pasteurizing, racking, and other stuff.

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kamkamdac

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after racking to a secondary do you add extra cider to reduce head-space or do you just use a smaller carboy. i racked mine at 14 days a few days ago and theres about 2 inches of head-space.

im also planing on pasteurizing and force carbing my cider and had some questions about pasteurizing. does pasteurizing affect the flavor of the cider? will any alcohol that evaporates from the heat be reabsorbed by the cider after it cools back down, in short will pasteurizing affect abv. do you cold crash after pasteurization or before.

also can someone explain to me what oxidized cider is. i under stand its absorbed oxygen but what does it taste like, how do you know if you have oxidized cider. if someone can explain chemically at the molecular level what is happening that would be grate (ie: what is in the cider that oxygen bonds to)
 
You can add extra cider to fill the headspace if you would like. I don't think 2" is going to cause any problems if you were careful when racking. What was your gravity reading when you racked? If it's still up above 1.010 or so, you should get enough CO2 to fill that space.

As for the other two questions, I've never pasteurized or had any oxidation that I can recall...so I'll leave those to more experienced people.
 
If my SG is low and there is more than A few inches of headspace I top off with some more unfermented juice to both reduce contact with air and create a CO2 layer in the carboy.

I've also never oxidized any batches.

Why are you pasteurizing and force carbing? If you want sweet and sparkling and have access to a CO2 system I think you would be better served by cold crashing, racking and adding sulfites & sorbates.
 
Why are you pasteurizing and force carbing? If you want sweet and sparkling and have access to a CO2 system I think you would be better served by cold crashing, racking and adding sulfites & sorbates.

+1

Homebrewers typically pasteurize after bottling. I would think pasteurizing a kegged cider would be quite difficult.
 
Why are you pasteurizing and force carbing? If you want sweet and sparkling and have access to a CO2 system I think you would be better served by cold crashing, racking and adding sulfites & sorbates.

im planing on back-sweetening with apple concentrate and do not want any additives, so no sulfites or sorbtes. so i need to pasteurize to prevent the apple concentrate from fermenting. i don plan on cold crashing but for clarity.
 
im planing on back-sweetening with apple concentrate and do not want any additives, so no sulfites or sorbtes. so i need to pasteurize to prevent the apple concentrate from fermenting. i don plan on cold crashing but for clarity.

Ah, that makes sense. How big is your batch? I could see successfully pasteurizing a gallon batch in a vat of water, but not much more than that. You can try to minimize alcohol loss by doing a longer and lower temp pasteurization. Off the top of my head keeping it at 140ish for 20 min should do it, so long as it heats evenly. Be careful with your carboy, they're not designed to be heat resistant, slowly bringing it up to temp seems prudent here.
 
its only a 1 gal batch, no gravity readings, PA is around 12. im planing on pasteurizing in closed, plastic food grade container submerged in 150 degree water to minimize alcohol loss.

this is my first batch ever brewing something so im kinda winging it so any feedback on my procedure would be nice
 
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