bottling soft cider

[webfoot]

I have 5 gal of hard cider coming along but have as yet not managed to use the 20+ gal of cider I pressed this year.

With that in mind I wondered if anyone had bottled soft cider befor and what the procedure is for that.

Thanks in advance.
Webby

 

[webfoot]

OK so here is what i came up with.
We have a method of canning juice we call "hot bottling".

Put the number of canning jars you will need in the oven at 250, start your lids boiling,heat the juice to a boil and put it in a special bottling column with a spout that keeps it hot.

When your jars get hot you remove them from the oven and fill them from the column and pop the lids on, in about 3 minuets the lids start to pop down.

We have been doing this for years and have had the same amount of failures as water bath canning.

So I did just that, save instead of canning jars we used long necks and a capping press.

So far so good but only time will tell.

I am also wondering if this would work with hard cider or if you would just boil down your ABV to 0?

I have to do 10 more quarts in jars tonight so I will try to get the wife to take pictures.

Webby

 

[BOBrob]

all good questions. Heating cider to a boil is pasturized cider ; and as long as it is filtered some how you should be able to add 1/4 tsp. of potasium sorbate per gallon to keep it. Sobate is vitamin C found in cider you buy. Look to Cider in the recipe section, you may find more. WOW 80+ Qts. wal-mart has 5 gal. plastic water bottles for $7 . I make cider and beer in them and they take up less room. I also do alot of canning. Good luck.

 

[webfoot]

Thanks BOBrob,
I didn't have any sobate so I just sanitized everything real well and kept everything hot as in the above.
It seams to have worked as I don't have and bubbling or bottle bombs as of ye but it hasn't been that long.

I will have to try the sobate next year and see if there is any noticeable difference in the flavor.

Thanks for the input.
Webby

 

[webfoot]

I finally opened the last bottle of this today ( i forgot about it in the back of the cabnet) and it was as good as the day i bottled it.

Next year i will try and get pictures.

Webby