are kegging or bottling. Recognizing these potential hazards and having proper equipment can help ensure you are making good beer and staying safe.”
reasonable way to do that at home too if you do not want to use sulfites. The next step that’s specific to cider is how to preserve it once it’s done. If you plan to back sweeten or stop the fermentation early, you will have residual sugar that will want to referment in the bottle. Schilling has a tunnel pasteurizer where the cans filled with cider get heated and held at a certain temperature that kills all bacteria and yeast that may be present in the can creating long-term stability with no chemicals. This can also be done at home with some real attention to detail in a water bath. It is critical if your cider is carbonated that you do not overheat it or it may explode. I would recommend a water bath at 150F for 15 minutes (15 minutes once the bath is at equilibrium). Do not go hotter and ensure your bottles are high-pressure rated with the correct headspace! Please take all possible precautions as if done wrong you can have exploding glass and hot water which is a dangerous combo! There are chemical alternatives to this process that work, but to my palette degrades the taste.” Collin Schilling from Schilling Cider With the complexities of managing chem- icals, pressure vessels, boiling liquids, and electrical devices simultaneously in homebrewing, what are your top recommendations for maintaining utmost safety without compromising the brewing quality? “When it comes to safety, there are several substantial risks in brewing, and each can be addressed with appropriate steps. These are: Safety with respect to chemicals: With chemicals the main risk is getting them on your skin or in your eyes. Protective eyewear is a good idea when using acid, caustic, or oxidizing substances. All three types are common in the industry. At a minimum, some chemically resistant gloves are a good idea. Safety with respect to handling hot liquids: Brewery requires us to use liquids that are boiling hot. The main risk when using these hot liquids is to make sure pots can’t fall over. We are designed with heavy weights and large amounts of liquid and hot grains. Once again the chemically resistant gloves are good as they also prevent you from getting burns to your hands. The other thing is to make sure you are always working on a flat-level surface. Castor wheels
Reid Ackerman from Ghostfish Brewing Company
How do I prevent common mistakes that might jeopardize the safety of my brew or my well-being? “During fermentation, the yeast converts sugars into alcohol and CO2. The CO2 converts into carbonic acid, which lowers the pH of the beer. Both alcohol and low pH inhibit pathogenic microbes. Don’t skimp on your yeast! It is important to pitch a sufficient amount of high-quality and healthy yeast to ensure that the beer is stabilized rapidly by yeast metabolism. Don’t attempt to make very low-alcohol beers at home (< 3% abv) since these types of beers are more prone to allowing the growth of pathogenic bacteria (commercial breweries will stabilize these styles with pasteurization). When cleaning your equipment, opt for a no-rinse, food-safe sanitizer. Avoid chlorine- based cleaners and never mix bleach with acid-based cleaners (this will result in the formation of toxic chlorine gas). For more support with your brewing, join a local or online homebrewing community, ask questions to your local homebrew shop, or contact the brewing experts at Lallemand Brewing where we support commercial and homebrewers alike.”
Eric Abbott from Lallemand Brewing
What principles or safety standards from large-scale brewing can be adapted or scaled down to ensure quality and safety in a home brewing setting? “As a cider maker who started as a home hobbyist making 5-gallon batches – I can say that there are a lot of lessons from scaling up that apply! First of all and no surprise, it’s keeping things super clean – sanitize everything the cider touches! Specific to cider if you are pitching a specific strain of yeast vs a wild ferment is how you get your juice ready to pitch. On a small scale sulfiting and then waiting 48 hours to pitch yeast is a common way of doing it. Schilling does not add any sulfites so we flash pasteurize prior to pitch. Heating the juice to 150f for 15 minutes is a
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