Cider Digest #0490

Published in

· 9 Apr 2024

Subject: Re: oh no, sorbate! 
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 18:02:25 -0500 (EST) 
From: Chuck Stringer <cstringe@nickel.ucs.indiana.edu> 

ericg@pun.bloomington.in.us: 
> 
> Well, it has been a week now, with no activity.  Is there anything I 
> can do to save this batch? 
>  

That shouldn't be enough sorbate to completely prevent fermentation. 
I'd tried a new starter and maybe warm the cider a litlle, say to 
75-80% until it begins. Next time RTFL, Garrison! 

Chuck Stringer 
cstringe@ucs.indiana.edu 

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Date: Wed, 26 Oct 94 9:14:03 MET 
From: Ralph Snel <ralph@astro.lu.se> 
Subject: Re: sorbate 

Don't panic! Yes, there's something you can do. 
I've had a similar problem, "100%" juice, and nowhere on the carton that 
besides the 100% it also included some other stuff. Well, it did. I had the 
same problem as you: no fermentation. Sorbate doesn't kill the yeast however, 
it just prevents it from multiplying. 
I didn't know why the stuff didn't ferment, so I used the standard trick 
for getting it started properly: get a good starter, add an equal volume 
of juice when the starter ferments properly, wait untill you have good 
fermentation again, and repeat untill all the juice is fermenting. In my case 
this took about a day between each time I added juice. It worked however. 
Be prepared to get some strange smell in the beginning, reminding faintly of 
garlic (that's how I found out I had sorbate in the juice). The final result 
was however not very good in my case. I don't know if that was because of 
the sorbate or if it just had to do with the dubious source of the juice. 
It fermented though. 

Cheers, 

Ralph 
ralph@astro.lu.se 

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Date:    Wed, 26 Oct 94 12:37:30 EDT 
From: IO11262@MAINE.maine.edu 
Subject: preservatives 

In digest #489 Eric Garrison wrote about sorbate in cider.  I made an 
apricot mead once and the apricots had preservatives in them.  It took 
me about five applications of yeast over two weeks, some of the time I 
even started the yeast in warm sugar water, before the mead started off. 
My advice is to keep trying.  One thing you can do is to start off the 
yeast in with sugar water and a small amount of the cider to acclimate 
the yeast to the preservatives, and add more and more cider as the yeast 
grows, finally adding the yeast/ cider to your main batch. 
 -Glen 

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