Acid reducing solutions

[Gary Pittock]

Hi all
Does anyone have experience of using acid reduction solutions?
The one I have on order says it can be added to the must or the finished product, I would like to add it before fermentation but would like to know if people add it before pectolase/ nutrients and or before campden tabs etc?
Both my batches of juice were around 3.2 pH, one batch is already fermenting the other batch has just been pressed and stands ready
I would like to be able to blend the two if the first turns out to acidic, I intend to use 71b yeast on the second batch, the first batch had Mo2 Cider yeast
Many Thanks
Gary

[Andrew Lea]

There are no magic bullets I'm afraid. All the "acid reduction solutions" that I've seen are simply dilute potassium carbonate. If you must add it to juice, I would add it before you add anything else. It will disperse on stirring and then you can make whatever other additions you want. But I would much rather add it after fermentation when you can make a considered organoleptic judgement. You really cannot assess finished cider acidity from the taste of the juice.

Be aware that in a cider the potassium will stay in solution forever because potassium malate is soluble. In a grape juice or wine, the potassium may be partly lost as insoluble potassium tartrate which will be racked off.

Andrew

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

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[terry....@sympatico.ca]

A pH of 3.2 is good for a yeast fermentation, what'"s your ta (titratable
acidity) before you consider increasing the pH.

Terry

[Dhruv Jain]

Acid reduction solution is just Calcium Carbonate right? If it is then I think its probably more useful in brewing beer where harder water may be desired in some styles; than in cider.

You could try using a malolactic culture on the 1st batch since I doubt the SO2 levels would be too high at 3.2 pH.

[Gary Pittock]

Sorry for the delay, was waiting to get distilled water, my juice is 7.7 ppt (malic acid), which I believe is 0.77 %, my worry is I will end up with two batches of high acid dry cider
Gary

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Yes, this is quite high acidity.
There are no magic ways to turn an overly acidic juice into a well balanced cider!
For one thing, this has to be thought in advance when pressing the apples and making the blend.
For my part, sometimes I need to discard some juice when it is too acidic. Yes I'll have less cider at the end, but I prefer having less of a better cider.

The other way to work this is to turn it into a medium or medium sweet cider. The residual sugars would then balance the acidity and this could result in something interesting, sharp and sweet (think ice cider, with very high acidity and also very high residual sugar). It would not feel overly sweet when drinking because of this acidity. If you want to go that route and make it the traditional way, you'll need to make some rackings in order to slow the fermentation and eventually make it stop before the cider becomes dry. Ideally, you would want a final SG between 1.010 and 1.015 with the acidity level you have.

Claude

[Gary Pittock]

"Yes, this is quite high acidity.
There are no magic ways to turn an overly acidic juice into a well balanced cider!"

Thanks for your comment, next season I will make sure I have plenty of containers at pressing time to store all the batches seperately for testing, before blending
Gary

[Andrew Lea]

It is certainly possible to back off a high acidity cider, as yours will be, with sugar sweetening. Claude has given you one way. Another way is to ferment to dryness, add the requisite sugar, and pasteurise in bottle to prevent refermentation.

You can also try potassium carbonate, or use of a MLF culture on the finished cider. However, potassium carbonate has a limited range of usefulness and MLF will make the cider more wine like in character. But they are part of the repertoire of techniques that are available.

Andrew

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Gary Pittock]

Thank you Andrew, would the potassium carbonate make the finished cider cloudy?
Gary

[Andrew Lea]

No because it forms soluble potassium malate. This is just the same as the acid reduction solution you asked about before. There is a limit you can use before the potassium levels become rather high which may affect the taste. Also I think it may not be allowed if you plan to sell the cider.

Andrew

Sent from my iPhone

On 28 Nov 2016, at 10:55, Gary Pittock <pitt...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you Andrew, would the potassium carbonate make the finished cider cloudy?
> Gary
>

[Gary Pittock]

I have no intention of selling, purely for my own consumption, this is my first year
I'm just enjoying the ride and learning lots from you folks
I may have a go at all three methods that yourself and Claude suggested just for the experience
Gary

[Claude Jolicoeur]

After a few years, you get to know your apples and those that give higher TA juice. It makes things easier.
Also, one thing I do is to make small juice tests from apples I am not sure that I will use for my cider. I can do that a few days before my planned pressing day. All that is needed is about a half kilo of these apples, from which I extract a bit of juice. SG and TA can be measured from this sample, thus permitting to know in advance what the bulk would give. Easier then to make the decision as to if this lot of apples should be used or not for the cider.

To extract that bit of juice, there are many ways... Such small quantity of apples may be ground with a grating disk in a food processor. This is quite fast. Then I put this pomace in a bag which is pressed - you don't need a great pressure to simply extract enough apples for making a juice test. Simply pressing the bag with your hands over a dish is usually sufficient.

For apples lots whose TA is too high, it doesn't mean these are lost. You could still ferment then for making cooking cider or for making vinegar. Juice for drinking may also tolerate higher acidity, so this juice could be frozen and kept for drinking. Or you could concentrate it for making ice cider for which high TA is needed.
Claude

[Wilf]

Gary

My juice is usually pretty acidic ph 3 ish and I find that time is usually the best remededy. I go for a slow fermentation over the winter and hope for MLF in the spring if I'm lucky. You can also buy culture which drops the acidity but doesn't give as interesting a flavour as a wild MLF. I had a wild MLF every year for the first three years and I thought it was easy! How little I knew!

Time in bottle will also help.

A bit late now but next year (if the bug bites) you can always sweat your apples a bit to drop the acidity before pressing.

I'm told that some white wine yeasts will metabolise malic acid but I've never tried them myself. Others may be able to advise.

Cheers

Wilf  

[William Grote]

Hi Gary

Allow me to share a mistake I made to save you the same trouble

I had 5 gallons or GORGEOUS Redfield juice which I added a bit to much crab apple to and ended up with a TA of about 8.5 g/l.  I purchased some Potassium Carbonate and used about a 3rd of the recommended dose to reduce the TA down to 6.5.

Even at the reduced dose, the solution changed the color of my juice from deep red to dark brown and took all the flavor and 'life' out of it - it just tasted flat - no chalkiness - but just uninteresting.  All of the info on using this was from wine making sources, not cider makers.  Apple juice is more delicate than grape juice - it has about 1/2 to 1/3 the sugars and acids - depending on type,  so I surmise that wine makers can be a little more aggressive on making chemical adjustments without affecting the final product.

I should have done what Claude suggests and blended it later or made a sweeter final cider to balance the acid.

Good luck!

[Gary Pittock]

Thanks for all the advice, my Potassium Carbonate remains unopened and shall stay that way, I shall try out the other options
Gary

[Dick Dunn]

re William Grote dosing a Redfield/crab juice with K2CO3 and getting an
adverse color/flavor change: I have found the Redfield colo[u]r to be quite
a challenging goal.

I swapped a few notes with Andrew, some years ago. He counseled me with
challenging advice then, that either over- or under-sulfiting could dilute
Redfield's color. I think since then I've proven both of those extrema
(urk) but I've been homing in on what works. Seems to me that it was that
over-sulfiting would oxidize the anthocyanins, but under-sulfiting would
fail to protect them, something like that. Yes, this is a covert plea for
Andrew to jump in and correct me.

Back to William's loss of color results, I wonder if the anthocyanins (?)
in Redfield are, among other traits, pH indicators. Could that be? What I
mean is that if you cranked the pH up too much, would that make them cease
to be bright red? Not beyond belief I'd say.

On Tue, Dec 06, 2016 at 06:30:40AM -0800, William Grote wrote:
...

> I had 5 gallons or GORGEOUS Redfield juice which I added a bit to much crab
> apple to and ended up with a TA of about 8.5 g/l. I purchased some
> Potassium Carbonate and used about a 3rd of the recommended dose to reduce
> the TA down to 6.5.
>
> Even at the reduced dose, the solution changed the color of my juice from
> deep red to dark brown and took all the flavor and 'life' out of it - it

> just tasted flat - no chalkiness - but just uninteresting...
...
--
Dick Dunn rc...@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA

[Andrew Lea]

On 07/12/2016 05:19, Dick Dunn wrote:

>
> Back to William's loss of color results, I wonder if the anthocyanins (?)
> in Redfield are, among other traits, pH indicators. Could that be? What I
> mean is that if you cranked the pH up too much, would that make them cease
> to be bright red? Not beyond belief I'd say.

Yes that is spot on. The anthocyanin in apples such as Redfield
(cyanidin 3-galactoside) is indeed a pH indicator. The coloured
flavylium salt form predominates at low pH and the various colourless
forms predominate at higher pH. Even a difference of 0.1pH would make a
visible difference to the perceived colour. The transition is in the pH
3 - 4 range so just right for cider!

This is quite distinct and is a different chemical mechanism from the
loss of colour through oxidation and / or SO2 binding which Dick also
mentions. Just to correct Dick somewhat, over-sulphiting leads to loss
of pigment through anthocyanin-SO2 binding, but under-sulphiting allows
loss of pigment through anthocyanin oxidation.

You can't win really ;-)

Andrew
--
near Oxford, UK