How necessary sanitation is, and how thorough it should be?

[Seva Nechaev]

In the "funky bottles" topic Andrew made an important and interesting point: great deal of spoilage organisms are already in the fruit, and nothing can be done about that. This raises a question, what result exactly we want to achieve with washing our equipment? I am talking from perspective of a hobbyist with 500-1000L per year amount of product.   

With regular process going OK, do we need more than just washing (to prevent flies and mold)? Is it necessary to sulfite and/or bleach the equipment, will it do any good?   

Of course if something went wrong and some mold like Penicillium or Aspergillus appeared, its a call for drastic measures. But with equipment washed and dried in time there will be simply no room for that, as mold needs moisture.  

The only case I can see is that we may have some constant source of spores in the place we store our stuff. Like a barn infected with mold, so spores amount from it will be much greater than naturally present in fruit. In this case we need to wash and sanitize just before we start the process. 

Any comments?

[David]

The shed where I squash apples is such that I can swill or wipe down all of the surfaces. I usually use just cold water through a hose pipe on the floor and walls but now and then I will wipe down the ceiling. Just water and maybe a few drops of washing up liquid.

The press I usually just rinse with the hose and occasionally use a cloth and hot water with just a few drops of washing up liquid to wipe it down. I mean a few drops too, and use non scented liquid Ecover or similar.

The cloths are rinsed daily with a hose while on a washing line and left to dry, weekly they go through a washing machine on a quick wash with no soap or anything. I run them through twice.

When bottling (juice) I give the bottling machine a very thorough washing down with a cloth and hot soapy water (few drops, none scented).

The wooden racks are hosed down daily and put in my pasteurising tank weekly

That is pretty much my cleaning routine and has been for years with no issues. End of season usually involves caustic soda on everything but the press, pressure washer on tanks is used from time to time.

I find that if it all looks clean it probably is otherwise it will very soon go black with moulds.

[Remo Trovato]

We sanitize before every run, especially the press. Because we use a belt press, the mesh belt might not completely dry out from one day to the next.
When choosing a sanitizer, you have to check whether it will kill mould or not. Lots of them dont. Also, make sure you wash down your equipment, even if you use a no rinse sanitizer, as it can leave a taste behind.

[John]

From the perspective of an amateur cidermaker, I use no chemicals anywhere in the process. All my equipment and vessels are “mechanically cleaned” i.e.. scrubbed and hosed.

[CiderSupply.com]

Molds, ecoli, insects, apple worms, orchard dust, and thousands of other sorts of fungi and germs make it past our best apple washings. After pressing these organisms ride along with the juice into the tanks and generally seem to be easily dealt with naturally by yeast magic.

I think that since cidermaking can be so very messy, the main goal is to clean and sanitize all equipment and surroundings of standing juice and bits of apple as to eliminate a vinegar bloom and its natural aggression to invade good cider.

I clean well to keep any vinegar issues at bay, but i don't worry all that much about what yeast easily takes care of with short lag times.

Best regards
Chris Rylands

[CiderSupply.com]

However, one exception. if keeving, i clean everything and the apples like a maniac because of long wild yeast lag periods, and i don't sulfite my juice.

Best regards
Chris Rylands

[Ray Blockley]

As I have suggested elsewhere on certain Faceache groups, some cultures / countries seem to be fascinated with sanitising / sanitizing everything way beyond what is usually required / achieved by basic cleaning & "good housekeeping". Such topics tend to go round & round chasing it's tail, with folk jumping in to ride their favourite hobby horse. ;-) Just my observations over the years of course & if it works for you & keeps you happy, just do it.

Good luck! :-)

Ray.
Nottingham UK

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[Martin campling]

On Thursday, December 1, 2016 at 9:33:35 AM UTC, Ray wrote:

As I have suggested elsewhere on certain Faceache groups, some cultures / countries seem to be fascinated with sanitising / sanitizing everything way beyond what is usually required / achieved by basic cleaning & "good housekeeping". 

I had a discussion (well, a disagreement really) with my EHO recently. I store about 20 sacks of apples in my garage prior to processing and she had a go at me for not having door strips to prevent rats getting in. These apples had come from an open-air orchard, often having sat in the grass for one or two weeks, and therefore had been subject to all sorts of fauna having a go at them. I said that I didn't see the point in having 100% rat protection in my garage. She said that I wasn't taking it seriously and threatened me with a "notice". She didn't bother at all to examine my washing system which I would have thought would be more important. She admitted that she knew nothing about cider-making.

So, for compliance reasons only, I installed door-strips and I spray all equipment prior to use with a no-rinse sanitizer (Star-San) and hose it off. Even then she wanted to know exactly what chemicals were in Star-San and what concentration I was using. It doesn't take long so I would do it anyway.   

 

Martin

[Cornelius Traas]

Hello Martin,

Fair dues for at least having the row.

The problem with giving in to the EHO’s who clearly know nothing about the safety of juices and cider is that the next time they come knocking, they need to have something else to tell you to do, to justify their existence. Not only that but they can trot down the road and tell somebody else to do it on the basis that they saw it in your place.
And so you have this ever higher set of nonsense standards to attain and maintain (all with a real financial cost).

I would advise anyone facing an EHO to have this picture of how they do it in the open in Germany, commercially, for juice as well as cider. Ask them why they are applying a different standard to you than is expected there.

 

Cornelius Traas

The Apple Farm, Ireland

T: @theapplefarmer

 

[Ray Blockley]

Yep have had the same rat & mice chat - I guess it's another box to tick on their tick-box chart. As I have metal sheds, it was a no brainer.

I fear some EHO's think the apples grow inside a huge glass bubble totally microbe, bacteria, fungus & animal / bird free, totally aseptic for 6+ months - until they arrive at your premises to pick over, wash & press.

Ray.

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[Ray Blockley]

Hi Con,

I did just that with my first EHO visits. As we have visited so many makers across the UK, I printed off lots of photos we have taken, for example Roger Wilkins' set up & Lyne Down, where much of the work is in the open... never mind Roger's infamous spiders & their webs. I then asked my EHO (very politelty) if they would care to contact other EHO's in Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Somerset, etc...? It worked for me - friendly open discussion.

Ray

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[Cornelius Traas]

Thanks Ray,

It might be worth having those pictures also available for people like Martin and others who meet EHO’s new to the subject.

 

Con

[David]

My visit involved a "discussion" about me using a wooden table to put crates of bottles on.

Apparently no wood is allowed as it harbours death! (might not be quite that serious but it sounded like it was.

I simply asked what she thought the barrel I was going to put it in was made of. That stopped her :D

[Suzy Diesen]

In regards to cleanliness and sanitization and open air production in Germany, can you suggest a place to visit for education and observation on this issue in Germany? I will be  visiting there in the spring.  Perhaps that is the wrong time of year. But any suggestions for a favorite place?

Suzy

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[Suzy Diesen]

For two years, I have had instances of an off, moldy, taste in my cider after sulfating to 100mg/L.  Last year one out of my three dewars was affected.  This year, my larger dewar, 48L is affected.  I assiduously cleaned the containers with Starsan.  Can this be caused by the proverbial rotten apple? 

1.      What does having one or two bad apples do to the flavor of a batch of cider?  All batches are nicely bubbling away at 52 F. The affected batch this year is at 1.1 from 1.7 SG, so almost done with champagne yeast.

2.      Can this flavor be ameliorated?  I know this has been discussed but I wondered if someone has had this same problem.

 

Suzanne Diesen

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[Handmade Cider]

How bad were your bad apples?

I grade all my fruit before it goes in the wash tank yet I am happy to press brown fruit. I never press any thing either black or with mould on, but I do know of other producers who never grade anything and all mouldy or black fruit goes in. The cider tastes ok.

In my early days I pressed all the rotten fruit after I had finished pressing the good stuff and ended up with 5 gallons of juice which fermented out fine and tasted ok but lets just say it had a similar effect to Perry and the fuse was very short!

Denis

Denis France   www.handmadecider.co.uk   07590 264804  Company. No. 07241330

White Label – Champion Farmhouse Cider, Bath & West Show 2015.

Spring Surprise - Cider of the Festival Chippenham Camra Beer Festival 2015 & 2014

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[Andrew Lea]

There are some things in your post I don't understand. 

Have you been using sulfite or sulfate? (The latter is not an antimicrobial.) How do you add it?  What was your juice pH? What apples do you use? I don't understand your SG measurements. Do you mean you've gone from 1.070  to 1.010? 

How do you know the batch is tainted already if it hasn't finished fermenting? Have you been tasting or smelling it on the hoof? Is it really mouldy or just a little H2S / eggy which is common during fermentation. 

As Denis says, mouldy looking apples don't necessarily lead to mouldy tasting cider. But if the juice tastes mouldy to begin with, that will not ferment out nor can you blend off.  It's all to do with the mould metabolites, not the mould per se. 

We had a discussion on this back in 2012 if you search the archives for <Juice tastes off/muddy/grassy>

Andrew  

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Andrew Lea]

Oh and you are fermenting in Dewars? You mean double walled insulated vacuum vessels? That seems a strange choice. Can you explain a bit more how you do this? How do you fit an airlock on them? Could the fermentation be overheating? 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Suzy Diesen]

     Thank you for your reply(s).  I have been at this for four years so have much to learn.

     I should have used the word demijohn instead of dewar.

     The specific gravity in the affected demijohn mentioned has fermented from a specific gravity of 1.07 to approximately 1.01.

 

     The apples were Golden Russet, Lady and Winter banana, picked from old trees.  I added about one gallon of Winesap and Arkansas Black by running them through a food processor and then a nut bag so there is added particulate.  The initial Ph was about 3.6.  I believe the Total Acidity was about 5 and I added Malic Acid to bring it up to about 7.  I don’t have the adds in front of me for exact reference.  Potassium Metabisulfate was added.  The apples were in pretty good condition and picked after much rain fell.  There were bird holes in a few and a few brown edges.  I left them for two and a half weeks to sweat on a tarp inside of the garage.  Raccoons came in and ravished a few one night which were tossed out.

 

     The juice was tasted prior to fermentation and tasted very good.  I had some residual juice to top off the demijohns (about a gallon) so I measured the specific gravity and tasted each one when I added this last amount.  I monitor the smell periodically and have not smelled H2S or other off smells. 

     This year instead of an airlock, I used stoppers with a tygon tube to a gallon jug filled with diluted Starsan.  I did this to avoid air when the batch fermented vigorously possibly blowing the airlock fluid out. 

     The affected demijohn had champagne yeast and has the same taste as one I tossed out last year only a bit more mild.  It is in a vessel that is twice the size of the previously affected batch.  The flavor is not grassy or eggy, it is a bit flat and has an ever so slight funny mold taint.  The other demijohn is fermented with Cuvee Premier yeast by Redstar.  It has a wonderful taste IMO and has fermented to almost the same amount.  The only difference between ciders is the yeast and vessel size.  I have not racked them yet and may not this year to prevent any air migration.  Normally, the larger demijohn has yielded the best cider.  I did not know that cider under fermentation may generate off flavors or smells.  I guess that does makes sense. 

 

  I did not rinse out the Starsan from the cleaned vessels.  Some people rinse afterwards with water.  I thought it was no rinse.  So just an extra precaution?

 

Sorry for the wordiness.   Thank you for any reply,

Suzanne

[John B, Bath]

I have often smiled wryly at some of the videos I see posted that clearly show loads of rotten apples and leaves being 'washed' in muddy water before going through a belt press or similar. I'm very small scale, but every apple I use has been handled (graded) by me when I pick it up and handled again (graded) when I wash & mill it. Some apples look fine, but when you pick them up you know they are part hollow, or squishy, or they have gone 'glassy' inside with little change in skin colour. I've always been a bit shy of using dodgy apples.

Apples get washed in water and agitated with a brush. I change the water when it doesn't look like it's any good for washing anything in! 

As for my kit, the SS press tray gets washed with water from the kettle. The HDPE rack boards get washed in soapy water and then rinsed & air dried. Cloths go in the washing machine after use with no detergent and air-dried. The plastic 27-litre fermenters I use to transport the juice to the barrels are washed with hot water (no detergent) and scrubbed inside with a sponge. The blue plastic barrel fermenters are washed and steam cleaned each year. Fermenters, barrels & demijohns are stored with a weak mix of Milton fluid when not in use for any period.

Part of my reluctance to start the rigmarole of selling any of the small amount (c.800 litres) of cider I produce each year is a fear that I am going to have to clad the inside of the shed in plastic and/or start sterilising everything.

John

[Andrew Lea]

I have changed the thread title to reflect its changed focus. 

Your issue is very puzzling, especially since mould taints are really quite uncommon in ciders unless the juice is tainted to start, which you say it isn't. And the cider is still fermenting, so it's very early days and this taint is therefore developing very quickly. Could it be external contamination? Was the nut bag clean and unused before you ran the juice through it? 

Can you describe the taint (taste and aroma) any better? Is it the smell of a musty room, of mushrooms, or the smell of fresh earth after rain?  Or drains or barnyards? Or something else? My feeling is that you are mistaking some sort of early and transient fermentation product for mould taint.  What happened previously when you had this problem? Did the taint age out on cider storage? 

Btw you are still confused about spelling. Note the correct term sulfite with an "i" NOT sulfate with an "a". The two are quite different and are not interchangeable. The correct vowel is significant. 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Suzy Diesen]

Andrew,

In about a week, I will look at the cider again as it located at a remote site.
 

Last year the flavor persisted and it was discarded.

I have never washed my apples.  They just are picked from the trees.

The nut bag was just pulled out of the kitchen drawer after being washed out with soap and water earlier and stored.

It is interesting that mold is not common with cider. 

 

The closest description is a musty room.  It is ever so slight.  I will retest it next week and continue to monitor. 

Thank you very much for your response,

Suzanne