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Cider Digest #1896
Subject: Cider Digest #1896, 6 September 2014
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1896 6 September 2014
Cider and Perry Discussion Forum
Contents:
a note on using frozen juice (Dick Dunn)
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
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Subject: a note on using frozen juice
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2014 21:43:11 -0600
(My, the digest has been quiet. But northern-hem harvest is soon.)
I sort of backed into an answer to "How long can you freeze juice?"
I frequently freeze juice after pressing, to hold it until I've got the
blend I want, or enough to start a larger batch. Normally I freeze through
harvest as I press, then thaw and start fermentations late in the year.
This has always worked well for me; I've seen no particular problems in
doing so.
However, because of some odd circumstances, I ended up freezing juice from
the 2012 harvest and not starting cider from it until almost April of this
year. The cider was fermented properly, reasonably cool throughout, and no
odd problems. The final racking was into kegs after about 4.5 months,
where it stayed under CO2 to carbonate a bit before bottling.
The cider is good but not great. There's an identifiable back note of
"staleness" to it. I'd judge that I reached the limit of "how long can you
hold juice frozen without deterioration?"
The containers matter, of course. I used 4 and 5 gallon HDPE buckets, as
are commonly used for bulk honey, icing, etc. The wall thickness is about
2.5 mm. At that, of course they're permeable to oxygen, slowly but surely.
Just one data point.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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End of Cider Digest #1896
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