First attempt at pasteurization

[Dsavant]

So I'm cold crashing my cider and will be back sweeten and bottled on Saturday. I'm going to fill a test bottle, and will pasteurize once that it's as carbed as I want (I don't want it to be too carbonated, my goal is a little around beer). I have read both the stovetop pasteurization threads as well as multiple threads on dishwasher pasteurization. If my dishwasher holds a pretty consistent ~130*F for about 45 minutes to an hour, that should be enough to kill off the yeast right? The most popular answer I've seen is that anything above 120 will do just fine

 

[AidanSavage]

It'd have to hold that temp for a lot longer than an hour, because you need that to be the internal temperature of the bottles for that duration. Any less time or lower temp, it doesnt work. Dunking with the stovetop method is faster, more guaranteed, and as long as the bottles arent old, worn, or overcarbed, safe.

I heat a stock pot that has just enough water in it to reach the neck of bottles when there's 5-6 in it up to 180 degrees or so. Then I take it off the burner, dunk bottles, wait 10 minutes, pull out the bottles, set on a DRY towel, reheat and repeat til all done. I havent pasteurized anything bottle-carbed yet, but I intend to do that soon.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

I've pasteurized almost identical to AidanSavage except that I heat the water to 190°, remove from burner, add bottles making sure that the water reaches up to the neck for 10 mins, then remove. Using this method has been very successful for me with no bottle bombs.

I normally carb the cider exactly as I would a batch of beer, unless I am sweetening the cider, in this case, I sweeten the cider and cap the bottles, the simple syrup used to sweeten the cider will also double as my priming sugar, after a week I test a bottle, if the carbonation level is what I'm looking for, usually not overly carbonated, (I don't want the apple flavor to get over powered by a heavy carbonation level) I'll pasteurize, if not, i'll wait another week and test another bottle.
Remember, if you keep the cider in a room that is 60° - 65° it will carbonate a lot faster than putting the bottles in a cold cellar.

I have 3 separate 6 gallon batches made from a blend of fresh apples that I fermented with 3 different yeasts, QA23, T306, and 71B-1122 yeast; I plan on lightly sweetening each batch to balance out some of the tart/ malic acid and retain the beautiful apple flavor without making the cider taste too sweet.

I hope that this helps,

Merry Christmas

 

[MarkKF]

If u have a big pot like a turkey fryer or clams steamer I've heard you can fill a cooler with the bottles then heat water to 180 deg. then fill the cooler and close the lid. I haven't tried it yet.

 

[Dsavant]

Hmm, honestly I was just trying to be lazy about it as I have a 5 gallon batch, and wanted to use a lot of pint sized bottles (I think the stock pot I have would only hold 3 or so at a time) so I really didn't want to spend an entire day pasteurizing when I could do it in an hour or two in the dishwasher. My second plan was to put them in a cooler with 180 - 190* water for a while