how the pros do it

[beermonster1985]

i done a few good ciders now and now going to make a big one cos everyone likes it but the only thing is its a bit strong for some people, iv been thinking and the ones iv done have been natural yeast but for this one i will use notty, i will use campden tabs at 1st to kill natural yeast, but when it gets to 1010 is it ok to use campden tabs again or will it give bad flavours with all that chemicals, heat pasturization is a no because i want to bulk age and dont want sediment in the bottle or is there another way:rockin:

 

[Pappers_]

Professional cider makers (like Magners or Woodchuck) use forced carbonation. Sorry i can't help answer your question about campden tablets.

I'm missing the connection you are drawing to pasteurizing and sediment. Any bottle conditioning (carbonating naturally in the bottle with yeast) will lead to sediment, whether you pasteurize or not. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your question.

Salud!

 

[beermonster1985]

yeah but if you bulk age the sediment drops out before bottling, no carbination, will be still

 

[Edcculus]

Depends on how long you bulk age. I've aged a cider for 6 months and was still able to bottle condition. If you let it sit for more than a year, you will have to add yeast back in to bottle condition. If you are bottle conditioning, you will always end up with sediment. Its true, most of the bigger commercial cider makers filter and force carbonate.

Not sure about ciders, but a lot of microbrewers (beer) like Sierra Nevada actually filter out all of the yeast, then add back in a very exact amount of sugar/yeast to bottle condition. This would be pretty hard to replicate on the homebrewing level though.


As for the campden, are you pressing your own juice, using juice bought from an orchard, or buying store bought juice. If you press your own, you should use campden to knock out the wild yeast. This is a good start to know how much campden to add. Click on "Part 3 Juicing and Fermentation", then scroll down to "Sulphur Dioxide".

If you are buying store juice, no need to use campden. Its already pasteurized. I'm not sure of the laws in Chile, but here in the US, all of the orchards that produce unfiltered juice and sell it (yea, its called cider here although its not fermented) are required to pasteurize. If you are lucky, you can get a mill to set aside some juice for you.

 

[beermonster1985]

i want it still so gonna bulk age until clear and then bottle, will be pressing my own juice, i guess my question was can you add campden 2 times, once to kill natural yeast and once to kill added yeast when i hit my target gravity, or can i just add yeast and use campden once i reach target gravity letting natural and added yeast work together perhaps??

 

[Pappers_]

Campden doesn't kill the yeast - it temporarily stops fermentation. I think you need to add potassium sorbate to stop the yeast when you get to your final gravity - or maybe its another kind of sulfite. If you look at the top of this forum, you will find a sticky thread with lots of information.

 

[beermonster1985]

ok but temporarily knocking out the yeast with campden then racking gets rid of the yeast right? how long are they kod for?

 

[Edcculus]

No, it doesn't quite work like that. Campden won't literally knock the yeast down so you can rack off of them. Like Pappers said, sorbate is likely your best bet at stopping fermentation. Really, my favorite option is cold crashing. I ferment to the desired level of residual sweetenss, then stick the carboy in my kegerator. A week at 42F will force most if not all of the yeast to flocculate out. Filtering is also a good option. I'd hesisate to use the prodigous amounts of chemicals you would need to stop a fermentation.

 

[JohnwSAV]

Potassium Sorbate won't stop fermentation, it merely prevents micro-organisms (including yeast) from reproducing. I just made a small batch of cider with store-bought juice from the refrigerated section in the grocery store...found when I got home that it had potassium sorbate in it. It was put on top of a healthy yeast cake, and for good measure had a packet of dry yeast added on top...it fermented out no problem...mainly because it had more than enough yeast to complete fermentation without the need to reproduce. However, if potassium sorbate is added to either juice or finished cider where there are few yeast cells present, then you are likely to not see any appreciable fermentation, as the few yeast present cannot reproduce to numbers large enough to make something happen...this is how potassium sorbate works...by keeping a few organisms from contaminating the juice by taking up residence and growing a big family. But let me add that YMMV, as my experience is with a commercial juice to which I cannot claim any knowledge of how much potassium sorbate is present...it may be that they add merely enough to prevent a few organisms from taking hold, and so my experience may not transfer to a homebrew world.
Whew...after all that I need a cold cider.
Sorry, I know this does not solve your problem, but it helps to know what won't work so you can rule it out as an option.
I do as Edcculus does, by floating a hydrometer in the carboy with the cider and cold-crashing when I reach the finishing gravity I want. And yes, this works for ANY yeast, even if rated as a "low flocculating" strain.

Edcculus: Yeah, that's what I want next, a good filter set-up...I have more than enough kegs to do keg-to-keg filtering, just gotta buy or build the equipment.