Did I mess up the pectin enzyme addition?

[eatwake]

I'm on my 2nd ever 5gallon batch of cider. With the first one I added pectin enzyme to the secondary and it came out crystal clear. This time I added it (along with potassium sulfate) about 7 days prior to back sweetening and kegging. It's real cloudy compared to batch #1.

I've done some research and it seems as if it is supposed to be added with the primary?


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[Yooper]

Generally, you do add it to primary, but not at the same time as potassium metabisulfite, as sulfites can interfere with the effectiveness of the pectic enzyme.

You can add it anytime, though, if you forget in primary. Generally, it's added before stabilizing with sorbate and sulfite and backsweetening.

If the cider was never clear, it should not have been ready to stabilize and sweeten. If it was clear, but clouded up with stabilizing, then finings can be used to clear it.

In order to clear the cider, you have to guess as to the cause of the haze. If it's a pectin haze, pectic enzyme would work. But if it's a yeast haze, or a haze caused by something in the sorbate, then pectic enzyme won't fix that.

Sparkelloid may clear the cider at this point if you want a vegan/not meat option, but if you don't care about that something like KC finings would be best as those are the "big guns".

 

[eatwake]

It was never really clear but it had been done bubbling for almost a week.


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