Sulfiting pasteurized juices?

[Gardenmead]

I am a newbee to wine-making but I have made hard cider before from fresh apple juice.

So, I want to make some ciders and fruit wines using store bought juice, in part to get at those 3/4 or 1 gallon glass bottles for other uses.

Is sulfiting a pasteurized juice redundant and unecessary? Can I trust their pasteurization and sanitation and assume that the yeast I pitch will have no problem dominating?

thanks for the help

 

[skunkboy]

I have never sulfited any pasteurized product juice/fruit that I have used and have not yet had any issues....

 

[akueck]

Pasteurizing should be plenty to kill the beasties. You can sulfite it too if that makes you sleep better.

 

[Gardenmead]

Thanks for the help fellows.
After posting I did some searches to find more info on the topic and found a lot of discussion about pasteurization of apple juice on the "The Northern Brewer Homebrew Forums".

There was a thread started by a fellow who got E. coli poisoning froma cider he made with unpasteurized unsulfited apple juice!
http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=28306&hilit=+pasteurization

I wonder if sulfiting would have killed off the E.coli anyways?

 

[afdoty]

I wonder if sulfiting would have killed off the E.coli anyways?[/QUOTE

The second post in that thread is by a guy who says he's a health inspector...and mead maker...he says: "Sulphites are great for killing off wild yeasts, but I don't think they do much for bacteria."

Personally, I'll stick with the pasteurized ciders.

 

[akueck]

I would imagine the sulfite would reduce the e. coli count, unless that bacterium is particularly resistant to sulfite (I have no idea).

I've consumed lots of unpasteurized apple juice myself without issues. It can take some getting used to (your gut has to adjust to the influx of bugs), so you're most likely to get sick from it if it is the first time you've tried it and/or you usually eat very processed foods. Personally I eat a fair amount of dirt & cat hair, so my stomach is fairly hardy. E. coli poisoning should be pretty uncommon if the equipment the cider mill uses is kept clean (& if they wash their apples). Every so often we get food poisoning from some of our favorite restaurants. We figure it just happens every so often, and the more we eat in one particular place, the more likely it becomes that we'll get sick. Back on the horse! I suppose this also helps the resilience of my GI tract.

In theory, fermentation will kill the bacteria too. The pH will drop and the bacteria will die. Lambics operate on this principle--all sorts of weird bacteria (including enteric bacteria) fall in, but almost none make it past the first stages of fermentation. The ones that do are things like Lacto and Pedio, which are not pathenogenic. In fact, this idea harkens back to one of the theories about the original use for fermented beverages--clean drinking water. If it survives fermentation, it won't make you sick. At least, no one has so far found human pathogens in finished beer or wine or etc.

 

[afdoty]

In fact, this idea harkens back to one of the theories about the original use for fermented beverages--clean drinking water. If it survives fermentation, it won't make you sick. At least, no one has so far found human pathogens in finished beer or wine or etc.

That reminds me of a line attributed to WC Fields. He is supposed to have said "I never drink water.... fish F#@% in it". There is something to be said about fermentation.

 

[Medsen Fey]

Sulphites are very effective for killing bacteria and sulfited apple juice (or unfermented cider) is okay.

If it has been pasteurized, you don't need to bother with sulfiting it. The pasteurization will have killed the bacteria.

If you are fermenting the cider, you don't need pasteurized juice and you don't need sulfites. The alcohol and acidity of the fermentation will kill the bacteria. E.coli will not survive in a hard cider or a cyser.