The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Food processing => Topic started by: PK on March 03, 2018, 01:18:31 pm
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Each autumn with our surplus apple juice we simply strain it, bottle it and freeze to have apple juice for future consumption. This year with some of it we had a go at ‘pasteurising’ it. We simply filled glass bottles and put in the oven for 20 minutes at 80-100 degrees C. This has been stored in the garage. We’ve recently tried it and it is sweet, tasty and slightly fizzy. Any thoughts about what’s happened.
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Little bit of fermentation..?
The rule that I've bee not told is if it tastes nice it's good for you :-)
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That’s crossed my mind. Does that mean it’s not properly pasteurised? The main thing, apart from tasting good, is that it hasn’t gone off.
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As far as I can tell from literature 75C for 20 minutes should be ok. But the contact time is important so perhaps the contents took longer to reach 70C plus that you realised or was it unsterilised bottle tops or something of that kind let the odd nuptials back in? I'd be interested to know as we may try it next year.
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Either of those are possible I suppose but if that’s the case I’m surprised it didn’t go off or soured as it has been stored unrefrigerated. We’ve had five bottles so far and all have been the same. It’s turned out sweeter tasting than the usual frozen juice but also a bit fizzy without being gassy.
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I cannot even work out what word I thought I had typed in but it wasn't 'nuptials' !!
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Ah. Not a specialist term from your background in chemistry then? Whatever it was I think they did get in.
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I haven't tried pasteurising in the oven but when I do in the pasturiser it needs to cover all the contents and the timer starts from when the water reaches 80C. It may be that it needed to be longer.
It definitely sounds like you've had some fermentation going on. If the bottles you used were clean and it got a partial pasteurisation then there's no reason to expect that it would go off rather than ferment. When I brew wine I start by adding the fruit to water that has just boiled to kill the wild yeast then pour into sterile containers and leave for a bit. I don't expect anything to go off unless a dirty spoon has been used or someone has breathed over it. If it was stored in the garage the yeast will have been fighting against the cold so the fermentation will have been slower which would be why it's not tasting very alcoholic.
If you're trying in the oven again then maybe hold it at 80C for longer just to make sure that the whole liquid has reached that temperature. The other thing we do is as soon as we lid it we lie the bottles on the side so the hot juice is in contact with the neck of the bottle and lid.
Dans
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Thanks Dans.