Cider Infections

[Neongreen]

Hi guys, first post! Been lurking for quite awhile. Please don't bash as I'm still a newbie at all this.

I've been experimenting with brewing my own cider using wine yeast, store bought apple juice, a dash of nutrient, and some dextrose to raise the final percentage to 7%. I do not check with a hydrometre(I can calculate the alcohol percentage using the quantity of suger, an advantage of using store bought juice.). I do wait a week after the bubbling stops before bottling so the fermentation has clearly stopped. The containers stay in my garage with black cloth draped over them. They probably reach a maximum of 10 degrees C, and stay around the 5 degrees mark on average. It often takes 1-2 days for the yeast to kick off at this temperature.

I bulk prime using 8g/L of dextrose(Although I'm going to be using Apple juice to prime with the next batch, 74.7mL per L, with 10.7g/100mL of sugar.

I've recently moved up to using 2 25L jerry cans. I didn't know you could full these to 27 litres but fulled them up with 24L of apple juice. I also use 2x20 foodgrade buckets with 18L of juice.

Before that I did it in 3L containers with airlocks fitted. At this point I am experimenting with what works and such, I know I am not following common practices with a lot of this.

I sanitize using either bleach + water + vinegar or Hydrogen Peroxide(Bought from the chemist at 6% and diluted 15ml per L), swish it around and let it stand. If I'm using the bleach solution I make sure each surface has contact with it for at least 5-10 minutes. I clean using Napisan in hot water for 4+ hours. I do assume that the yeast/sugar/apple juice(which is poured directly from immediately opened, ex sealed bottles into the bucket and then sealed a minute or two later) is sterile.

My problem is I'm getting rampant infections. When I did 8x3L containers with airlocks fitted, I had a whopping 75% infection rate. To clarify - the containers were the juice containers and I airlocked the caps, and they were soaked in bleach. No chance of infection! I've bottled three of the four big containers I'm using now, and two of those appear to be infected. I tell infections by how if it doesn't go crystal clear within 7 days. These are often incredibly tart. I use primarily Granny Smith apple juice though so some of the tartness could have come from that.

The cubes themselves don't seem to be sealing properly - they don't have airlocks so I was happy to release the pressure, but I've not had to do that at all. Could this be a huge source of infection? I've only bottled one batch out of the cube and it was infected. I have another batch I will be bottling shortly. I had an airlock failure on the second food grde bucket - one which looks infected. The one bucket which was 100% secure from the looks of it came out beautiful. Should I be moving to food grade buckets solely and just using the cubes to bulk prime? Could the sugar be a source of infection? Coming to think of it, it sounds like it could be. How do you go about boiling sugar(How long? How do you prevent it from caramelizing) so that you can add it to the solution safely?

Sorry for all the questions but I appreciate any answers!

 

[Adric Hunter]

how store bought is your juice? What i mean by that is is it the gamma ray stabilised, homogenised, crystal clear stuff that comes in 2 litre plastic bottles, or is it a more natural, fresh squeezed, untreated, cloudy apple juice? If it is the latter (as your reference to granny smith apple juice suggests) then often untreated juice can have dorment wild yeast in it already, not to mention all sorts of interesting bacterial growths, while this isnt a problem from a health point of veiw, it can really f**k around with a healthy ferment. If this is the case then try chrushing up a couple of campden tablets and adding them to the unfermented juice about two days before you pitch the yeast, this should kill any beasties in the juice. Be careful not to add too many though as it can also kill your yeast if your not careful. To make sure this dosn't happen, while your campden tablets are doing their thing get a yeast starter going, so that you pitch a nice heathy colony of yeast into your juice.

 

[Neongreen]

Thanks for the response - it's the processed stuff that you find in the supermarket, from concentrate essentially. That's why I find it impossible that the bottles can get infected so easily. It's probably the sugar come to think of it.