Easy Stove-Top Pasteurizing - With Pics

[swolfe]

I tried this technique and lost a gallon of my first cider. I dont think it was the techniques fault but mine since it was slightly under pressure. I then kept on reading some other techniques and remembering the time i worked at a brewery and saw their pasteurization steam room. Here is what i did. I put the bottles i wanted to pasteurize in my empty sink and started to run water over the bottles. When the hot water from my tap got around 160-170. I closed the drain and let my sink fill up so the bottles were submerged. The overall temperature was around 160. I then let them be for about 10 min watching to see how they were doing. For the still screw top wine bottles i saw some bubbling but let them be. For the Carbed swing cap there were some surprises. The gasket on some had been forced/stretched so that some of them were REALLY bubbling. I let the pressure out of those and almost lost some cider to the kitchen ceiling. After that i refilled the sink with hot water from the tap and just let the bottles sit in there and went shopping..... for a few needed homebrew supplies. Came back a few hours later and the sink water was at room temp and the bottles were fine. Put them in the fridge to help them settle.

So far non of them have started to re-ferment.

I am liking this idea, I have ridiculously hot tap water.

 

[StophJS]

Works like a charm.

 

[zmad2000]

If you want it to go quicker. Bring a pot of water up to 190 and add it once the bottles are up to around 160. That should prevent bottles from breaking due to thermal stresses.

 

[Daze]

This is my first post on the forum and it comes after a bunch of internet research and reading 40 pages of posts on just this thread , so at least I did my homework before posting. This thread is the answer to the question I had be asking for years and I appreciate it a lot!!! I have one thing that I wanted to bring up as it has been hinted to in this thread but not spelled out directly.

I see two common problems with making sparkling sweet hard cider in this fashion. First bottle bombs due to over-carbonation and second cider that does not clear. Obviously it can not be stressed enough that a person needs to open a test bottle before pasteurizing regardless of the technique and processes used up to that point, but also I believe there is a secondary solution that applies to both. Rather than stopping the fermentation at a particular SG to maintain natural sweetness go ahead and ferment it out dry. This will allow the cider to clear. Then back-sweeten/prime, bottle, carbonate and then pasteurize. If a person is worried that by fermenting out all the natural sweetness and then back sweetening with sugar will effect the taste, use apple concentrate. I personally prefer back sweetening with brown sugar.

My reason for this conclusion is this, first if it clears in the primary fermenter it won't need to clear in the bottle which will also have the benefit of reduced sediment. Second and this is the big one by letting it clear you significantly reduce the amount of yeast in the bottle which will slow down carbonation, resulting in more control over how carbonated the cider is and reduce the chance of bottle bombs. As I was reading all the different accounts of success and failure the people who reported problems with this technique, more often than not, were people who were working with young cider that was still fairly active. Just my observations. could be totally wrong so feel free to correct me if I am missing something.

I have not yet done the technique in this thread to get both bubbles and sweetness but will on my next batch. In the past I always pasteurized prior to bottling for a still sweet cider. I fermented the cider out dry, racked it in to a sauce pan, brought it up to temperature, sweetened, then bottled it still hot. By bottling it hot it not only had the benefit of self pasteurization but also created a better seal because a slight vacuum was created when it cooled.

 

[btam13]

Has anyone tried using one of those big oval shaped crock pots that are programmable for temperature? The only thing I see as potentially being an issue is that the bottles would only be submerged up to their shoulders.

 

[von-block]

PET bottle,

ANyone try them, I saw the champagne plastic corks but what if we use PET and a lower temp for a longuer times.

I just bought 48 PET bottle specialy for my Cider,

There must be a solution.

My idea is to release the pressure of the bottle before pasteurizing them, it will be easy with the plastic cap. After that, I hope the plastic will be strong enough.

 

[Pappers_]

PET bottle,

ANyone try them, I saw the champagne plastic corks but what if we use PET and a lower temp for a longuer times.

I just bought 48 PET bottle specialy for my Cider,

There must be a solution.

My idea is to release the pressure of the bottle before pasteurizing them, it will be easy with the plastic cap. After that, I hope the plastic will be strong enough.

I don't think PET bottles hold up to heat well. I remember reading from someone how they filled their Better Bottle with hot tap water and it shriveled and deformed. But I've never tried it myself - you could experiment on one bottle and see what happens.

 

[nukinfuts29]

Question:

I have a cider going now (5 day country cider, recipe database) and i had intended to bottle it into 1 Gallon AJ jugs instead of pasteurizing and bottling because i do not have any beer bottles, caps, or capper.

Is that even feasable, or was my assumption premature? What are my options? I will not be able to drink 5 gallons anytime soon, but will probably pass out around 3 gallons.

 

[btam13]

If you keep them in the fridge, they should be fine. Otherwise, you will need to let it ferment out completely or stop fermentation chemically. If you don't and you store the jugs at room temp, they will continue to ferment and pop.

 

[nat168]

I tried this method with a quick cider I did last week:
5 gal. store bought (Wal-Mart) cider
1 cup turbinado sugar
Wyeast Lander's Golden Yeast

Mixed it all up and pitched the yeast around 2 am on 12/3/11 (OG= 1.060)
By 7:00 pm on 12/8/11, the SG had reached 1.012, which was actually a little drier than I wanted, but time to bottle.
Primed with 4 cups of Simply Apple and bottled. Bottling completed around 8:30 pm

12/9/11, 6:00 pm: opened one bottle to check the carb level. Carbed perfectly! Similar carb level to commercial ciders, woodchuck, etc.
Pasteurized with no problem, no leaky or exploding bottles.

The warning is that I had WELL carbed bottles in only 22 HOURS.
If I had waited even one more day, I likely would have had bombs. Checking early on made sure that I had no exploding bottles and/or did not have to open and recap everything before pasteurizing.

Check your bottles often! Better to have to recap and/or drink a few bottles early than have explosions!!

Have fun!
Nat

 

[StophJS]

This is scary.

 

[Daze]

This technique works very well, thanks for sharing it!!!!!! I had some raspberry wine that I had made years ago and never done anything with. (amazingly it was still good) decided to bottle it only to discover that the fermentation had stuck some where along the way and bottling it was just what was needed to start it back up. So I popped the corks on the 5 wine bottles and transferred it in to 10 beer bottles and capped it. Each day I popped open a bottle, only to check the carb levels. After checking I recapped it and put a date on the lid. Took me 5 days to get it where I wanted it and then I pasteurized it with the technique described in this thread worked like a champ!!!

Something I learned... may not apply to all but something to consider. As the pressure was building in the bottles there was a small ring of foam at the top of the liquid and I could see small bubbles floating to the top until the carbonation reached the perfect amount then I could no longer see bubbles rising to the top. My guess is that is when the pressure reached the perfect carbonation, it also forced the CO2 to dissolve directly in to the liquid and the bubbles stopped rising to the top.

 

[richwerth]

Do I have to pasturize all cider I make?

 

[Pappers_]

Do I have to pasturize all cider I make?

No. This is one method to use to make a: 1) semi-sweet 2) bottle conditioned and 3) sparkling cider. Another method can be found here EASY RECIPE: How to make Homemade Hard Apple Cider - Make your own Hard Apple Cider

 

[MarkKF]

OK, so I give this a try and like it but...

I took some temp readings and found that the water temp dropped when the bottles were added. After 5 min the water temp was down to 150 deg. I doubt that the cider temp gets much above 150 deg and who knows for how long.

Is this really enough to kill the yeast and any bacteria?

 

[Pappers_]

OK, so I give this a try and like it but...

I took some temp readings and found that the water temp dropped when the bottles were added. After 5 min the water temp was down to 150 deg. I doubt that the cider temp gets much above 150 deg and who knows for how long.

Is this really enough to kill the yeast and any bacteria?

Yes, I've used this successfully for dozens of batches, not a single bottle bomb.

 

[divi2323]

I bottled 45+ bottles and no bombs here either. Just from reading the replies here and in other posts, most of the people leave out a step in pappers process or modify it to what they think is appropriate.

The key notes are that you should follow the process exactly as written, making sure to keep a very close eye on both bottle fill level, carbonation level (pet bottle or daily cracking open of bottles to test), and strict monitoring of water temp. If you follow these you won't have bottle bombs.

The last thing is you should do this with eye protection, and its a good idea to put a lid on your stew pot with a bungee cord holding it down. An old bottle with a crack in it can still bust, and this prevents glass shrapnel and cider from flying all over your kitchen.

 

[KemP130]

OK, so I give this a try and like it but...

I took some temp readings and found that the water temp dropped when the bottles were added. After 5 min the water temp was down to 150 deg. I doubt that the cider temp gets much above 150 deg and who knows for how long.

Is this really enough to kill the yeast and any bacteria?

You also have to remember, it's not just the temperature that is pasteurizing, but also the internal pressure in the bottle.

If you ever took physics recall the gas laws. (When heated, gasses build pressure when they cannot increase in volume.) This means that during pasteurization, the gasses in the bottle build pressure, like a pressure cooker.

 

[BelMamba]

OK, so I give this a try and like it but...

I took some temp readings and found that the water temp dropped when the bottles were added. After 5 min the water temp was down to 150 deg. I doubt that the cider temp gets much above 150 deg and who knows for how long.

Is this really enough to kill the yeast and any bacteria?

I have used Pepper's method and don't have a single bomb among the 300 bottles I have already done (if you don't count the two bottles that bombed while pasteurizing them), but there is a BUT.

Pepper does not exactly describe the size of the pot relative to the bottles and that has quite an impact on temperature - especially if you switch off heat while putting in the bottles. If you have a smaller pot with less water and put in the same amount of bottles, they will cool down the water much lower than in a larger pot with more water and thus more inherent heat capacity.

I use a big pot (my wife's jam cooking pot) and still put in only 6-7 bottles so my temperature does not drop under 165 - which I feel good about after reading the Cornell paper I cited earlier.

I will do my next batch with lower temperatures (170) but without switching off the heat (since I have an insert that keeps the bottles from the bottom) and will try to keep the 170 constant for the 10 minutes. No idea whether it will work but I will keep you posted ... if that goes well, it should be less dependable on pot size because a smaller pot will reach the original temperature faster.

 

[JoshuaW]

We had our first “incident” last night. I have been using a variation with great success (until now) where I was doing 8-10 bottles at a time in the sink, using hot tap water (135* from the tap) then giving it that last temperature boost with some boiling water. I normally have my thermometer in there, but I got lazy last bottling session, about two weeks ago and proceeded despite not being able to find my thermometer. Used the same process as usual, but one batch didn’t take. I thankfully labeled the boxes, so when fiancé moved a stack of cases and heard a hissing, I was able to find the batch and open them all. 12 bottles wasted, and one bottle lost. That last one was my fault though, I thought I would have some fun and take it outside, shake it up, and let it geyser across the backyard. When I applied pressure to the cap, it shot off like a rocket, along with the very top of the bottle. No injuries, and it flew a good 45 feet! Needless to say, not one of my brightest moments.

Lessons learned?
ALWAYS monitor your time and temperature.
ALWAYS take a sample a few days later to verify they have not continued to carb.
NEVER, and I mean NEVER!!! Shake a dangerous bottle in an attempt for a cheap kick. Those suckers have a little of power behind them, and had someone been in the way, we would be dealing with some serious injuries.

Learn from my mistakes, be safe. Im still comfortable with my sink method. I have pasteurized a few hundred bottles with no incident, but I will never cut corners again. That is scary stuff.

 

[Devo9]

We had our first “incident” last night. I have been using a variation with great success (until now) where I was doing 8-10 bottles at a time in the sink, using hot tap water (135* from the tap) then giving it that last temperature boost with some boiling water. I normally have my thermometer in there, but I got lazy last bottling session, about two weeks ago and proceeded despite not being able to find my thermometer. Used the same process as usual, but one batch didn’t take. I thankfully labeled the boxes, so when fiancé moved a stack of cases and heard a hissing, I was able to find the batch and open them all. 12 bottles wasted, and one bottle lost. That last one was my fault though, I thought I would have some fun and take it outside, shake it up, and let it geyser across the backyard. When I applied pressure to the cap, it shot off like a rocket, along with the very top of the bottle. No injuries, and it flew a good 45 feet! Needless to say, not one of my brightest moments.

Lessons learned?
ALWAYS monitor your time and temperature.
ALWAYS take a sample a few days later to verify they have not continued to carb.
NEVER, and I mean NEVER!!! Shake a dangerous bottle in an attempt for a cheap kick. Those suckers have a little of power behind them, and had someone been in the way, we would be dealing with some serious injuries.

Learn from my mistakes, be safe. Im still comfortable with my sink method. I have pasteurized a few hundred bottles with no incident, but I will never cut corners again. That is scary stuff.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Isometric]

Has anyone got a method of killing the yeast in plastic bottle while keeper the carbonation. PET plastic bottles when heated release antimony and acetaldelahydes.

 

[JoshuaW]

Has anyone got a method of killing the yeast in plastic bottle while keeper the carbonation. PET plastic bottles when heated release antimony and acetaldelahydes.

Are we talking a full batch of plastic bottles? Or just a few? If it is a few, I would just chill them. If you have a full batch, well, I guess I dont have any good suggestion for you You might be able to get away with a long pasteurizing time with a lower temperature, but it will take a LONG time, and Im not sure at what temperature the PET bottles start releasing chemicals.

 

[KemP130]

Just curious, has anyone tried this with wine bottles, or will the heat just push the corks out?

 

[divi2323]

I put my finished bottles into a cooler and close the lid to protect against any that didn't kill the yeast during pasteurizing. Plus easy cleanup if something did go wrong.

 

[ACbrewer]

Has anyone got a method of killing the yeast in plastic bottle while keeper the carbonation. PET plastic bottles when heated release antimony and acetaldelahydes.

Not sure about pasturization, but PET's can take a heck of a lot more preasure... Although if your goal is sweet carbonated you proably need to pasturize, although a sorbate and sulfating might inhibit enough yeast growth that you get some carb and then the active ones die and don't reproduce.
(in short no).
pasturize? keg and force carb? the bottle?

 

[ACbrewer]

Just curious, has anyone tried this with wine bottles, or will the heat just push the corks out?

If the preasure is to high, the cork will come out - fortunatly since other wise you break the bottle. I think wine bottles have a lower preasure threashold than beer. Champagne does have higer and plastic PET bottles, while they can break are higher still than Champagne.

That said, I think you can get a light carbonation - infact I have - in a wine bottle. Not up to the beer/soda level, but not still either. It was accidental, and I never tried to pasturize that bottle. Also if the bottle is stored upright, the air might slip past the cork, even if below ejection threshold.

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

Just curious, has anyone tried this with wine bottles, or will the heat just push the corks out?

Are you wanting to pasteurize "still" cider?

 

[KemP130]

If the preasure is to high, the cork will come out - fortunatly since other wise you break the bottle. I think wine bottles have a lower preasure threashold than beer. Champagne does have higer and plastic PET bottles, while they can break are higher still than Champagne.

That said, I think you can get a light carbonation - infact I have - in a wine bottle. Not up to the beer/soda level, but not still either. It was accidental, and I never tried to pasturize that bottle. Also if the bottle is stored upright, the air might slip past the cork, even if below ejection threshold.

Thanks.

Are you wanting to pasteurize "still" cider?

That was my plan, I was just curious as to if the air space in the bottle would build enough pressure during pasteurization to pop the cork out, otherwise my plan was to bring the cider to 190 degrees in a pot and just dump bottles full of ice in to cool it, then bottle.

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

I always thought you would use chemicals to keep it still and stabilize it (as in wine production) before going into bottles with corks. Never thought about using pasteurization to substitute this process.