Concrete Cider Tanks

[Cider Supply, LLC]

Have been reading a bit about concrete wine/beer tanks, they sound pretty good for cider. Does anyone have good or bad experiences with these wether bought or home made?

Thanks

Chris Rylands

[Ray Blockley]

I know that Malic acid definitely does not like concrete, concrete paths or concrete drive blocks... Some serious research needed into types of concrete & coatings I'd guess...?

Ray

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[Andrew Lea]

They were popular in the UK when I were a lad. I came in just as they
went out, in the 1970's.

So far as I know all concrete ranks had to be lined, with bitumen, glass
tiles, paraffin wax or epoxy resin. There was also a silicate coating.
Native concrete is bad news for cider and cider is bad news for
concrete. I'm not sure anything has changed. Trendy wine makers are
fermenting in ceramic eggs nowadays but they are clay not concrete I think.

Andrew

On 04/11/2015 18:30, Ray Blockley wrote:
> I know that Malic acid definitely does not like concrete, concrete paths
> or concrete drive blocks... Some serious research needed into types of
> concrete & coatings I'd guess...?
>
> Ray
>
> On 4 Nov 2015 17:53, "Cider Supply, LLC" <cryl...@comcast.net

> <mailto:cryl...@comcast.net>> wrote:
>
> Have been reading a bit about concrete wine/beer tanks, they sound
> pretty good for cider. Does anyone have good or bad experiences with
> these wether bought or home made?
>
> Thanks
>
> Chris Rylands
>
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[Andrew Lea]

On 04/11/2015 19:28, Andrew Lea wrote:

> So far as I know all concrete ranks had to be lined, with bitumen, glass
> tiles, paraffin wax or epoxy resin. There was also a silicate coating.
> Native concrete is bad news for cider and cider is bad news for
> concrete.

Digging a bit further, this is covered in Charley's "Principles and
Practice of Cidermaking" (1948). Concrete tanks have to be heavily
pre-treated before use with tartaric acid, which neutralises the alkali
and forms an insoluble layer of calcium tartrate on the surface. If you
are making wine, especially at high pH, the tartrate layer is constantly
reinforced by new tartaric acid from the wine. But if you are making
cider, the corresponding calcium malate is soluble, so the protective
tartrate layer is progressively stripped off and then the concrete
corrodes as Ray says.

That's a key difference and is why concrete tanks for cider need a
supplementary lining, and probably why they fell out of favour.

Andrew

[Cider Supply, LLC]

Darn, i thought i was heading for an easy and cost effective cider tank option with a natural heat sink.

Fooey.

Thanks
Chris Rylands