I have access to over 10 gallons of apple cider from last years harvest and was thinking of trying my hand at making dry and New England ciders.
I understand the cider is UV pasturized. My question is, will this be okay to make cider?
Thanks!
You can use it to make cider (it will ferment), and as long as it tastes good I think you should. It might not be the best cider in the world depending on the balance of the juice, but you’ll get something at least drinkable if not wonderful. I’ve had decent cider made with store-bought apple juice.
Thanks Tom!
The juice is from an orchard located about 8 miles from my house and the lady who works the orchard being a friend of my in-laws said it is a blend of all the apples they grow. I think the cider tastes good, it’s a little tart but I hope is from the apple blend and not from age …
I think I’ll give it a try since it will only cost me yeast, nutrients and my time.
It will ferment just fine. Most orchard juice is flash pasteurized, which is much more gentle of flavor than the full blown pasteurization used for the store-bought, keep at room temperature, cider.
I’d recommend fermenting it as cool as you can manage. I ferment mine around 50F and it tastes better and needs less aging (like none) than all my previous warmer fermentations.
I’m a fan of the Cote des Blanc yeast for cider. If it is a little tart now it might be a lot tart by the time it is fermented, but you can back sweeten with honey or apple juice concentrate, assuming you’re kegging. Let us know how it turns out.
Thanks guys for the advise, I am sure I will have more questions along the way. I plan to mix up the must this weekend after I go through a cleaning regiment with my equipment.
I was curious about yeast selection and thought about a standard Wyeast 4766 but always open to suggestions as this will be my first cider.
Ferment cool, check! Would you recommend this for the entire ferment or just through primary then allow to warm to 60?
Keep it cool for as long as fermentation takes. After that it doesn’t matter too much - although - there may be a tiny bit of fermentable sugars left and warming it up will ferment them out. This is not really a good thing, that little bit of sugar really brings out the apple flavors. Mine often finishes at 1.000 - 1.002ish, but if left warm will go down to 0.997. The difference is amazing, 1.002 tastes dry and appley. 0.997 is tart, not appley, and takes getting used to. Much less of a crowd pleaser.
So I mixed up 5 gallons of cider (OG 1.052) and the temp control was set to 50-52F. I went with 3 packets (±15g) of Cotes des Blanc yeast per Tom’s recommendation (Don’t worry I won’t blame you if it turns out horrible but will praise if amazing). Supplement schedule was 1 tsp nutrient and 0.5 tsp enegizer every 24 hrs for 3 days (total of 4 sets of additions).
Next question: A couple of the remaining apple cider jugs have started to pressurize (ferment). The cider still tastes good, IMO. Would this cider still be okay to use and make a New England Cider? I was planning to mix with some local maple syrup and molasses to get the OG up to 1.090-1.100.
Jesus! That’s a whole battalion of yeast … on meth.
No problem.
I guess so… I was worried about the low temp compared to the optimal temp for the yeast. Also at 40 cents a pack I thought what the hell.
40 cents a pack?! Where do you get that?
3 packs isn’t out of control if they are the 5 gram packets, especially for a low temp fermentation. Let us know how it turns out.
Look for the old BYO article on making Cider next harvest. It outlines a process for 3 ciders on same yeast pitch. I did that in 2010 harvest and made some great Dry (very tart) cider, Specialty Cider, and New England-style cider that just did well in a comp. All my juice is flash-pasteurized from a local orchard.
A new homebrew shop opened about 25 minutes from my house. The owner sells wood stoves and wanted to supplement his income so he started selling homebrew supplies. Odd combo I know… But the best part is he sells things cheap!
Yes, the yeast were 5g packets.
I theifed a sample yesterday (2weeks in) and the gravity was at 1.030, down from 1.054. Best part it tasted great! My wife wanted me to pour her a glass ;D
Next question, when I get to the point when I want to stop fermenting and not dry out too much as mtnrockhopper said would you guys stun the yeast with a crushed campden tab then 24 hrs later use potassium sulphate to kill them?
when cider is UV treated it doesn’t impact the flavor or sugar content, so it is perfectly fine for fermenting into hard cider. what is a flash pasteurization? when cider is heat pasteurized the sugars (and most of the flavor) is boiled off, and then sugar is added back to it to sweeten and add flavor.
I would pitch a little bit more yeast that you would typically use (~25%) for the cider that is starting to ferment on its own to overpower the wild yeast in it. Last fall at the orchard I work at we had a lot of cider starting to ferment that we couldn’t sell, so we froze it and use it in our apple butter. I have been using this slightly fermented cider to make into hard cider and have had very good success with it.
Heating and cooling of the product using equipment designed to do it very quickly. It causes much less flavor change. I’ve had flash pasteurized and unpasteurized and I think many people could not tell the difference.
This doesn’t make any sense, sugars can’t be boiled off. Volitile flavors and aromas can be boiled off, but with most equipment the process is enclosed so the vapors are recondensed into the liquid. Also, pasteurization never get the liquid near boiling.
This doesn’t make any sense, sugars can’t be boiled off. Volitile flavors and aromas can be boiled off, but with most equipment the process is enclosed so the vapors are recondensed into the liquid. Also, pasteurization never get the liquid near boiling.
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whoops, brain fart! yes the flavors do escape when pasteurization temperature is reached, about 160, which is why in my neck of the woods the orchards add sugar back to replace the lost flavor. I’m not sure if the pasteurized cider I’ve tried had the vapors recondensed into it, but there is a huge taste difference between it and the UV treated cider that my orchard makes. I prefer the UV-treated cider unless I am going to do a wild fermentation.
I’m gonna slightly disagree with Tom. Cote des Blanc is the best wine yeast I’ve used to make cider, but I prefer every ale yeast I’ve used over Cote des Blanc. T-58 is my fav, but S-04 and US-05 are good too. The wine yeasts are too vinous for me, and they attenuate too well.
I’m going to have to try something different next time 
Thanks guys so far this cider is turning out great!
The gravity of the cider was 1.018, last night. Next question, when I get to the point when I want to end fermenting what is your process. I tried the Potassium sorbate and super kleer method and I thought it stripped some of the flavor in my mead.
I have heard about using a crushed campden tab to stun the yeast then 24 hrs later use potassium sulphate to kill them?
Other suggestions?
This is what I do, though I add them at the same time. I assume you mean potassium sorbate, since potassium sulphate and campden are the same thing.
Sorbate won’t kill yeast, by the way, just prevent renewed activity.
Edit: If you’re going to keg and drink it relatively quickly, you can also cold crash, rack it off the yeast and keep it cold. That will work for a while (a couple months) though eventually it will dry out further.