obeahsf
Well-Known Member
We are planning to make 25 gallons of hard cider to give away as wedding gifts. The orchard we were planning to go to says that they do not pasteurize, but do apply UV filtration to the juice. I've read many conflicting things about what UV does and does not remove from the equation. I'd be happy to experiment with a smaller batch at another time, but we want to ensure a clean ferment. We also don't want to go through the process of pasteurizing on the stove in 10 batches and using wort chiller 10 times.
I'm wondering if I pitch a commercial yeast fairly quickly, if that will be enough. My understanding is that most bacterias will be killed by the UV, but that wild yeasts/brett may not be affected. I was thinking if I had a good starter, that most of the sugar would be eaten by them time wild strains started doing their thing. I guess brett, being the workhorse that it is, may start to make it's presence known after awhile in the bottle..? We will be bottle-conditioning the juice. We don't plan to back-sweeten it.
I also heard an interesting idea the other day about pasteurizing the bottles after bottle-carbing. The brewer, who primed with fresh apple juice, used this process also to retain a little RS.
Rambling, but thoughts on UV/forgoing heat for this very big batch?
Thanks!
I'm wondering if I pitch a commercial yeast fairly quickly, if that will be enough. My understanding is that most bacterias will be killed by the UV, but that wild yeasts/brett may not be affected. I was thinking if I had a good starter, that most of the sugar would be eaten by them time wild strains started doing their thing. I guess brett, being the workhorse that it is, may start to make it's presence known after awhile in the bottle..? We will be bottle-conditioning the juice. We don't plan to back-sweeten it.
I also heard an interesting idea the other day about pasteurizing the bottles after bottle-carbing. The brewer, who primed with fresh apple juice, used this process also to retain a little RS.
Rambling, but thoughts on UV/forgoing heat for this very big batch?
Thanks!