3 replies to this topic

[idajack]

So I was doing a bit of work today for the owner of a local orchard/farmer's market and saked what it would take to get some unpasturized cider and the owner said to come back this after noon and help her press some mixed up apples and she'd give me as much as I wanted. I returned with 4 corneys all sanitized and we spent a couple hours washing/chopping/and crushing a large mix of windfall apples. these were all various varieties that were blown out of trees this last week and picked up saturday. I guess I am a little concerned about anything picked up from them sitting on the ground for a couple days but we washed/rinsed everything in a sanitizer of some sort then plain water so I suspect that they are clean enough.My next question is does washing them likely kill any wild yeasts that would allow me to do a wild fermentation?thoughts so far are to split this into 4 5 gallon batches. Batch one just set it and forget it per Scott's method. Batch 2 add a yeast that would kick things off right and maybe preventatively out muscle any bad yeasts from them being on the ground etc. Batch 3 add campden etc. to sanitize and then add yeast and see what happens. Then with the last batch finally I would enjoy joining in the group brew and doing the fall bounty cyser. Though I will have to decide if I want to treat that cider with campden or not since I would be investing a bit into honey and such.Any comments or advice would be appreciated, I have never done cider before so this should be fun.

[ScottS]

Yikes. I wouldn't mess with windfall apples without sterilizing the cider. Maybe I'm paranoid, but that's my feeling.Wild yeasts are in the skins rather than on them. Washing them will not get rid of the wild yeasts.

[idajack]

That's what I was concerned about. We did "sanitize" them by soaking in a tub with a commercial no rinse sanitizer that was described as working similarly to starsan then actually rinsed them but still the nooks and crannys of the apples very well could be harboring nasties.I think I will still try a wild fermentation just to see what happens but maybe sterlize all the other juice.Would you recomend any other methods of sterilizing than Campden I really don't want to boil the juice.

[ScottS]

Geez, I don't really know. Maybe research the effectiveness of sulfites against e coli? Otherwise pasteurization or uv sterilization are the only things I know of.