bittersweet Apple Juice Concentrate: questions on PH adjustments and sulfiting

[Chimchim Racer]

Hi,

I am trying some bittersweet apple juice concentrate (AJC) from MoreWine for the first time. I will be blending the finished cider with cider from fresh pressed Gravensteins.

 I have a couple of questions.about the working with the AJC that I hope some experienced ciderists can help answer:

1) The AJC is shelf stable (so no refrigeration needed). So when reconstituting it prior to pitching the yeast, do I need to hit it with SO2. 

I am thinking no because whatever they did to the AJC to make it shelf stable for 2 years, would have killed any nasty bacteria in the juice and I was meticulous in cleaning and sanitizing all vessels and equipment.

2) As expected, the PH of the reconstituted juice was very high (4.57). Do I need to adjust with malic acid to get the PH down to around 3.8 to protect against bacteria during fermentation. Or would the same process they used to shelf stabilize the AJC remove the need to adjust the PH?

[Claude Jolicoeur]

I am not sure to understand your rationale here.

It would make more sense to me if you waited for your fresh pressed Gravenstein and then blend with reconstituted concentrate. You could then make ajustments to your blend in order to get the acidity you want - before the start of fermentation.

It is generally not recommended to ferment bittersweet juice by itself, and I can't see any good reason why you would want to make a finished cider from the reconstituted concentrate first, and thereafter blend with a more acidic cider or juice.

[Andrew Lea]

I agree with Claude. Blending the juices before fermentation is a much better option.

AJC is nominally stable for 2 yrs only because it is at 70 Brix which inhibits most microorganisms. In practice it will contain slow growing osmophilic yeast and probably acid tolerant bacteria.

If you blend the fresh juice with the rediluted AJC before fermentation, I would simply add the appropriate SO2 depending on the pH of the blend. 

Andrew

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Wittenham Hill Cider Page

www.cider.org.uk

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[Chimchim Racer]

Thanks for the quick replies Claude and Andrew. It is clear I still have a lot to learn about making cider. 

My rationale was i thought it would be better to blend the grav cider with the bittersweet AJC cider after they have both fermented to dry. Adding the reconstituted juice to the finished grav would have added sugar that I didn't want in the finished cider.As for Andrew's suggestion for blending the juices before fermentation, ideally I would have but I started the gravenstein nearly a month ago and it is almost done with the primary fermentation. I just found the bittersweet AJC a few days ago and ordered some. So I didn't have the benefit of planning the fermentation and blending strategy out in advance. So I'm kind of stuck with what I got.

I think the best path forward is to bring the reconstituted juice up to PH 3.7ish, hit it with the recommended dose of S02, wait a day or two to pitch the yeast and hope for the best.

Do you think I could get away with only using enough S02 for a partial yeast kill, per Andrew's sulphite addition table. Or should I dose for a total yeast kill?

Thanks for your sage advice.

Eric Whalen

[Andrew Lea]

If were you I would add the reconstituted AJC now to the fermenting Gravenstein.  Fermentation will start all over again but this won’t matter and you will achieve the blend you want all in one place.

This sort of “topping up” with new juice added to an existing fermentation is often done in real life commercial practice. 

Of course you may have other constraints that prevent you doing this. The plan you suggest of adding acid to the recon AJC and adding half dose SO2 is probably a reasonable alternative.

Andrew

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Wittenham Hill Cider Page

www.cider.org.uk