Cider question

Got a gallon of cider from WalMart Pasturized and has
potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate in it…

Can I still use it to make a hard cider? Please say Yes…HA HA HA.

[quote=“pugman”]Got a gallon of cider from WalMart Pasturized and has
potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate in it…

Can I still use it to make a hard cider? Please say Yes…HA HA HA.[/quote]

If those are preservitives you may have a problem: best place to get cider to ferment is a farmer’s market.

No way, that is not going to work. Those preservatives will not let the yeast grow. I ruined a batch of cider when I didn’t read the label and found out later it had sodium benzoate in it. I tried everything, two packs of US-05, then a half gallon of starter of S-04. Nothing would grow in it.

Your post is a month or so old by now… hopefully you didn’t find out the hard way?

As others said already, you likely won’t have luck with that. I have had luck with store juice, though. Just look for juice that has been pasteurized without preservatives. My favorite so far is Tree Top 3 Apple Blend.

Organic cider probably wouldn’t have preservatives in it.

I do not agree with some of the above statements, I am brewing a 5 gallons of hard cider as we speak. 4 gal of it had potassium sorbet. All sorbet does is prevent yeast from reproducing it does not kill them. If you think about normal beer its usually bubbling right along after a day or so b/c the yeast has reproduced to a very high number. What you need to do is make a starter for your yeast, I bought a gallon of the organic stuff and started my yeast off in that. after a day I poured that and 4 gallons of the cheap preservative stuff into my carboy. The other thing about sorbet is that it evaporates off when left open to atmosphere, however if you start boiling it off with your co2 from the yeast inside the carboy it does the same thing. soon there is no more potassium sorbet and now your yeast can reproduce. Worked like a champ for me. it took my yeast about 4-6 days to really get up to speed though.