I chaperoned a field trip with my son’s kindergarten class today…they’ll have cider for sale later this month, but the gal there said it would have “preservatives.”
I’ve never done a cider before but would ike to try. Am I better off getting something preservative free from a co-op?
Yes. The preservative doesn’t kill the yeast, but prevents it from reproducing. Last year I accidentally used one gallon of preservative juice in a 3 gallon batch of cider. I got it to ferment, but it took me 3-4 pitches of yeast to get there.
Last year I also had one gallon out of three that had preservatives. I pitched one pack of dry yeast, and nothing happened. I made a cheesy starter with another pack of dry yeast in a half-gallon of cider, then pitched that, still nothing.
The gallon I had used sodium benzoate. Even after all of the yeast I dumped in (and I remember that I poured it into the sanitized bottling bucket and back into the carboy to aerate) nothing grew.
