Lots Of Sediment And Froth With Cider

[willpower]

Hi guys.
I use a breville apple juicer to make my juice from fresh apples and I get lots of froth that doesn't seem to settle in the keg and then gets thrown out. Also I get lots of sediment left after the first fermentation. Its much more than the level of the tap on the keg. I think with both waste produts I am throwing away a large percentage of my brew. Can anyone offer any tips?

 

[KudaPucat]

The foam is caused by the centrifugal juicer. You could try pulping and pressing. That works a treat.
The large lees are caused by happy yeast. And yeast LOVE apple juice.
You could try filtering it like beer is, with a fine filter, but there's probably so much yeast that any filter would be overwhelmed.
If it finished dry (ie the yeast is still alive), take the lees, add flour, knead and bake. It makes a wonderful sourdough-like bread.

 

[Greg.L]

I think kitchen juicers pulverise the pulp too fine, so you get a lot of fine sediment. You could try adding pectinase before fermenting, to help get it to settle. How much juice do you get per kilo of apples? Maybe you are expecting too much. If you let the juice settle for a day, then pour it off the sediment, it might help.

Greg

 

[punkin]

I think kitchen juicers pulverise the pulp too fine, so you get a lot of fine sediment. You could try adding pectinase before fermenting, to help get it to settle. How much juice do you get per kilo of apples? Maybe you are expecting too much. If you let the juice settle for a day, then pour it off the sediment, it might help.

Greg

I do cider with a juicer as i haven't got around to building a scratter and press yet (well the press is not a problem, just finding a practical cheap easy storing scratter solution). The juicer works fine returning about 50% efficiency rather than 70% the traditional way. The froth will settle with time, leave it in primary for a month or so and as the weather cools and the ferment finishes the foam will drop away to nothing.

As you say, there is a lot of trub, that can be taken care of by either racking, or if you are like me and too lazy for racking, just draining from the tap and discarding the first little bit with the bulk of the sediment before putting into a smaller fermenter for secondary.

After the secondary your trub problem will be much smaller.

 

[Greg.L]

There was a discussion about home built scratters recently on homebrewtalk

grinder