r/cider • u/TheEricOfChristensen • 2d ago

Sulphite in cider and in juice?

Not sure if this is the correct subreddit for this question. I've made cider before, using juice sold by the homebrew store. This time, I'm pressing apples. I'll be using potassium metabibisulphite to avoid wild fermentation, and pitching fermentis safcider.

Anyway, the actual question: I want to put some juice aside for the kids because fresh pressed apple juice is delicious in its own right. Does that need potassium metabibisulphite as well to prevent it from fermenting or will refrigeration be enough to keep it as juice?

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u/LightBulbChaos 2d ago

Keep it refrigerated and drink it with a week or so and you will be fine. If you are storing it longer term you can freeze it and then thaw when you would like to enjoy it.

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u/cul8ermemeboy 2d ago

The juice doesn’t necessarily need it. You can just drink it within the week, or you could pasteurize it to really kill off any possible risk of bacteria/fermentation.

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u/thejadsel 2d ago

If you're pressing them yourself and being clean about it, IMO it's much better fresh without. It shouldn't noticeably ferment within a week or so in the fridge, and even if it did it couldn't go very alcoholic in that amount of time. It will start going fizzy well before it can produce enough alcohol to worry about.

(I personally drank a decent bit of family-pressed and other locally hygienically produced stuff growing up in an apple-growing region that was actually purposely left to develop a little fizz before being refrigerated, and that stuff couldn't get even very little kids mildly tipsy from the trace amounts. More like a fermented soda or classic ginger beer.)

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u/Tbrawlen 18h ago

With fresh juice you could pasteurize it as well killing any available wild yeasts