Cyser (first Brew).

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Whoa whoa whoa! Risks? :p I'm quite risk averse. After all the hard work so far I don't want to botch my first batch. First of all, I don't know what risk I'm taking? Also, after identifying said risk, could one of you deft hands guide me in the right direction?

The risk I am referring to is acetobacter getting into the headspace. Acetobacter live on the surface of the cider. You have a large surface area of contact between air and cyser, this is where acetobacter lives. If you fill right into the neck the surface area is tiny, and any reserves of oxygen negligible. Also oxygen can oxidise alcohol into acetaldehyde, which tastes horrible. This process doesn't need any bugs to help it.

Even though you have a good seal, you will probably open the carboy to test your cyser, letting air in. Air can also slowly infiltrate through the airlock. If your carboy is plastic, air can move through the walls. Experience shows that oxygen has a way of getting in despite our best efforts. If you have no headspace, you don't have to worry about any of this. Personally I think its worth it to add a bit of water or juice to make your chance of success much better.

Greg
 
marbles are another way to do it.
 
I'll give my usual safety warning about bottle pasteurisation - heating pressurised glass bottles is really, REALLY dangerous. If you do this, use PET bottles or invest in one of those bomb disposal suits. Better still, just don't do it. Its really frickin dangerous. The beverage industry never, ever bottle pasteurises.

Cheers
Dave

Hi Dave.

Not really on topic but i was sure that most large breweries did bottle pasteurize? I went to independent distillers last year and i'm sure that's exactly what they do, as to southern bay brewing and grand ridge brewery from memory. I might be wrong but i distinctly remember that one the product was bottled it went through the big thing that looked like a giant pizza oven (one of those ones with the conveyor belts - put pizza in one side and comes out cooked on the other). This was the pasteurizing unit which worked by spraying with hot water?? Happy to be corrected. Sorry this isn't really on topic
 

I'm pretty sure they're the standard rubber ones I have? Unless they're the silicon ones? Hard to tell with out a photo!!! :p

The risk I am referring to is acetobacter getting into the headspace. Acetobacter live on the surface of the cider. You have a large surface area of contact between air and cyser, this is where acetobacter lives. If you fill right into the neck the surface area is tiny, and any reserves of oxygen negligible. Also oxygen can oxidise alcohol into acetaldehyde, which tastes horrible. This process doesn't need any bugs to help it.

Even though you have a good seal, you will probably open the carboy to test your cyser, letting air in. Air can also slowly infiltrate through the airlock. If your carboy is plastic, air can move through the walls. Experience shows that oxygen has a way of getting in despite our best efforts. If you have no headspace, you don't have to worry about any of this. Personally I think its worth it to add a bit of water or juice to make your chance of success much better.

Greg

Interesting, well it's in glass at the moment and still fermenting (albeit slowly). But I'll be mindful not to disturb it much then. I'll let it clear in the current carboy then rack, prime and bottle and see what I get.


marbles are another way to do it.

Do tell?
 
you add the marbles to decrease the head space. it means that you dont dilute or need to add anything else.
 
you add the marbles to decrease the head space. it means that you dont dilute or need to add anything else.

Ahh I see, nice one.

Ok, just thinking out loud here, if the objective is to keep out air, could adding a layer of a neutral flavoured oil do the trick?

Or would that retard one of the other magical processes that happens when things are fermenting and ageing?
 
Hi Dave.

Not really on topic but i was sure that most large breweries did bottle pasteurize? I went to independent distillers last year and i'm sure that's exactly what they do, as to southern bay brewing and grand ridge brewery from memory. I might be wrong but i distinctly remember that one the product was bottled it went through the big thing that looked like a giant pizza oven (one of those ones with the conveyor belts - put pizza in one side and comes out cooked on the other). This was the pasteurizing unit which worked by spraying with hot water?? Happy to be corrected. Sorry this isn't really on topic

:icon_offtopic: I've never seen a beverage manufacturer use bottle pasteurisation (worked in industrial control for years). If they pasteurise, they do it before the bottles are filled through a flash pasteuriser then force carb and fill. If all they want to do is settle yeast a lot will centrifuge instead. I did a quick search and indeed, you can get industrial bottle pasteurisation units. Well. Well. Never seen one. Possibly its on used a smaller scale than the flash units.

The issue with bottle pasteurisation is that you are heating a carbonated liquid inside a sealed container. As it warms, the pressure inside will rise. Glass bottles will hold some pressure but all it takes is a small flaw or scratch on one bottle and its shrapnel time. You can also blow the crown seals off. It may be feasible on an industrial scale when you know the quality of your bottles and have the whole thing calibrated (plus its all contained inside a big steel box if things do go foom) but on a homebrew scale where you are using whatever bottles you can get, have no idea what the pressure rating is, no idea how much pressure is inside the bottles and have very limited control over temp...

Cheers
Dave
 
:icon_offtopic: I've never seen a beverage manufacturer use bottle pasteurisation (worked in industrial control for years). If they pasteurise, they do it before the bottles are filled through a flash pasteuriser then force carb and fill. If all they want to do is settle yeast a lot will centrifuge instead. I did a quick search and indeed, you can get industrial bottle pasteurisation units. Well. Well. Never seen one. Possibly its on used a smaller scale than the flash units.

The issue with bottle pasteurisation is that you are heating a carbonated liquid inside a sealed container. As it warms, the pressure inside will rise. Glass bottles will hold some pressure but all it takes is a small flaw or scratch on one bottle and its shrapnel time. You can also blow the crown seals off. It may be feasible on an industrial scale when you know the quality of your bottles and have the whole thing calibrated (plus its all contained inside a big steel box if things do go foom) but on a homebrew scale where you are using whatever bottles you can get, have no idea what the pressure rating is, no idea how much pressure is inside the bottles and have very limited control over temp...

Cheers
Dave

Excellent. Thanks for the info.
 
It's really starting to clear now, I would like to rack again.

Looking at the process, I see some people purge the vessel being racked into with CO2 to limit oxygen contact.

Just wondering instead of buying a CO2 canister (or whatever you buy the CO2 in), could you just use dryice?

Drop a chunk in the carboy it's going into, and maybe even drop a chunk into the one you're racking from to create a barrier in the head space?

I suppose a cheap way of getting the small amount of CO2 required could be buying soda stream canisters? Just need a way to release it in a controlled fashion into the carboys? I assume putting it on top of a jiffy fire starter isn't the recommended way of getting it out :p Ahh childhood!
 
It's really starting to clear now, I would like to rack again.

Looking at the process, I see some people purge the vessel being racked into with CO2 to limit oxygen contact.

Just wondering instead of buying a CO2 canister (or whatever you buy the CO2 in), could you just use dryice?

Drop a chunk in the carboy it's going into, and maybe even drop a chunk into the one you're racking from to create a barrier in the head space?

I suppose a cheap way of getting the small amount of CO2 required could be buying soda stream canisters? Just need a way to release it in a controlled fashion into the carboys? I assume putting it on top of a jiffy fire starter isn't the recommended way of getting it out :p Ahh childhood!

That would probably work. There may be a risk of shattering a glass carboy though. They don't like thermal stress.

I usually only ever rack once for my cider. I let it clear in the primary then straight into a keg to mature. If I were bottling I would rack into a secondary for a few weeks to let it really clear up then bottle. I wouldn't rack more often than that.

Cheers
Dave
 
After a bit more research it seems Argon might be the way to go. Gave my local BOC a quick call, can get 500lt of food grade Argon, a regulator and an application gun for $300! Bargain... :p

http://winesave.com/ is a cheaper option, but you only get around 50 x 1 second 'squirts' for $20 (1 second squirts would do a wine bottle). You would probably use a 5 second squirt for a 6 gal carboy to create a layer thick enough to protect during racking and while aging.

Out of all of my hobbies, I think this one is becoming the most fun! So many gadgets!
 
What you really need is an oxygen meter so you can test how much o2 is in the headspace. Or don't have a headspace.
 
After a bit more research it seems Argon might be the way to go. Gave my local BOC a quick call, can get 500lt of food grade Argon, a regulator and an application gun for $300! Bargain... :p

http://winesave.com/ is a cheaper option, but you only get around 50 x 1 second 'squirts' for $20 (1 second squirts would do a wine bottle). You would probably use a 5 second squirt for a 6 gal carboy to create a layer thick enough to protect during racking and while aging.

Out of all of my hobbies, I think this one is becoming the most fun! So many gadgets!

Yeah... that might be a touch overkill. At least with a co2 setup (which will cost about the same) you can use it for kegging.

Or just don't have a headspace if you are that paranoid about o2. A few bags of glass marbles are a lot less than $300.

Cheers
Dave
 
Or just don't have a headspace if you are that paranoid about o2.

Well I wasn't until all you bastards started warning me about it! :p

The guy at BOC said that Bunnings sell Argon in smaller canisters like the winesave stuff, but it's 'industrial' and may not be food grade. I'll have to check it out next time I'm there. I actually had a great yarn with him, he used to be a hospitality manager and was involved with some testing of Argon somewhere with wine. Knew a whole lot about it and didn't mind sharing his experience, so I just let him talk and soaked it up.
 
This is what it looks like today.

IMG_1118__Large_.JPG

I waited for primary fermentation to finish in the plastic fermenter then racked to the carboy, but as you can see there's quite a yeast cake going on. That's why I want to rack again, to try and avoid some of the off flavours I hear are associated with having that much dead yeast. Should I have left it in the plastic fermenter for a bit longer to allow it to clear more? I didn't think I would get this much of a cake after racking, but then again, what do I know!
 
Pffft, foodgrade schmoodgrade! This is pretty cheap for the gas and the regulator. Might be worth it for the small homebrew setup, ensure minimal oxygen contact for minimal cost.

IMG047.jpg
IMG048.jpg
 
Ok! I think I'm going to bottle soon, I have about 20ish litres and it's quite clear.

My plan (and please tell me if I'm doing this wrong) is to take 14lt from the middle (to fill 24 pint bottles), bulk prime with honey and bottle. I don't know how much honey to use, I came to 87.5g using a calculator for sugar (based on a desired CO2 volume of 2.5... whatever that means :p) and adjusting for honey only being 95% fermentables.

It's nice and clear in the middle, and my thinking is that if I take the 14lts from the middle only, bulk prime and bottle it should be the 'cleanest' stuff?

I'll then take the rest (6lts or so) and rack to a 5lt demijohn and 1lt bottle (for top ups) and continue to age. I'm thinking of freeze distilling the left over 5lts and see what I get (besides a hangover).

Suggestions, Comments? Don't want to f up my first batch!

Cheers,

Ken.
 

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