Newbie Cider Questions

[mestoth]

Hey,
Been reading through a lot of the detailed posts through here but thought I would ask some questions from the resident brew gods.
This would be my first batch of home brewing, and as such i expect I will screw up a few things. Im considering getting one of the kits just to mess with, but semi-reluctant to make stuff I wont drink considering others on this forums opinions on the blackrock stuff!

Long story short: Objective of making a cider without chemicals, specifically anything sulphar based. Having some form of cleaning product to cleanse fermenters\bottles\etc is fine,though has anyone tried simple heat sterilisation, or does it not work??, but im keen not to use any campaden or equivilent.


Lurking on an american forum, and in the cider section one of their cider gods or equivilents suggests stove top pasturising the glass bottles after a few days of carbonation
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove...ng-pics-193295/

However the risks seem....high. Glass + gas + Hot liquid seems like a bad combination imho.

So: Whats the other options? Cold Crashing would work, but then its stuck in the fridge, and my fridge space is...limited at best. The "Minister for Finance, war and fridge space allocation" will prolly shoot me if half the fridge is occupied by cider!.

Is pre bottling pasturization (to kill the yeast), ie syphon from fermenter to stove top, raise to 60 C then bottle + co2 tabs (though this would be probably Chalk based product I assume, so may impart a slightly chalky flavor) an option?

Impart your wisdom on me!

edit1: should say this would be bottle stored, not Keg.

 

[pk.sax]

30-40% pear juice in the mix will do it for you, Au naturale
Left mine to finish at 1.010, which is quite sweet by cider ferment standards. Tastes good too

 

[mestoth]

Do you have issues with bottle bombs though? ie, how do you stop the fermentation before bottling?
Thats essentially my question.
Raise the initial sugar concentration so it kills the yeast with alcohol? (And rasing the Alcho % )

Also, for some reason Quick edit and quick post works fine in mozilla, but full edit or full post doesnt, requires IE to tab into the text box. Bug or just me?

 

[pk.sax]

Dunno abt browser problem but no bottle bombs yet here, pear juice is just lest fermentable than apple juice. So, raise % of pear as far as you want the sweetness to go and don't mind the pear angle.

I think the browser problem has something to do with allowing rich text editing in the board settings, turn it off and you should be fine.

 

[mestoth]

Dunno abt browser problem but no bottle bombs yet here, pear juice is just lest fermentable than apple juice. So, raise % of pear as far as you want the sweetness to go and don't mind the pear angle.

I think the browser problem has something to do with allowing rich text editing in the board settings, turn it off and you should be fine.

Thanks, the Rich editor fixed the problem. Wierd. First time mozilla has failed me

So essentially your method is add 40% pear juice to initial mix-> ferment til 3 days of same SG, transfer to bottles from primary fermenter (or do you secondary fermenent). Do you suger prime the bottles for carbination or? then store to mature?

Just dont want shards of glass impaling the neighborhood\me

 

[pk.sax]

Yep, you got that right. I was a bit scared by the higher FG and shook the yeast up and left it to ferment another week at 20C (3 weeks total overall-overkill) but it didn't drop a single point, then I bottled and left in garden shed to carb. Sister has even stolen one to take along to the beach and by the way she drives, well, if she didn't manage to make it explode .....