filtration

[Tony Cross]

Does anyone know weather there is a difference between , sterile filtration & filtration just to achieve a clear cider for bottleing ie-(one that will not drop a sediment in bottle) ?

[Trevor Baker]

Correction! do a trap/polishing cartridge filtration to clear sediment before bottling. my apologies.    

 

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 3:01 PM, Trevor <loung...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 9:16:08 PM UTC-4, Tony Cross wrote:

Does anyone know weather there is a difference between , sterile filtration & filtration just to achieve a clear cider for bottleing ie-(one that will not drop a sediment in bottle) ?

Sterile Filtration removes everything, yeast-bacteria-microorganims, and can be used instead of pasteurization to get a stable product. Sterile filters use a membrane cartridge (absolute 0.45micron to remove everything, 1.2micron to just remove yeast). Everything downstream from filter has to be sterile as well, or you are wasting your time. Regular filters don't guarantee a stable product, but it will clear the cider. Typically, sterile filters are in addition to regular filters. If the cider is for retail sale in bottles, do a plate filter to clear it, skip sterile filter and just pasteurize it. 

--
Visit our website: http://www.ciderworkshop.com
 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "Cider Workshop" Google Group.
By joining and posting to the Cider Workshop, you have agreed to abide by our rules, and principles. Please see http://www.ciderworkshop.com/resources_principles.html
 
To post to this group, send email to cider-w...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cider-worksho...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit http://groups.google.com/group/cider-workshop?hl=en

[Tony Cross]

Thanks for your reply, I am new to making cider and keen to make a medium/sweet cider with no back sweetning and no sediment in bottle.Do you think if I Trap/polish filtered at SG .015 then bottled & pasturised, that I would get what I am after? Also can a Trap/Polish filter fit into a standard kitchen filter unit?I have a plate filter unit that was given to me, but you say this would not take care of the sediment issue?

[Dick Dunn]

On Sat, Aug 04, 2012 at 10:35:30AM +1030, Tony Cross wrote:
> Thanks for your reply, I am new to making cider and keen to make a medium/sweet cider with no back sweetning and no sediment in bottle...

Let's stop right there and give this a think. What you're proposing is not
impossible, but if you're "new to making cider" it would be better to get
your bearings with something easier. Why not make a dry cider (easiest)
and sweeten it to taste as you serve it, as a start?

--
Dick Dunn rc...@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA

[Andrew Lea]

On 04/08/2012 01:05, Tony Cross wrote:
> I am new to making cider and keen to make a

> medium/sweet cider with no back sweetening and no sediment in bottle.

I'm afraid that is very difficult to achieve. If it were easy then
everybody would be doing it - but they don't because they can't. The
practical difficulties of stopping a fermentation in full flight at SG
1.015 by simple filtration are overwhelming. You may have some success
with keeving or some form of managed low nutrient fermentation but
unless you have access to very low nitrogen fruit from an old orchard I
would suggest that is not something you do as a novice cidermaker. As
Dick says, gain some experience in more conventional cidermaking and
then branch out.

Andrew

--
Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Nat West]

On 04/08/2012 01:05, Tony Cross wrote:

I am new to making cider and keen to make a

medium/sweet cider with no back sweetening and no sediment in bottle.

Commercially, this is accomplished by cold-crashing cider in "full flight", typically with a high-BTU glycol chiller and a jacketed fermentation tank (stainless steel). Within the course of a few hours, the cider goes from 50-60-70 F (ambient or whatever) down to ~30 F. After some resting at that temp, the yeast flocculates, then you run the still-sweet cider through a series of filtrations, 7 microns to .45 microns, each time into a pre-chilled tank, the last one being sterile.

It's a relatively simple process with about $50k worth of equipment and some experience. Actually much simpler on a commercial/repeatable scale than keeving or methode champenoise, which is why it's fairly commonly done that way.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon

[Andrew Lea]

On 04/08/2012 22:51, Nat West wrote:

>
> Commercially, this is accomplished by cold-crashing cider in "full

> flight", ......

>
> It's a relatively simple process with about $50k worth of equipment and
> some experience. Actually much simpler on a commercial/repeatable scale
> than keeving or methode champenoise, which is why it's fairly commonly
> done that way.

"Fairly commonly"? I don't know anyone in the UK who makes cider like
that. Does anyone else on this list? And how common is it in the US?
What are the rest of us missing (apart from the $50K of course!)? Is
there a particular yeast which performs well in this process and
flocculates when you tell it to? The refrigeration and filtration
running costs must be quite high. I have a feeling you would not be able
to recover the costs in terms of our cider pricing structure here. Is
there an optimum scale for doing this, Nat?

I am genuinely interested because if it is a truly viable commercial
process, not just a research lab curiosity, then it's one I've totally
missed!

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Andrew Lea wrote:
> "Fairly commonly"? I don't know anyone in the UK who makes cider like
> that. Does anyone else on this list? And how common is it in the US?
> What are the rest of us missing (apart from the $50K of course!)? Is
> there a particular yeast which performs well in this process and
> flocculates when you tell it to? The refrigeration and filtration
> running costs must be quite high. I have a feeling you would not be able
> to recover the costs in terms of our cider pricing structure here. Is
> there an optimum scale for doing this, Nat?
>
> I am genuinely interested because if it is a truly viable commercial
> process, not just a research lab curiosity, then it's one I've totally
> missed!

Andrew, this process is quite standard in Quebec for ice cider in
particular. As a matter of fact, for ice cider, there are 3 ways to
achieve it:
- pasteurisation,
- cold stopping followed by sterile filtration (i.e. as described by
Nat), plus generally chemicals (SO2 + sorbate) for insurance.
- multiple rackings (the way I do it... but I am possibly the only one
doing it this way successfully).
Commercially, it is by far the second that is most often used.

This process is also used for medium ciders by quite a few cideries.
Then it would be followed by artificial carbonation if a sparkling is
desired.
Claude

[Andrew Lea]

On 05/08/2012 02:04, Claude Jolicoeur wrote:

>
> Andrew, this process is quite standard in Quebec for ice cider in
> particular.

Well yes and (I think) I am familiar with the idea of ice cider since it
follows the principle of Eiswein. Very high starting gravities from
freeze-concentration and a slow fermentation which is arrested or sticks
naturally due to the hostile conditions to give a sweet high alcohol
dessert wine. 'Once Upon a Tree' does a similar thing here too
http://www.wineanorak.com/blog/2010/01/incredible-dessert-cider.html .
But at a price of �16 or �20 per half bottle!!

I am also as you well know totally familiar with keeving and slow
natural fermentations lasting a year or more!

But Nat was talking (I thought) about quite regular ciders made by 'cold
crashing' and multiple filtrations as soon as they drop below SG 1.015.
That's the bit that I'd never heard before being used as a regular
commercial practice. I realise it is technically possible, but with
difficulty and at considerable cost.

> This process is also used for medium ciders by quite a few cideries.

Is that what you mean, Claude? Who are these cideries? It is such a
departure from normal 'back sweetening' practice I'd think it would be a
marketing dream so we'd know all about it (like ice cider)! I like to
keep up to date so I'm just puzzled I've never heard of this as a
regular commercial proposition!

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Andrew Lea wrote:
> But Nat was talking (I thought) about quite regular ciders made by 'cold
> crashing' and multiple filtrations as soon as they drop below SG 1.015.
> That's the bit that I'd never heard before being used as a regular
> commercial practice. I realise it is technically possible, but with
> difficulty and at considerable cost.

The thing is, Andrew, that once the refrigerated tanks and the sterile
filtration and bottling line are there - because the cidery bought
this equipment for ice cider - it becomes very tempting to use this
equipment for some other ciders when there is no ice cider in
production...

I can't tell you how many cideries actually use this for their medium
ciders, but we have some 30 to 40 that make ice cider in Quebec out of
about 50 currently active cideries. How many of these have the
equipment and use it for some other ciders? Hard to say for sure, but
probably a good number of them - or at least the more innovative of
them. Once the technique has been mastered, I don't see this as either
difficult or costly.
Claude

[Nat West]

On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 3:18 PM, Andrew Lea <y...@cider.org.uk> wrote:

"Fairly commonly"? I don't know anyone in the UK who makes cider like that. ... And how common is it in the US? ... Is there a particular yeast which performs well in this process and flocculates when you tell it to? The refrigeration and filtration running costs must be quite high....Is there an optimum scale for doing this, Nat?

Sorry Andrew, I should have mentioned the US-bent to my comment.

I know of two commercial cideries in the US (don't want to get too specific since it's not public knowledge) who do this cold-crashing in full flight. That's about 20% of the commercial cideries of which I know their internal workings, so I'm guessing it's fairly common. The equipment is all bog-standard in the brewery world.

And less than half of commercial producers that I know use pasteurization, instead performing sterile filtration, so they have that equipment on hand, just a matter of using it at the right time.

Beer/ale yeasts can be used, which are known in the brew world as good flocculators via crashing. 

Refrigeration costs aren't too bad. A properly-sized chiller for, say, a 30 bbl glycol jacketed and clad/insulated unitank uses maybe 6 amps of 220 volts. You can crash that volume in under a day from ~70 F to ~30 F. 

Sterile filtration is a bear though. From what I gather, crossflow is easiest. The machine is over $100k but the media ain't too bad. I have a lenticular filter but only go down to 7 microns. Maybe someday I'll try this method but I don't have temp control on my fermentation tanks, and without cold-crashing and flocculation I fear I would just gunk up my filters.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon

[Andrew Lea]

On 06/08/2012 18:29, Nat West wrote:

>
> Sorry Andrew, I should have mentioned the US-bent to my comment.
>
> I know of two commercial cideries in the US (don't want to get too
> specific since it's not public knowledge) who do this cold-crashing in
> full flight.

Thanks for the background, Nat. I'm mulling over this whole new piece of
information (and Claude's previously)! It seems so far away from what's
done in the UK, either by craft or by large cidermakers (unless it is
their best kept secret!). And it's never come up in my visits to US
cideries either. Presumably this is quite a new idea - do you have the
thought that it will spread? (If I were doing it I would incorporate a
centrifuge before the sterile filtration / crossflow to reduce the
solids load which must be enormous).

It seems to me that in a UK context it would be impossibly complex and
costly for small cidermakers (to whom it might otherwise have value as a
niche USP), while large cidermakers have their tried and tested routines
which suit what they already do. Post-fermentation blending is quite a
big deal for many cidermakers here but this technique would surely make
it very difficult. And isn't the cider itself very young and green and
full of acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate? Let alone the dreaded sulphur?
By definition it hasn't had any sort of 'maturation' or biochemical
sorting out if it's captured in full ferment. What do they taste like,
these ciders? I wouldn't want to drink one of my ferments that was still
at SG 1.015 (unless keeved, of course).

Lots to think about ..... ;-)

[greg l.]

I think these cidermakers are taking a winemakers view of cider.
Winemakers do not traditionally back-sweeten with sugar, wines already
have plenty of sugar and stopping the fermentation keeps the alcohol a
bit lower. The high volumes of wine make the equipment cost-effective.

Greg

[Andrew Lea]

Yes but there is surely a difference between stopping a nearly finished
wine fermentation at 8g/L sugar which I gather is the current industry
norm, and stopping a full flight cider fermentation at 30 g/L sugar when
the yeast is still seriously busy and you're only 2/3 the way to
completion, isn't there?

My impression is that this 'cold crashing' idea is derived from some
forms of beer brewing. But beer fermentation is a two step process -
primary where all the simple sugars like glucose and maltose are quickly
consumed, and secondary where the complex sugars (higher maltose
oligomers) are slowly part-consumed. My understanding is that 'cold
crashing' is done after primary fermentation is finished at a point
where the fermentation will 'change gear' anyway. The same does not
apply in wines and cider because all their sugars (fructose and glucose)
are simple and fully fermentable.

Anyway the question is what are these ciders like? Are they just sweet
and simple? What taste qualities do they have? How do they compare in
flavour with fully fermented ciders (+/- backsweetening), or with those
that are keeved?

Andrew

[Nat West]

On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 3:32 PM, Andrew Lea <y...@cider.org.uk> wrote:

Presumably this is quite a new idea - do you have the thought that it will spread?

One company I know does it with great success, producing lots of cider quickly, so maybe the process is commercially viable. I don't know enough details to say for sure. I'm more tempted to use cold-crashing when primary finishes to clear and backsweeten more quickly. 

 

(If I were doing it I would incorporate a centrifuge before the sterile filtration / crossflow to reduce the solids load which must be enormous).

As you mentioned in another reply, this process comes from beer brewing, and I haven't heard of any cidermakers or brewers with a centrifuge on hand.

 

Post-fermentation blending is quite a big deal for many cidermakers here but this technique would surely make it very difficult.

I don't see why it would. Cold-crash, then blend from multiple crashed tanks into one brite, filter to another brite, proceed as normal. It would require having your different blend bases ready at the same time. To my knowledge, the cidermakers using this technique are blending pre-ferment though.

 

And isn't the cider itself very young and green and full of acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate? Let alone the dreaded sulphur? By definition it hasn't had any sort of 'maturation' or biochemical sorting out if it's captured in full ferment. What do they taste like, these ciders? 

Yeah, that's the trick, ain't it? These ciders are very very simple and don't win any awards. As such, they're fluffed up with other fruit/berry tastes, and backsweetened with honey or other flavors. Acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate and sulphur, not so much. The ale yeasts used, when supplied proper nutrients and healthy/massive pitch rates, in a temperature-controlled (not just cooling but heating also) tank will ferment without flaws. Boring, but no taints. As I mention above, I'm keen to try cold-crashing post-fermentation to accelerate the time to "drop clear". I don't know about during fermentation though.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon

[Andrew Lea]

On 07/08/2012 23:55, Nat West wrote:
>
> As you mentioned in another reply, this process comes from beer brewing,
> and I haven't heard of any cidermakers or brewers with a centrifuge on hand.

Oh. Large cidermakers and brewers in the UK use flow-through centrifuges
to reduce the solids load and to ease the strain on the filters.

>
> Yeah, that's the trick, ain't it? These ciders are very very simple and
> don't win any awards. As such, they're fluffed up with other fruit/berry
> tastes, and backsweetened with honey or other flavors.

Thanks Nat for all the detail. I have a clearer idea of what you're
talking about now ;-)

No further questions, your honour!

[Nat West]

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 4:22 PM, Andrew Lea <y...@cider.org.uk> wrote:

Thanks Nat for all the detail. I have a clearer idea of what you're talking about now ;-)

My pleasure. I'm happy to pay back some of the assistance I've received from the workshop over the years.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon

[hillsey...@hotmail.com]

Check out this link and look under,

Carbonated cider: Earle Estates Meadery 

http://www.winesandvines.com/template.cfm?section=features&content=121188