# Cider Infection...



## Adr_0 (9/5/13)

So, transferred my Nudie Nothing But Overpriced Juice Cider to the secondary tonight, and saw this infection through my airlock hole.







What sort of infection do you think it is?? :huh: :unsure:

After my usual pedantic, paranoid sanitation I was very surprised to see these growths on the surface of my New England cider...


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## manticle (9/5/13)

I can't see the detail.

Looks like tinned chickpeas


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## Deep End (9/5/13)

Yep, you've got to watch out for them tinned chickpeas, turn ya back for five minutes and they'll get into anything!!!


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## BeardedWonder (10/5/13)

That's from the Vegan Sandman....


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## Adr_0 (10/5/13)

Yep, close - one cup of juicy Australian sultanas. Scared the sh1t out of me for a good 20 minutes, and then I remembered...

Next batch I'll try some chickpeas and lentils. Thu-ummm...


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## benen (10/5/13)

Ha! I thought the same thing. Chick Peas in cider? Sultanas makes more sense haha


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## Bribie G (10/5/13)

What sort of fermenter is that? Looks like my BoatingCampingFishing one - absolutely perfect for cider except that the O ring tends to drop into the brew


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## Airgead (10/5/13)

benen said:


> Ha! I thought the same thing. Chick Peas in cider? Sultanas makes more sense haha


Really? I can't see what use sultanas would be in a cider at all. You might get a little sugar out of them but that's it.

Cheers
Dave


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## Adr_0 (10/5/13)

I saw a recipe and used my normal approach: "Ah yeah, that sounds nice." Apparently - sultanas being dried grapes and all - some tannins come out too, as well as the sugars.

Will this make a positive or negative impact? Don't know. Will I have a 'with' and 'without' comparisons? No...


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## Matty McFly (10/5/13)

I always thought using sultanas was only to provide an easy yeast nutrient.


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## BeardedWonder (10/5/13)

Adr_0 said:


> Will this make a positive or negative impact? Don't know. Will I have a 'with' and 'without' comparisons? No...


Glad to see I'm not the only one guilty of this train of thought/action!


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## Airgead (10/5/13)

Matty McFly said:


> I always thought using sultanas was only to provide an easy yeast nutrient.


People used to do that before yeast nutrient was easily available but given that my bag of nutrient was about 5 bucks and will last me several years, I suspect there are better ways than sultanas...

Could be for tannin. Could be for flavour. Chances are though that half a cup in a batch will be too small an amount to do anything noticeable.

KISS principle. All you need is juice and yeast. Even the yeast is optional if you want to go all traditional scrumpy and use a wild fermentation.

Cheers
Dave


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## jyo (10/5/13)

Do you need to pasteurise them before adding to avoid infection?


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## Airgead (11/5/13)

Old school recipes don't seem to. But they generally aren't real big on sanitation anyway.

Cheers Dave


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## jyo (11/5/13)

Ahh, ok.

An old bloke who used to run a homebrew shop was telling me a few years ago about a recipe for 'beer' his mum used to make that used about a kilo of boiled raisins. Never tried it though.

Cheers.


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## Airgead (11/5/13)

jyo said:


> Ahh, ok.
> 
> An old bloke who used to run a homebrew shop was telling me a few years ago about a recipe for 'beer' his mum used to make that used about a kilo of boiled raisins. Never tried it though.
> 
> Cheers.


Yeah.. those old recipes usually seem to consist of a kilo tin of malt extract, a kilo of sugar, raisins, bread yeast and a microscopic amount of hops.

Mostly because homebrewing was illegal back then and you couldn't buy actual brewing ingredients. You had to make it up out of whatever you could get your hands on. Hops you had to get from the chemist because they were used to make tinctures for medicinal purposes. The rest you picked up from the grocer.

Just because it's an old recipe it doesn't mean its a good recipe...

Cheers
Dave


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## Adr_0 (11/5/13)

I'll see what it turns out like - some references out there have used 5-10 cups of raisins/sultanas. I'm more concerned about the canola oil in sultanas actually - right there would be reason enough to KISS. Tasted like cider on the transfer to secondary though - a little tart at 1.008 but is that the sultanas or the juice? Without a 'control' to compare it to, I won't know.

I had the sultanas steeping in 80°C water for about 15min before I chucked them in.

I will be doing another one after a couple of beer runs and I'll just have to see how it is - if it's no good, then I will be KISSing like no tomorrow.


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## jyo (11/5/13)

Airgead said:


> Just because it's an old recipe it doesn't mean its a good recipe...
> 
> Cheers
> Dave


Completely agree.


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