If potassium is listed as an ingredient on jugs of Apple Cider, is it in the form of potassium sorbate? I went looking all over town today for Cider for fermenting and everything I found had about 250mg of potassium listed on the ingredients.
Pretty sure it is referring to potassium sorbate.
Unfortunately it is all I can find. I may make a starter to try to overcome it.
Potassium is a mineral that is found naturally in apples. 1 small apple has about 150 mg of potassium. So the numbers you are seeing on the section for nutritional information sound consistent with 1 serving of apple juice. Potassium sorbate is another thing altogether. It is salt of sorbic acid and is prepared by reacting sorbic acid with potassium hydroxide. As far as I know, if a product has potassium sorbate it must be listed, but will be present on the list of ingredients, not under nutritional information. If your juice has potassium sorbate in it, getting fermentation going will be very difficult because your yeast will essentially be unable to reproduce. I would go with something organic, personally. You’ll get better flavor and no worries about chemicals.
He stated in the OP that it is listed as an ingredient, not in the nutritional information.
Sounds like it might have been from the “nutrition” part of the ingredients label.
I think it might even be illegal to put amounts in the actual ingredients list for food. And it doesn’t seem like the FDA would be keen on listing potassium sorbate as just potassium in the ingredients. Sorbic acid’s the real ingredient, the potassium is only added because salts tend to be easier to work with.
I am sorry if I mis-spoke. The potassium is listed in the nutritional information. Thanks for the info.
We had a bad apple year here and the orchards are closed. just bought 6 gallons of unpasturized cider with 1/10th of 1 % of potasium sorbate added from the grocery. do I read correctly that this is not going to work for fermenting?
Maybe try doing one gallon all by itself as a trial, but your yeast is going to have a hard time of it at the very least. Potassium sorbate’s main purpose is to kill microbes. They have to put it (or some other yeast killer) in unpasteurized cider to prevent spontaneous fermentation.
Maybe the grocery store can take it back in exchange for pasteurized cider?
against all odds the cider with potassium sorbate is rocking. Thank you bunderbunder for the advice to do a 1 gallon starter. I also doubled the normal dosage of yeast nutrient and energizer.
Congrats. Fortunately I was able to find Musselmens cider at Walmart and did not have to go the starter route.
So I have less than 1/10 of 1% potassium sorbate. Should I go for it?
hey i know i should start Another thread called sodium benz. but uhh I didnt I posted in this one.
I brought home several gallons of high priced cider treated with sodium benzoate. That I intended on fermenting with nottingham. The only explanatation I have for purchasing this cider is that I am an idiot, moving forward…
anyone every get lucky fermenting cider with sodium benz?
wiki says its bacteri-cide isnt yeast a fungi?
I read dilution may give better chances of getting fermentation in said solution.
open for ideas comments.
Plan as of now is dilute the 4 gals of cider I have with frozen apple concentrate and water to six gal. pitch two packs of nottingham, go heavy with yeast nutrient and cross fingers.
btw this is a post under the influence of good house aipa so i apoligize for spelling grammer etc :cheers:
The Musselmens cider I bought said that it contained sodium. I pitched 1056 into it last Monday and it is still bubbling away merrily. I would say go for it.
How long did it take for your cider to start? I’m at about 30hrs without any action in the fermenter yet. I’m assuming that the cider I got had too much potassium sorbate to let the yeast work. If I don’t see anything in the next 24hrs, I’m going to try and pitch some dry ale yeast. If that doesn’t work…I guess I will flush the whole batch.
Mine only took a few hours to start. Over a week later, it is still bubbling at 3 second intervals.
Another update on my experiment with potassium sorbated cider. It is now at .9996 and going into secondary. Although it did ferment it needed 75 degree temps or it would slow to a stop and seemed sluggish throughout. I will avoid this situation in the future, but am pleased I did not have to toss 6 gallons of cider.
