Using Heat To Kill Yeast...

[Fourstar]

And that's a bad thing why? :icon_drool2: :lol:

better than century eggs! :icon_vomit:

Went to Yung Kee Restaurant in HKG, who's specialty is in roast goose. They present you with free century egg on arrival and the waiter shows you how to eat it and politely stands there until you do. I think its a way they go about punishing the whities who come to eat there. :lol:

It tastes like egg expect the yolk is like an ammonia filled custard bomb and the texture is all wrong! Im glad they give you a biiiiiig chunk of pickled ginger with it. I needed it!

 

[komodo]

Yeah not really keen on the campden tablets. I've used them in the past and not been 100% happy with something about the cider afterwards. I know they are supposed to dissipate after 24-48 hours but...

 

[Mr.Moonshine]

My concern in respect to this would be the bottles exploding. My basic understanding of chemistry and brewing tells me that CO2 is absorbed more into liquid at a cold temperature than at a hot temperature (hence why if you leave a bottle of coke in the sun it'll most likely fizz over- the CO2 is coming out of solution). This is also the reason why you chill the beer down to very cold before giving it a fast carbonate in a keg.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless the bottles are champagne or very strong (or if the cider is very lightly carbonated), putting the bottles into a bath of boiling or near boiling water would cause them to explode? Something akin to putting a can of soft drink in a fire/boiling pot?

Just my 2c, the idea is solid but you're angling more at a still cider than a carbonated cider from what I can see. Also, if the yeast are dying, won't they autolyse or produce off flavours of some sort?

Cheers,

Mr.Moonshine

 

[Airgead]

My 2c worth - The original aim here was to stop fermenattion at a desired level of sweetness then carbonate and bottle. If you are looking at plunging botles into boilign water then its already too late for that - the cider will have fermented out.

If you want to stop fermentation using heat you need to do it from the fermenter. My suggestion woudl be to use 2 counterflow chillers (if available) - one hooked up to a soirce of very hot water and the other to a source fo cold water - run the cider through the hot chiller to heat it to pasturisation temps then straight through the cold chiller to get it back down to cold again as soon as possible.

A sterile filter may be an easier way of stripping the yeast out.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Mr.Moonshine]

I like Dave's idea, in that by putting the beer through a hot coil then a cold coil you kill off the yeast and then are able to bottle. Personally, in maintaining sweetness the three methods I have used are partial fermentation (which is basically the same as back sweetening in a way), natural sweetners and artificial sweetners. The partially fermented cider was not too bad at first ( some of the members of my brewclub thought it was too sweet), but over time as it was obviously fermenting in the keg it had some weird off flavours. I figured it was the same as backsweetening in the sense that if there were extra fermentables that it would reach the same end point as if it had less fermentables and then I added more into the keg, but still the flavour was a bit off and overall the cider was still fermenting in the keg, so overtime it turned into super dry, almost winey cider (extra fermentables did include white sugar).
The natural sweetened ciders have turned out probably the best, as the lactose isn't too sweet and adds a bit of body. One technique you may consider is using less fermentable ingredients in order to acheive a desired level of sweetness. I spoke to some cider makers at the beer and brewer show, and they told me that pear juice in a cider is a good idea as the pear juice not only adds a level of smoothness, but is also not entirely fermentable and therefore adds a level of sweetness and body.
Finally the artificial sweeteners are under testing. my most recent cider was done up with about 850ml of pear juice in 20l, with champagne yeast and 20ml of a liquid artificual sweetener from coles. It's sweetness is about right I reckon, but the body is lacking so it seems a little cloying. It's still young so I'm going to see how it goes with time.