Apple wine/cider question

[Keith]

Is there any reason I can't just purée apples, pasteurize at 160 and put everything in the carboy, like starting the ferment with fresh applesauce (plus the sugars added)?

 

[Arne]

I am not too wild about heating anything apple with my wines. They have lots of pectin and if you heat it and it sets, you can have a time trying to get the wine to clear if it will even clear. I would go with chunks of apple, not the sauce. When it comes time to rack, the chunks are much easier to remove than the sauce would be. Think it would leave you with lots of lees. But I think it would probably work just fine. Remember, I am the lazy man and like to do things the easy way. Good luck with it, Arne.

 

[salcoco]

Why not process the pureed apples through a cheese cloth and ferment only the juice. do not heat . wine from juice will be better than chopped apples with added water.

 

[Keith]

Why not process the pureed apples through a cheese cloth and ferment only the juice. do not heat . wine from juice will be better than chopped apples with added water.

I used pantyhose on my last batch and was just trying to eliminate a step, thinking that it would all settle at the bottom anyway.

 

[BernardSmith]

Hi Keith and welcome.
What would be the benefit of heating? Apples are not grain. The sugars are already totally accessible to the yeast. In beer making you need to mash grains to release the enzymes to transform the carbohydrates into simple sugars. Fruit doesn't need that step.

 

[Keith]

Hi Keith and welcome.
What would be the benefit of heating? Apples are not grain. The sugars are already totally accessible to the yeast. In beer making you need to mash grains to release the enzymes to transform the carbohydrates into simple sugars. Fruit doesn't need that step.

Keep in mind I know almost nothing since I'm just starting. Engineer, so my fermentation room is awesome, but apart from that, blank page! My understanding was that heating would kill any wild yeast and bacteria to eliminate problems.

 

[BernardSmith]

aha! But wine makers tend to use potassium meta - bisulfite (K-meta ) - often called campden tablets - to kill wild yeasts and to sanitize your fermenting equipment. Beer brewers like to pasteurize because they need to work in higher temps than wine makers. But fruits are susceptible to gelling because of their pectin content so wine makers tend to use pectic enzymes to break down the pectins and avoid higher temperatures. Those higher temps are also viewed as likely to destroy or evaporate off more volatile aromatics and flavor molecules

 

[Keith]

aha! But wine makers tend to use potassium meta - bisulfite (K-meta ) - often called campden tablets - to kill wild yeasts and to sanitize your fermenting equipment. Beer brewers like to pasteurize because they need to work in higher temps than wine makers. But fruits are susceptible to gelling because of their pectin content so wine makers tend to use pectic enzymes to break down the pectins and avoid higher temperatures. Those higher temps are also viewed as likely to destroy or evaporate off more volatile aromatics and flavor molecules

Gotcha. Not concerned with pectin or a cloudy finished product at this point (baby steps), but losing flavor is a concern! I sterilized the carboy, et al with iodophor. First batch fermented at 72f, then 80f when it stopped. Second batch currently fermenting at 59f and wasn't pasteurized. Hope at least one is drinkable or in anyway encouraging.