Kill the Yeast

In my last post, I said in order to obtain a sweet cider, the yeast needs to be killed to prevent it from eating any more sugar. There are several ways to do this, including the use of potassium sorbate or pasteurizing.

I have stressed that when picking out sources to make wine and cider from that it needs to be preservative free because the preservatives will prevent the yeast from fermenting. Now, when the yeast is towards the end of fermentation, preservatives in the form of potassium sorbate help kill the yeast to stop fermentation. [Edit: Potassium sorbate does not kill yeast. It prevents it from multiplying. Therefore, when fermentation is done and there is no sugar left, potassium sorbate blocks the dieing yeast from eating at any new sugar added.]

If you don’t want to add chemicals, the other option to kill the yeast is by pasteurizing. Andrew Lea describes the process as follows: “The sweetened bottled cider can then be batch pasteurised on a domestic scale in tanks of hot water e.g. at 68^o C for 20 minutes, although it is much more efficient to use a proper flow-through heat exchanger operating at 90^o C with a residence time of 30 seconds so that the pasteurised cider is filled directly into warmed bottles. Equipment of this sort does not come cheap and can usually only be justified in the context of a commercial operation.”

In Cider: Hard and Sweet, Ben Watson recommends having a mixture that reads 1.010 on a hydrometer, bottling it, and then possibly waiting a few days before pasteurizing. With “a large kettle on the stovetop, or in a metal tub or livestock trough that’s set over a propane burner outdoors, place the capped bottles in the water bath; the water should come up to the fill line on the necks. Fill one bottle with water that’s at about the same temperature or cooler than the cider, and leave it uncapped, with a thermometer inserted into it. Heat the water in the tub or kettle until the thermometer in the test bottle reads 150⁰F (65⁰C) for 10 to 20 minutes… The bottles may start leaking gas around their caps and hissing; this is fine and isn’t cause for concern. Remove the bottles carefully and cool them slowly to minimize any risk of breakage.”

Sources of Fruit for Wine

Of course, the ultimate fruit for wine would be fresh fruit that is crushed and/or pressed for the juice, and then fermented. No water added. But what to do in the middle of winter?

Well, there are a couple of inferior but cheaper and accessible sources. The first one is to use frozen fruit. This could be thawed out and pressed for juice, or it could be allowed to soak in water.

Another option is to use canned fruits. I recently bought some canned Bartlett pears, and I plan on using the syrup and pears both when I make them. However, canned fruit often contains some form of sugar, so read the labels to make sure you are comfortable with the variety in the product. While I do not particularly care for corn syrup, my husband is now buying a powdered form of corn sugar to use with his beer because it does better than cane sugar.

Probably the most easy source for making fruit wine is buying fruit juice. While more expensive, using juices that are 100% juice usually tastes a little better than concentrated juice. Also, 100% is usually pasteurized, so aside from sterilizing equipment, the juice itself does not need to have potassium metasulfite added. However, when on a budget, concentrated juice works well. My first batch of apple wine used concentrated apple juice.

Remember, if you are buying any processed fruit or fruit juice, check the labels to ensure that no preservatives have been added.

There are also a few choices from your local brew supply store, including canned fruit, pureed fruit, or even kits that have all the ingredients needed in a box. These can be spendy, but at the same time it will be higher quality and preservative free. This stuff is made for making wine.