9 replies to this topic

[Genesee Ted]

I have read a couple of articles about concentrating cider musts prior to fermentation with freezing and they have me intrigued. I would love to make an apple wine without the addition of any sugars. Any other ideas on home concentrating cider? I would love the be able to get something above 1.100 OG... I guess I could just add apple juice concentrate if it didn't have preservatives, but I would like to be able to concentrate say an entire varietal batch of Golden Russets...

[armagh]

Can't speak directly to cider/apple juice but there was a group brew a few years back using a recipe from Schramm's book - reisling pyment. One gallon of juice was frozen (prefermentation) and a month later half was removed and added to the must. Worked pretty well. If you don't have Schramm's book you can probably pull the recipe from the green board. Sorry if this misses the point.

Edited by armagh, 25 October 2011 - 11:51 AM.

[strangebrewer]

What you're talking about is also known as Cryoconcentration. Originally this was done by harvesting fruit late in the season and then leaving it in cold storage to freeze before pressing. Now it's easiest to just freeze the pressed cider in a bucket. Ideally you want to freeze the cider and let it turn to slush, refreeze, turn to slush,.... for as long as you're willing to do this, a couple days minimum. If you put it in a chest freezer with a temp controller you can adjust the swing to get warm enough before the freezer kicks back on. What you're trying to get out of all of this is the liquid portion which should now have a much higher SG and therefore a lower freezing temp. You'll end up with around 30-40% of your original volume with around twice the OG of the starting cider. I've messed around with this using smaller volumes and it's definitely an imperfect science but yields some tasty results.

[Genesee Ted]

Is there any other way besides freezing that will not compromise the quality of the must?

[strangebrewer]

Is there any other way besides freezing that will not compromise the quality of the must?

Next best thing that comes to mind is boiling it in a vacuum. This technique comes with it's own set of challenges as I'm sure you can imagine but I put nothing past a homebrewer

[davelew]

Next best thing that comes to mind is boiling it in a vacuum. This technique comes with it's own set of challenges as I'm sure you can imagine but I put nothing past a homebrewer

Since you want to keep the aromatics, I'd recommend more of a distilling than a boiling in a vacuum. I wonder if it's legal to distill fruit juice before fermenting it?

[Genesee Ted]

Still, I would think with distilling, you would lose aromatics with the water you take off, surely they are more volatile than H2O

[MtnBrewer]

Still, I would think with distilling, you would lose aromatics with the water you take off, surely they are more volatile than H2O

It's a closed system. The aromatics, having a lower boiling point than water, would go with the alcohol.

[Genesee Ted]

There shouldn't be any alcohol yet, since it is prefermentation.

[MtnBrewer]

There shouldn't be any alcohol yet, since it is prefermentation.