Easy Stove-Top Pasteurizing - With Pics

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Maylar said:
This is why I keg.
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Me too. But I thought of a method where you pack a cooler with bottles then transfer hot water from a brew pot to the cooler while leaving the cover in place. Wait ten minutes and check the temp.
 
Has anyone tried lactose sugar to back-sweeten cider? It's non-fermentable, so seems ideal. It would avoid this bottle-pasteurising step too.
 
custompainter99 said:
I did the cooler method of pasteurizing. I filled an empty bottle with water and put a remote thermometer to monitor the temperature.. Worked awesome. No breakage, no bottle bombs... definitely a way to go
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What did was load the cooler with bottles. I added 1 empty and filled it with water. i then put a remote thermometer probe in that bottle to monitor the temp. i then added hot tap water to the cooler to acclimate the bottles to a hotter water. i did this while i had my kettle on my burner. when the water reached 180-190 degrees, i drained the cooler and added my hot water to my cooler. i filled it up to about 1" of the caps. i shut the lid and watched my remote thermometer. it took about 10-15 minutes to get them up to temp. i then removed the bottles and set them on a towel to cool, and started the process all over again to finish my batch....easy . no bottle bombs..
 
globell said:
Ok. So I got unlucky and lucky at the same time. I don't think the bottles were over carbonated but there's always some variability.

When I pastuerize carbonated cider and I always have the lid as a blocker between me and the bottle in case a bottle blows. Well. One fell over on the counter and I'm not sure if I touched it with the lid or it blew first but KABOOM. Louder than I can explain. My ears still hurt hours later. Blood splatter on the back of the lid. Very lucky I blocked it with the lid. Mostly. Glass flew at least 15'.

Wowzers. One laceration to the inside of the forearm.

Be careful. Be prepared. I knew it would happen eventually and came away ok.

Should I be concerned about the others?

Oh and lesson learned to put the bottles Directly into the boxes and not into counter where they can fall over.
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Wow sorry that happened. Can you say more about why you think it blew up? I assume this was a hot bottle you had just taken out of the hot water? What temp were you using?
 
Yes. Was just taking it out of the water and it toppled. It had only been out of my hand for a second or so.
Followed the instructions at the beginning of his thread
190 then 10 mins at which the temp was close to 160-165.
It sucked but I was lucky/prepared.

Why it went. Not sure but best guess is just the impact of the bottle hitting the counter or me touching it with the metal lid because i just had a bad feeling it was going to explode as it was falling over. Weak bottle? Only one that did explode
 
Hi everyone (also posted this message on the forum),

I have a few dry ciders that I would like to sweeten+carbonate before bottling. I've looked into CO2 tanks, but it's a bit pricey ($120 approx). So I would like to try pasteurization by 1) adding fruit juice for sweetness and 2) adding priming sugar for carbonation.

Here are my concerns:
1) Will fruit juice plus priming sugar cause overcarbonation? Should I just use fruit juice?
2) Will fruit juice simply re-dry again? I've heard that 3 days is enough for carbonation, so I'm not sure how much sweetness the cider would lose.

Any advice would be much appreciated!!
 
Priming sugar isn't needed if you add juice for sweetening. The sugar in the juice will be more than enough for carbonation. How long it takes depends on a number of factors including temperature and how much yeast is still in there. You need a way to judge when it's carbonated enough but not too much - the sticky here suggests using a plastic soda bottle (read the first page or two).
 
Anyone run into this problem before? I bottle conditioned 5 gallons of Edwort's Apfelwein with two cans of concentrate apple juice 8 days ago and it is barely carbonated. I was hoping for carbonation level similar to most beer.
 
The higher the alcohol the longer it takes to bottle condition in my experiences. I'd give it three weeks as stated above but do monitor them. Most of mine are about 10days-three weeks.
 
I'm getting a batch of cider straight from the orchard and this is totally new to me. Up until this point, I've only worked with Trader Joe's Apple Juice. Here is my plan....

1) Pour fresh cider into bucket, add honey and yeast. Ferment for 1 week.
2) Add flavor. Ferment for 1 another week.
3) Bottle with corn sugar and let sit for 2 weeks.
4) Pasteurize with method described here

Does that work and should I pasteurize it before I start my ferment. If yes, how do I do that?
 
ScottFerment said:
I'm getting a batch of cider straight from the orchard and this is totally new to me. Up until this point, I've only worked with Trader Joe's Apple Juice. Here is my plan....

1) Pour fresh cider into bucket, add honey and yeast. Ferment for 1 week.
2) Add flavor. Ferment for 1 another week.
3) Bottle with corn sugar and let sit for 2 weeks.
4) Pasteurize with method described here

Does that work and should I pasteurize it before I start my ferment. If yes, how do I do that?
Click to expand...

Sounds like you need some guidance on making cider. You can't use a time line, you need a hydrometer to monitor the ferment.

You should start a new thread instead of tacking on to this one.
 
Probably doesn't need to be said but this is a great method. Worked fantastically well for a very sweet maple cider I just did. I was skeptical at first but it's pretty amazing how long the bottles keep the heat for. Even 20-30 minutes after taking them out of the hot water bath they were hot to the touch. This was a small batch about 11 bottles, no breaks , no problems at all i made sure to Keep safe, wear safety goggles, keep the lid on, use heat safe gloves or over mitts, check a bottle or two before pastuerizing. Great job to the OP
 
Hi, I'm so excited to learn of this method as I've been trying to find a way to produce a semi sweet fejoia wine. I was considering adding lactose when bottling but think this will work just as well. I just had a question, I usually bottle using champagne bottles and plastic corks and cages, would this seal still contain the carbon when heating the bottles or do you think the bottles would need to be capped? Also I usually ferment to dryness, leave for 6-12mths and then add a champagne yest and sugar at bottling stage will the Added yest that is then killed off result in any residue or bad flavour? Thank you
 
Just out of curiosity, where could someone get a bottle shape like the one in the second and third pictures of Pappers' second post? It's perplexing me.
(overall great post, though -- I plan on treating every batch of cider this way.)
 
One new point on safety... some here have reported exploding bottles...
I have been spared this fate. However, I have recently experienced a bottle cap failure... the cap lost it's shape, shot off the bottle and allowed about 65~75% of the contents to escape... coating the surrounding area with sugary water. The Cap "shot off" suddenly and unexpectedly. Luckily, noone was observing the bottles from above at that time, had they been, an injury could have occurred.

Bottom line... Don't look at the bottles from above while they are hot... & Keep the lid on untill the temp drops.
 
I was sure that I had replied a couple of times, but I guess not ...... so NOW, this should show up in my replies when I want to refer to it ..... which I do once in a while! Great thread, Thanks Pappers!
 
I have two x 1 gallon batches ready to bottle, both down to below SG1.000.

The plan was (is?) to back sweeten with Stevia then add sugar up to 1.005 to carbonate. BUT... having tried the Stevia I don't really like the slight "dry" lingering taste.

Option 2 is to sugar up and measure the SG where the taste is best, then sugar up to 0.005 (or even 0.010) above this. Let it carbonate back to the desired taste SG using a test bottle, then stovetop pasteurise. I understand that the ideal would be to just let the fermentation drop the SG down to the desired taste level plus something like 0.005 for carbonising then stovetop pasteurise, but it is a bit late for that.

Would Option 2 work or is it all too complicated?

Also having scanned through the 135 or so posts on this topic, somewhere I thought I saw an update suggesting that 160 or 170 degrees for a longer time works quite well, but I can't find it. what is the current thinking on temperature and time?

First time around, this is SCARY STUFF!
 
Thanks Dave. I wasn't sure about how much carbonation 5 points would generate, just a guess. Thanks for the "heads up". In the "before hydrometer" days I probably bottled at 1.000 and it kept going down to 0.998 or something like that. Beginners luck because I haven't able to fluke it since so I decided to get a hydrometer in order to be more in control.
 
I'm new to cider making, and have had a couple batches turn out great and a couple turn rotten on me. I use store bought filtered cider and mix in some brown sugar or honey to boost the abv a bit and use saf05 yeast. What i haven't done is use pectic enzyme which I'm seeing in this thread. What does that do and if that why im having trouble with consistency? My beer always turns out good so I'm curious what the deal is. Thanks! 🍻
 
Pectic enzyme is used only for clearing the cider. It doesn't have any effect on the ferment, though some folks say it can take some flavor out. Filtered cider from the grocery store doesn't benefit from it as much as unfiltered orchard cider does.
 
No one needs to know this method works, but it's very easy. Using a big pressure canner, left the gasket out, fill the water to the neck of 10 bottles, and go to town.

Long time to get to 180-190, but 10 bottles for 10 mins brings the temp down to the mid 160s. 10 mins to recharge back to 180-190, and another 10 bottles. Works very nicely!
 
I like the concept of having the lid on while doing this! I feel compelled to remind people not to look straight down upon the tops of hot bottles full of carbonation under pressure - especially when you do not know how much pressure and what internal temperature is reaching... if the bottle is stronger than seal, the cap can become a bullet. Better not to yield to the temptation of "seeing how things are going" untill they have cooled down to ~ room temp.
 
Has anyone tried using a Grainfather to pasteurize? I could set the temp to 170-180 and recirculate the water with the bottles in the grain basket. It's just like mashing...but with bottles of cider :D
 
Its been a long time since I've done this. If you look back through this thread, you'll see some posts that speak more authoritatively on the temperature and time needed to pasteurize or kill off the yeast.
 
Pappers_ said:
Its been a long time since I've done this. If you look back through this thread, you'll see some posts that speak more authoritatively on the temperature and time needed to pasteurize or kill off the yeast.
Click to expand...

Lots of pages to skim through so I randomly picked page 86 and got the info I was looking for! Someone did 160 for 10 mins and was fine.

My plan is put the bottles in the grain basket of the GF, let em sit in the water while it's heating up to 160 then hold it there for 10 mins. Will report back when this is done. Hopefully I don't get any bombs! Normally I would keg, but this was my first cider and only a 1 gal batch. :mug:
 
cpham574 said:
Lots of pages to skim through so I randomly picked page 86 and got the info I was looking for! Someone did 160 for 10 mins and was fine.

My plan is put the bottles in the grain basket of the GF, let em sit in the water while it's heating up to 160 then hold it there for 10 mins. Will report back when this is done. Hopefully I don't get any bombs! Normally I would keg, but this was my first cider and only a 1 gal batch. :mug:
Click to expand...

If its just a few bottles, and you have room in a fridge, you could store them chilled until you drink them, just for an added layer of safety against bottle bombs.
 
Pappers_ said:
Its been a long time since I've done this. If you look back through this thread, you'll see some posts that speak more authoritatively on the temperature and time needed to pasteurize or kill off the yeast.
Click to expand...

Last question - does the temp and time change if we're using bombers?
 

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