Cider and Potassium Sorbate

[apokalypse]

Hey all, just bought a couple gallons of soft cider, to convert into hard cider Unfortunately it was after purchasing these at the local farm (and speaking with someone at the brew shop when we bought yeast) that we realized that there was a chance the jugs would contain potassium sorbate, which slows down fermentation considerably. When we spoke to someone from the farm they told us that the cider contains 0.05% potassium sorbate, which seems relatively small and harmless for a 20L brew.

We were originally looking to cut the cider with apple juice that had no preservatives added (bought some Rougemont apple juice for an excellent price). Does anyone have any suggestions for minimizing the effects of the potassium sorbate in here? We were thinking of using 8L of cider and 12L of apple juice per carboy, plus extra sugar to taste.

[Mushrooms201]

Everything you know about potassium sorbate is wrong! Written by DJ Spiess Wednesday, 05 March 2008

Late last summer while making a wine kit, I made a horrible mistake. I added the potassium sorbate to my wine kit instead of yeast. What happened next shocked many, including myself!
The Disaster

I was distracted with several people talking to me and my daughter running around while I was making my wine kit. I grabbed what I thought was yeast and I tossed it into the wine. I noticed the yeast looked a bit like potassium sorbate and thought it was unusual.

A day later the wine kit showed no signs of fermentation. I forgot to clean up earlier in my haste, and noticed an emptied wrapper was lying on the basement floor. The wrapper said “Potassium Sorbate”. I could almost feel the camera quickly pan out as I was hit with the sudden epiphany. I added the wrong packet.

Wine kits are very simple to make, but you must follow the instructions!

For the readers who do not make their own wine, potassium sorbate is added to the end of the wine fermentation to ensure that the fermentation is complete. It is a preservative that stops yeast from reproducing, and prevents any renewed fermentations from other yeasts or bacteria. Potassium sorbate is added to many products, like grape juice to prevent spoiling. If you add the potassium sorbate at the beginning, you are preventing any fermentation from starting. No fermentation means no wine.

I quickly signed on to a wine forum. I sheepishy asked the question to which I already knew the answer. Was my wine kit doomed?Can someone call a wine medic?

Some of the answers were hopeful. They suggested that I try anyway, and see what happens. Most said what I knew deep inside. I have a bucket of $150 grape juice that will never be wine.
I talked to the owners at my favorite homebrew store in Denver. They were not hopeful, but suggested I try making a starter and add that to the wine kit. If I did nothing, the kit was lost so I might as well try. I created a starter using 100% Welches grape juice, and tossed it in two days later.

To my shock, and to the disbelief of many on the wine forum, the kit started fermenting. The fermentation was the most vigorous fermentation I’ve ever seen for a wine kit. It actually blew out the airlock twice. The starter had worked, and in the process destroyed my understanding of how potassium sorbate worked. I had to know why.




How it worked

I searched the internet for articles regarding potassium sorbate. Richard Roseweir in B.C. Canada directed me to an article at the British Columbia Amateur Winemakers Association (BCAWA) written by Bill Collings. The article showed that the effectiveness of potassium sorbate is related to the amount of alcohol in solution. The higher the alcohol content, the less potassium sorbate required to prevent fermentation. The amount of potassium sorbate in wine kits is enough to prevent fermentation in wine, but not in grape juice.

For example if your wine is 10% alcohol, you need 0.20 grams/liter of potassium sorbate. When the alcohol content reaches 14%, you need only 0.07 grams/liter. The effectiveness of the potassium sorbate as a preservative is dependent on the amount of alcohol in your wine. In my case there was no alcohol so the amount of potassium sorbate added was not enough to prevent fermentation.

This is yeast, but in haste potassium sorbate can look similar.

The effectiveness of potassium sorbate is dependent on several factors: the wine pH, the concentration of free SO2, the percent of alcohol in solution, the concentration of sorbate, and the viable yeast concentration. All have to be in the correct amounts to prevent renewed fermentation.

Another reason why my starter worked is potassium sorbate prevents fermentations from starting or renewing. It does this by interfering with the reproduction cycle of yeast. It does not kill the yeast. When I added the starter, the yeast was already fermenting.
Conclusion

The lesson I learned was the potassium sorbate does not kill yeast as most brewers and winemakers believe. Potassium sorbate only prevents fermentations from starting again, and its effectiveness is dependent on other factors.

[mycowarrier]

It's not nice to fool mother nature. IMO Potassium sorbate has no place in the home brewers kit. Just another way for the supplier to make more money. I say brew it naturally. And check the ingredience label to avoid buying juice with that additive.

[apokalypse]

This article and the linked page is precisely what I needed to know! Assuming there is 1.89g of sorbate per jug (3.78L) if we do two jugs and the rest apple juice to 20L we should be able to ferment out 10% before the sorbate kicks in.

[apokalypse]

Originally Posted by mycowarrier

It's not nice to fool mother nature. IMO Potassium sorbate has no place in the home brewers kit. Just another way for the supplier to make more money. I say brew it naturally. And check the ingredience label to avoid buying juice with that additive.

Absolutely no label on the bottles, just an expiry date. Assumed it wouldn't have any preservatives at all because they expire in about a weeks time. Oh well, live and learn.

[mycowarrier]

Yea the laws vary from state to state about labeling. I bought some really nice looking unfiltered apple juice and thought it was just pasturized. I added my yeast and nothing happened even after a week at room temp. It tasted the same as the day i bought it. Makes ya wonder what the hell they put in it.
Venders are so worried [and rightfully so] about law suits these days. Bottles blowing up and causing injury, etc.

[apokalypse]

One of the big problems (that I've gathered from reading) is that even though the pH is low in cider, that nasty e. coli O157:H7 will not be killed unless the cider is pasteurized (should any apples fall into dung etc and not be properly cleaned).

We were told that we could get straight unpasteurized, unaltered (no preservative) cider for cheaper than we paid if we left a pail for them to fill up, but I think we're going to try this for now and see where it gets us

[SilvrHairDevil]

Originally Posted by apokalypse

This article and the linked page is precisely what I needed to know! Assuming there is 1.89g of sorbate per jug (3.78L) if we do two jugs and the rest apple juice to 20L we should be able to ferment out 10% before the sorbate kicks in.

I don't think the sorbate will "kick in" and bring your fermentation to a screeching halt at a certain alcohol level.

If you use a good, bubbling yeast starter, I think it will finish normally. If you want to get 10% and use a wine yeast (as opposed to beer yeast), you should be fine.

If you need to kick up your sugar level, consider using frozen apple juice concentrate.

Do you have a hydrometer?

I wouldn't worry too much about E. coli in the juice. Pasteurization (or freezing) is mainly to prevent the juice from fermenting all on its own.

And - I agree with mycowarrier about the sorbate. Trouble is, most wine kits come with it already packaged in. Just toss it when you open your kit.

[apokalypse]

Just did up a 2:3 starter and it's active already (been an hr) so we should be good

By sorbate kicking in, I meant to where it starts slowing down the yeast considerably.

[SilvrHairDevil]

"By sorbate kicking in, I meant to where it starts slowing down the yeast considerably."

By "I don't think the sorbate will "kick in" and bring your fermentation to a screeching halt at a certain alcohol level.", I meant I don't think that will happen.

Sorbate will prevent a finished fermentation from starting up again, as when your product is bottled and then gets warmed up.

I think the yeast will carry on until there's no more sugars for it to eat or until the alcohol level rises enough to "poison" the yeast.

You could, however, run into difficulties if you plan in-bottle carbonation of your cider.

[apokalypse]

We weren't planning on making sparkling cider (carbonated) so it should be ok

[apokalypse]

Just finished making up two 20L batches. Both had 8L of cider and 12L of apple juice. The first batch had 2kg corn sugar added (approx. SG of 1.06), while the second used brown sugar (approx. SG of 1.056), with a couple cinnamon sticks added. The latter batch will be drank around Christmas/New Years Hoping that we get two 8 or 9% ciders from our labour.

[SilvrHairDevil]

Hot Mulled Cider for Christmas...

[abaca]

Hey Apokalypse don't want to burst your bubble but remember that your starting gravity only tells you potential abv. You need to take another gravity reading before you bottle it and before priming sugar is added. Most wine yeasts attenuate 75-80% with 85% at most. Think of it as getting that percentage back to 1.000. You will probably end up with a final gravity of 1.012 at best. My guess is that you will end up with a 5.5% abv and a 6% abv ciders.

[apokalypse]

Yeah, I know that. We took a reading of the SG from our starter jars, and added sugar accordingly to the carboys to get the SG we were looking for. The original SG was 1.040 as seen in the starter jars, and we were aiming for 1.075 so we added 100g/L of sugar. We assumed that the lower than forecasted SG was based on the sugar not mixing well, since we siphoned off the top and not the bottom.

[apokalypse]

We had to re-pitch yeast in the Christmas cider carboy, but other than that they're both chugging along, letting gas out of the airlock approx once every two seconds. They smell delicious too, I hope we lucked out

[~Hippie3]

[Phx]

Originally Posted by mycowarrier

It's not nice to fool mother nature. IMO Potassium sorbate has no place in the home brewers kit. Just another way for the supplier to make more money. I say brew it naturally. And check the ingredience label to avoid buying juice with that additive.

All pretty good info on this thread but I have to disagree with mycowarrier here. If you have any long term experience with making wine the you realize it is a safe bet to use the potassium Sorbate unless you have a wine cellar that you can keep your bottles cold in or lots of frig room.
The reason being i cant count how many bottles have started fermenting when they became warm and have exploded. If you ever have to clean up several fifths of wine you would never skip this step. I know I wont. Good luck and nice thread btw.

[SilvrHairDevil]

Originally Posted by Phx

The reason being i cant count how many bottles have started fermenting when they became warm and have exploded.

If you give your wine a dose of sulfite (which you should do every time you rack it), agitate out all the dissolved C02 and filter before bottling you'll have no fermentation restart problems.

This presupposes you have let the fermentation finish naturally. Wine kits often say to do this on this day, regardless of how the fermentation is progressing.

A bit of a story: A customer of mine had gone to excruciating lengths to make some excellent wine from fresh grapes. He did everything right, up until the last two steps.

He carefully bottled his wine, using real cork corks, then gently laid them on their sides in his wine rack, patted himself on his back and went to bed.

Come morning, most of the corks were on the floor along with most of his wine.

When you push a cork into a bottle neck, it creates a tiny bit of compressed air, the volume of the cork. Newly bottled wine should be stood upright for a couple days to allow this compressed air to slowly escape around the cork.

The second mistake was in not putting shrink capsules on the bottle tops. They would have prevented the corks from being pushed all the way out of the bottles.

BTW - with the newer agglomerated corks, you don't have to lay bottles on their sides to keep the cork moist, preventing shrinking. Agglomerated corks don't shrink when dry.

[apokalypse]

So we bottled the wheat today and transferred the irish stout to a carboy. Had a friend come by to bottle the wheat, so we tried some cider and a red. The red was semi-carbonated after having sat since last Sunday. The cider is currently kicking my ass lol, I got a pretty good buzz off of a small glass of it.

[apokalypse]

So, wow.. the one cider that was 1.06 SG is now ~1.00 SG (~8%), and it's got a good kick to it.. the other is around the same SG (down from 1.068), it also packs a punch. They both drink pretty good, kinda strong but that's what we were going for

We're gonna try a straight cider with no apple juice watering-down, for more flavour.. should be ready in a month's time if we get the cider this weekend.

[kcmoxtractor]

What was your basic recipe and a good place to start looking for info on the process?

[apokalypse]

We did 8L cider from an apple orchard, and 12L of apple juice (rougemont, no preservatives/additives like potassium sorbate). Boosted with 2kg corn sugar for increased alcohol content. We put the sugar in first, added some apple juice and then swirled it to mix, but you should probably consider mixing the corn sugar into apple juice in a sterilized mixing bowl or pot. Put the concoction into a sterilized carboy, pitched the yeast and put an airlock on. 3 weeks later you have some drinkable cider. Probably tastes better with age tho