# adding apple juice



## drobbins (Jun 1, 2005)

bjorn

I made my first mead at a brew party of the local brew club for national mead day, Aug 4
here's the official recipe for this year

http://www.beertown.org/events/meadday/recipe.html

it's a cyser, or cider/mead
since mead takes so long I've also been messing around with brewing beer and reading this website

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/index.php

which has this recipe for cider

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=14860

which seems to be incredibly popular and butt simple to make
I have a batch going, will let you know how it turns out

Dave


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## spunky (Nov 14, 2006)

*mead*

Bjorn:
I know you have to rinse any canned fruit really well in cold water, to get rid of of the chemicals that are used to preserve it. I use 100% frozen apple juice when I brew. I am not sure in what concentration it would take to kill the yeast of that chemical. Sorry


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## mac (May 1, 2005)

Ya should be able to get organic apple juice @ any health food store. Don’t know the difference between cider and juice.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Thanks guys.

I just read that potassium sorbate tablets are used in wine making to stop or prohibit "new" fermentation in winemaking when adding sugar to sweeten the wine after racking. So I definitely would not add this to the primary fermentation. But I guess if this is the stuff they add to the wines anyway and is standard practice, it couldn't hurt adding cider with it, after the first rack, or before bottling. I will try to find fresh without potassium sorbate, but its nice to know whether you could use this if you needed too.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.


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## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

You could use it, but it kinda depends. Pot Sorbate inhibits yeast _reproduction_, so it's used to "stabilize" meads/wines (meaning adding it to allow sweetening on the final beverage without renewing fermentation). It's not good for yeast certainly, but it's not going to stop an active ferment. It all depends on what you're looking for with the addition of apple juice. Apple juice/cider typically ferments out totally, leaving alcohol and very little flavor, unless it's added late in the process when the yeast are mostly done (or in larger quantities earlier on, making a cyser). If you're trying to develop some residual, apple sweetness, the sorbate in the cider would be diluted to too low a concentration by itself to keep our fungal friends from having their way with it.

Also, one of the caveats of stabilizing with sorbate is that if the mead undergoes malolactic fermentation later (induced or on its own), sorbate can lend a note described as "geraniums". It's not hugely bad, but it's a detraction IMO.

If you used it now, I suspect the yeast would be OK. It's an easy pitfall for a new mazer to try to use sorbate or sulfites to stop a ferment when the sweetness is right where they want it, but unfortunately it doesn't work that way. 

Nonetheless, I'd enjoy the cider in a glass and probably go for something with fewer chemicals for the mead .


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