to take samples unless you open a bottle, and with just 3 gallons worth that's a high cost sample.

 

[bembel]

The other option I'm experimenting with is pasteurizing whole batches in small kegs then filtering, back sweetening and force carbing the final cider

 

[echardcore]

"The philosophy is that you want to sweeten until you are happy, then add the amount of carb sugar you need"

Echardcore

I'm sure your cider will be fantastic, the juice is likely from Pine Hill farm and last years blends are turning out great!

One thing, you can't sweeten to taste, and then add more sugar to carb unless you precisely measure the pressure being created and then stop the yeast by pasteurization at exactly the level of the SG that you back sweetened to. Without a pressure gauge hooked up to a test bottle this is next to impossible. Especially with 3 gallons worth.

It is very difficult to try this out first time. Essentially you are trying to guess when the yeast have eaten enough sugar to get to your desired carb level, then stopped them by pasteurization. Now sure, you can guesstimate and just pasteurize when the bottles feel firm, but you probably won't end up with the FG that you intended based on the sweetening to taste. - you might, but this would be good fortune and hard to replicate-

If you were just trying to stop fermentation at a desired sweetness without worrying about carbonation I you can simply taste the cider and then bottle and pasteurize when it's to your liking, but once they are bottled you loose the ability to take samples unless you open a bottle, and with just 3 gallons worth that's a high cost sample.

Thanks bembel!

Welp! The plastic bottle never really got much firmer after waiting 4 days. We decided to pasteurize anyway since we don't have much time for this during the week. I drank the plastic bottle and it's wonderful. I wonder if my yeast never came out of dormancy? There seems to be little to no carbonation at all. I had a feeling this might happen. I kept the bottles in the basement where it is cooler than the rest of the house. We brought them upstairs for the last day.

 

[eigua]

The plastic bottle never really got much firmer after waiting 4 days...I wonder if my yeast never came out of dormancy? There seems to be little to no carbonation at all. I had a feeling this might happen.

It looks to me has only been 8 days between bottling and now based on the date of your previous post. My cider took a lot longer than that to carbonate. I'd say it was about 3 weeks before the plastic bottles were rock hard. Both the original fermentation and carbonation were slow -- it was 38 days in primary before SG stabilized and no more bubbles were visible.

 

[echardcore]

It looks to me has only been 8 days between bottling and now based on the date of your previous post. My cider took a lot longer than that to carbonate. I'd say it was about 3 weeks before the plastic bottles were rock hard. Both the original fermentation and carbonation were slow -- it was 38 days in primary before SG stabilized and no more bubbles were visible.

Wow thats a lot longer than what OP says. Mine was in the primary/secondary since November.

 

[eigua]

Wow thats a lot longer than what OP says. Mine was in the primary/secondary since November.

Dang, that's a long primary/secondary! I would think that may make it take even longer considering nearly all of the yeast had probably settled out at that point. I imagine it would take whatever few were left a long time to replicate enough to carb.

If you had it so long in the primary/secondary, that sounds a lot different from what the OP did. He bottled while his yeast were still suspended and in active (but slowed) fermentation and there was still plenty of sugar left in the mix. Carbonation naturally would have taken place very quickly considering his yeast were still in fermentation mode when he bottled. The pasteurization was then done to kill them off after enough carbonation had taken place so he could retain the residual sugars for taste.

I'm sure it can also depend on the type of yeast used. I used Safale S04 in mine, which it seems like for malt it's a fermentation monster, but for sucrose or apple juice, it really, really takes its time.

 

[Dirt_McGirt]

I just tried this and was maybe at 195 for the first batch. I had one bottle go kablooie and the caps on two others fly off. Second batch was at about 170-175 and was fine. Is that high enough to have done the job?

 

[Blue-Frog]

I wish you brave men could get some of this kablooie & flying lids on film/tape/chips
I wanna see what I don't ever want to see in front of me, my very own frontal lobotamy.

 

[MT2sum]

I just tried this and was maybe at 195 for the first batch. I had one bottle go kablooie and the caps on two others fly off. Second batch was at about 170-175 and was fine. Is that high enough to have done the job?

The whole idea of pasteurizing is to kill the yeast. which, if you read some of the threads on HBT can be done at 100F-125F, but that would probably take several hours with your carbonated cider, and who wants a brew day to last that long? Also, you've got to do this fairly soon after reaching the proper carbonation - so don't wait too long, from what I've read. If you look in the past threads, it can be as low as 150F (lower in some cases) - as long as you leave it in long enough so that the whole bottle reaches the set point - I'd recommend using one of those remote thermometers (where you just use a probe in the bottle) and put that bottle in the center of the pile - then make sure that you keep it at the set temperature for the proper amount of time - that means wasting one bottle of cider (which you can drink, even tho it will be flat, not sparkling), but at least you have a liquid of the same density as the rest of the bottles ..... you can stick the probe thru a cork so that the water heating environment isn't affecting the temp of an open bottle. Remember, you have to heat a glass bottle to bring up the temps of the liquid inside of that bottle - it takes time because both don't heat at the same speed, the bottle heats slower than the liquid inside, that's why I put a thermometer in the water and a second thermometer (the one with a probe) in the cider bottle. That tells me when the cider has reached the proper temp for pasteurization. I followed Pappers' instructions for part of this - other than the temp/time itself, using the ideas of others for measuring the temps, and my cider worked out great. I first brought the water up to temp, put the bottles in one at a time, and didn't start the timer until the water temp was back up to my set-temp. I maintained the set-temp throughout the whole set-time. I don't drink cider but the wife does, so I haven't made it in a few years or so - she says it gets better with age! I'll try to backtrack this thread and see exactly what the temps and time are supposed to be and edit this when I come up with a more explicit answer ;>)

NOTE: Be sure you have something between the bottom of the bottles & the bottom surface of the water pot. I use a canning plate (looks like a false bottom, but the holes in it are about 1/2" in size), although some posters have said that a rag will do. Since I used an old canner pot for pasteurizing (you can tighten down the top to prevent bottle bomb problems) we still had the plate that goes with it - just take out the rubber pop-valve so you can put the probe and long-stemmed thermometer in!

OK, I read a few pages toward the front of the thread - Pappers says he puts room temp bottles into 190F water for 10 minutes and it usually drops the water temp to about 160F, so he apparently doesn't keep heat under it all the time. Another poster says 160F for 20 min. You might read pages 3&4 because supposedly certain yeasts are not affected by this pasteurization technique. On pg 7, post #61, Joe Sponge shows some calcs he found for pasteurizing water as low as 128F/56 min., 140F/5.6 min., 152F 5.6 min as well as a lot of other good info if you have a scientific mind (I dont!). I believe I used 165F/20 min. as a set point/time, and had/have had NO bottle bombs. I think you went over the 190F too much and also you need to be sure you didn't over-carbonate as that will also cause bottle bombs, volcanoes/foam fountains, etc. Just be sure you read thru the first 10 or 15 pages of this thread (and even take a look at the links to some other threads), so you're aware if the risks involved in pasteurizing! If you have questions, ask Pappers - he's the mod of this thread AFAIK.
BTW, one poster - cyberbackpacker - says that he visited Yeunglings Brewery and they told him that they pasteurize their beer at 140F/12 min.
MT2sum

 

[GioGomez2010]

Stove top pasteurized. Didn't die! Worked like a charm but also my cider was lightly carbed so lessened bomb risk Haha Great tutorial so many years down the road.

 

[katzgirl]

So I'm planning a carbonated hard lemonade. Can the pasteurization be done in a wine bottle? What would be the best type of closure for the bottle? The plastic cork with wire cage?