Clearing murky pressed apple juice

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David.

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Clearing murky pressed apple juice
« on: September 07, 2007, 19:54 »
Thought I would post this tip as apple pressing time is here, and many people think pectalase enzyme is only something for adding to wine/cider to assist in clearing during the fermentation process.

If you stir 1 teaspoon of pectalase/pectolase/pecktolase enzyme into your murky brown pressed apple juice, the solids will start to coagulate within 1 hr and will drop out overnight (which for me coincides with effect of Campden tablet wearing off), leaving pure, golden apple juice to be siphoned of the sediment.



Those cartons in front are full of pressed crab apple juice frozen last year in bags in cartons and defrosted for blending with eating apple juice this year (to give, along with added sugar, sufficient 'kick & bite' to my wine & cider).

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Bodger

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Clearing murky pressed apple juice
« Reply #1 on: September 08, 2007, 22:18 »
The apple juice that I turned into cider started off life cloudy but soon became crystal clear.

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David.

  • Guest
Clearing murky pressed apple juice
« Reply #2 on: September 09, 2007, 12:40 »
But when using apple juice with a heavy sediment for making wine, the fiercer fermentation can send all the bits to the top where they continue to rise up until they spray out the airlock (unless you start the ferment in a bucket), you also wast 1/8th of the fermenters capacity by filling it full of sediment in the first place and you inrease the amount of tooping up required on racking off, so getting the sediment out before fermentation makes things that much easier.

It also makes apple juice look more appealing to drink when made into a pasteurised juice than something that looks like a mud smoothie.

Not all the apple juice I press gets treated with pectalase, as much clears on it's own accord quite quickly (like crab apple) and it seems the harder the apple, the less sediment and the sooner it will clear.

But softer apples quite often produce a heavy sediment which poured onto a campden tablet and left to clear by itself, will have only dropped some of the sediment before the effect of the sulphite wears off, fermentation from natural yeasts (that have only been stunned, not killed) starts and any sediment dropped starts to lift up again.

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Bodger

  • Guest
Clearing murky pressed apple juice
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2007, 21:34 »
David

After putting the apples through the cider press, I put the juice straight into the big water bottles but did strain it through muslin first.

The juice was very cloudy as I say, when it first went in.



This cloudy :shock:

We put an airlock in the top of the bottle and had no problems with exploding floaters and the like.




It ended up this clear

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David.

  • Guest
Clearing murky pressed apple juice
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2007, 13:30 »
But as I explained above, in addition to making cider, I am also producing apple juice to preserve for drinking and use for making apple wine:

1) APPLE WINE

Apple wine will ferment more vigorously than your cider. The apple wine I started on 9/9/07 had 2 lbs of sugar added to each 7 pints of juice (the juice had a low SG) which bulked it up to 1 gall. and although I only filled the demijohn to the shoulder, once the ferment really got going it foamed right up into the neck and it was several days before the remainder of the juice (that was fermenting in a seperate bottle) could be added. If I had left all the sediment (very heavy as from a soft apple), which when dropped out was about 30% of the volume, it would almost certainly risen up and sprayed out the airlock.

2) APPLE JUICE FOR DRINKING

I'm sure anyone would agree that the murky brown sludge that is fresh pressed apple juice looks unappealing, despite tasting delicious. Some varieties will drop their sediment naturally, both others need a little help. This is some that was given that "help" only a few hours previously, and by the morning was crystal clear and ready for blending and pasteurising:



And after bottling looked like this (don't normally use clear bottles unless part of 1st time gift of apple juice to some one who has given me apples so they can see it's not the brown murk that some people produce):




3) CIDER

Whilst not essential, I still add pectalase to drop the sediment (that would not fall by itself overnight) because I have a shortage of fermenting capacity at this time of year and I don't want to store sediment, the stored juice is multipurpose (in that it can also be used for drinking and wine making), and finally it produces a cider (started 2/9/07, completely fermented out,  clear enough to read a newspaper though after 2 weeks and with only a thin compact sediment:



Maybe I should have rotated the paper, rather than the picture.

And this is that cider (made last month) after racking, and it's ready to drink already (with some of those walnut cookies):




Have pressed 25 galls of juice to date and hope to get to around 40/50 galls (+ pears).

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johnfh

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Re: Clearing murky pressed apple juice
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2009, 21:48 »
There is so much useful information here that is highly topical again that it seems a shame not to use it.  I was going to ask about ways to preserve apple juice that has been produced in a juicer but this seems to cover this and much more and will, I am sure, be of interest to many members.  It is a shame to see the number of apples that go to waste at this time of year.  However what should I add to apple juice produced by a juicer so that it keeps for more than a day or two?  Looks like pectalose - is this right and will it change the taste or spoil it in any way?
John

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poultrygeist

  • Guest
Re: Clearing murky pressed apple juice
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2009, 10:37 »
Wow. THis topic must have been buried deep  :D

As I understand it, the pectolase is a pectic enzyme that breaks down the pectin and leaves pure 'juice' without the haze. I don't think it does anything else. It would appear from the thread that you can successfully freeze it. Camden tablets will 'sterilize' the juice, killing off any bacteria or wild yeasts but I think it can also leave a slight taste.

Rob 8)



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