There’s no good hard cider without good juice and knowing that pasteurization plays a big role in the process is important.
All store-bought juices are already pasteurized, but what you must know regarding the pasteurization of homemade juices and juices from local orchards?
It’s important to pasteurize any juice prior to adding yeast if the juice wasn’t pasteurized already. Pasteurization deals with contaminants, wild yeast, and even some harmful pathogens. There are two methods for pasteurizing juice, by heat and by sodium metabisulfite each coming with specific advantages.
Why it’s important to pasteurize juice before pitching yeast
Although it’s possible for strong yeast colonies to overcome bacteria and wild yeast, it’s not always the case so it’s important to pasteurize juice.
I have no doubts that preparing a good starter before pitching yeast is a good method to increase the odds of a successful fermentation, but pasteurization is the only way to be sure nothing will contaminate your cider.
It’s always better to be safe than sorry, especially when the risks aren’t so seemingly low.
The risk of harmful pathogens
Although it’s rare to find any harmful pathogens in apple juice or any other fruit juice, there are documented outbreaks of harmful pathogens such as A.Coli found in apple juice sold from orchards.
A.Coli is found in excrement, so it’s possible that the orchard gets infected by animal excrement, thus it’s important for orchards to have a standardized procedure for dealing with this issue.
If you are buying juice from orchards ask them how they treat their juice before selling it to you. A common way for orchards to destroy possible harmful pathogens such as A.Coli is by UV exposure.
If you get your juice from a reputable source there are no issues of harmful pathogens.
The same can be said for when you squeeze juice at home, as long as you are keeping things clean there are almost no risks of anything going a harmful way.
So, while pasteurization will certainly deal with the problem of harmful pathogens, it’s not really necessary if the process of extracting juice was correct.
The risk of contaminants
Harmful pathogens aren’t necessarily the reason why you want to pasteurize your juice, but non-harmful germs like lactobacillus can still ruin your batch and make it taste vinegary.
Whether you are brewing beer or making ciders and meads, lactobacillus is your greatest enemy that can spoil your precious booze.
Thus, it’s important not only to sanitize everything that will get in touch with a cider in the process of making to bottling, but it’s also important to ensure the juice has no suspicious germs in it.
While these germs aren’t harmful and aren’t noticeable when enjoying fresh juice, with enough time without prevention they would certainly ruin it.
Moreover, it’s not uncommon that lactobacillus makes milk or juice go bad after a few days in storage if not consumed quickly or left unpasteurized.
The risk of wild yeast
Finally, we got the perhaps, least dangerous but still annoying organism that can ruin your hard cider if the juice wasn’t pasteurized prior to pitching yeast.
Orchards are full of wild yeast as wherever nature is, there’s wild yeast happily populating the area.
It’s extremely easy for wild yeast to travel airborne and end up in juice and I’d actually be surprised that there were none.
Wild yeast is unpredictable and can create weird flavors that can be considered off-flavors in some cases.
While it’s possible to use wild yeast in brewing, it’s better not to play chances with it and rather use a desired yeast strain for your cider.
Pasteurizing by heating
The traditional and original way to do pasteurization is by heating the juice and keeping it there for some time until germs and wild yeast die.
This can be done by boiling, but it’s also possible to do it with much lower temperatures such as 158°F (70°C) by keeping the juice at the temperature for 15 minutes.
No harmful pathogens such as E.Coli, nor other bacteria and wild yeast will survive it and your yeast will have a clean start.
However, any heat will impact the flavors in juice and the same problem affects honey used for mead making.
You’ll have a greater effect on flavors by boiling while having a lesser impact on flavors by using lower pasteurization temperatures.
If you want that caramelized, cooked apple flavor in hard cider, heating juice is actually a good thing.
Pasteurizing with sodium metabisulfite
Campden tablets (sodium metabisulfite) don’t change the taste and they’ll be the best option for pasteurization without impacting the nature of the juice.
Despite people calling this pasteurization, this way of pasteurization isn’t technically pasteurization but rather an alternative that does a similar job.
Campden tablets or in other words metabisulfite chemicals are used as sanitation agents that dissipate over time.
This means the environment will be temporarily unfriendly for any bacteria or wild yeast to reproduce but after 24 hours the environment will return to its normal state. During this time, metabisulfite chemicals will kill all bacteria but some wild yeast may survive as Campden tablets aren’t the ideal way for killing the yeast strains.
However, this shouldn’t be a problem because you’ll be pitching yeast that will overcome any small colony of wild yeast.
Thus, don’t pitch yeast immediately after adding Campden tablets as it will also kill your yeast. Pitch it 24 hours after adding Campden tablets and you’ll have great results as your newly pitched yeast will have a clean start and an upper hand
Bear in mind that some people may be allergic to sulfites in which case it’s better to use heat as a method for pasteurization.
You can add 1 tablet per 5 gallons of juice to achieve the desired effect.
Final take on
It’s important that the freshly pitched yeast has a clean environment in which it can reproduce for a healthy fermentation.
Juice pasteurization is very important unless you are buying your juice from a store or local farmers market where you can trust the juice was pasteurized already.
Regarding the methods, you can use Campden tablets if you don’t want to affect the taste of juice with the heat.
Heat will impact the flavors and some noticeable juice aromas may disappear. While some people will like this because the juice will have that distinct cooked taste it may not be for everyone.
Thus, it would be best to experiment and make one batch with heated juice and the other treated with Campden tablets.
If you are not sure, I am pretty sure both methods will ensure the cider ends up delicious, it’s just going to be about the preference.
After all, it’s all part of the process of cider recipe making and that’s what makes it fun!