I found this apple juice in my refrigerator last night, behind a big gallon jug of water. I vaguely remember buying this, oh, a few months ago at the Farmer's Market. It's, obviously, fresh and unpasteurized. It's also straining the limits of the plastic jug.
So, my question is whether this is spoiled or usable in a new form. Has it possibly become hard cider? Apple cider vinegar? Or a poisonous brew that will kill me if I even take a whiff?
Help! Please advise before it explodes all over my refrigerator.
UPDATE: Based on the first few comments, I opened the jug outside and sniffed it. Smelled okay. It was carbonated so I thought maybe it'd be a tasty hard cider. After sipping a bit, my conclusion is that it doesn't taste very good. It's not sweet at all but not acidic like vinegar either. There's a component to the flavor that I can't nail down or describe. All I can say is that it lays on the very back of the tongue heavily.
Based on Sara's comment, I'm going to err on the side of caution and give my compost bin a nice drink. Sorry for the food waste, Crunchy Chicken!
PS: See the next post about how to delete that annoying spam comment on your blog.
10 comments:
I would at least take it outside and take the lid off, thereby averting the disaster of potential explosion. I don't know if it'll be something usable; likely it has fermented, but I don't know enough about fermentation to know the stages apple juice would go through.
It has probably fermented into something - first stop is hard cider, second is vinegar. I don't think it can be anything that would cause instant death, so I'd smell and taste it.
Of course, if it does cause instant death, you'll be mad at me ;-).
Sharon
It becomes alcohol, then vinegar. Either can be tasty. Taste it. If it tastes good, drink it. I wouldn't worry about it at all.
I have no idea what to do with it but we do have that happen some time with the unpastuerized apple juice I buy my kids from the farmers' market. If they don't drink it quick enough or I don't freeze the remainder, it starts to taste like soda - but not in a good way. Is it just hard cider then? No clue but I look forward to what your readers think.
It has certainly fermented. The bulge is likely the built up gas. From what I can find in my very brief google search is that it is likely a hard cider- when it is exposed to air it will slowly turn into vinegar within a couple of weeks.
But since its unpasteurized... It might also have bacteria in it... So in the end you may just need to get rid of it.
Here's one link I found:
http://www.foodsafetysite.com/educators/faq/index.html?m_knowledgebase_article=630
The bacteria part is what worries me. Off to read the food safety link!
Okay, I'm going to open it up outside, smell it, and, depending on the smell, maybe taste it. If I don't report back, you know it killed me. Please take it out on Sharon. ;-)
According to my friend who works for his parents' orchard, swelling bottles of apple juice/apple cider like that must be immediately discarded because the swelling can definitely be a sign of bacteria growth.
Oh great, Sara, I just drank about 3 tablespoons of it. Am I gonna die?!
The taste was not great. It definitely had carbonation, but it was not sweet at all like apple juice should be. I tried a taste of the apple cider vinegar I have on hand and it didn't taste like that either.
If it was pasteurized, it wouldn't make a good hard cider. We used to make our own cider for years, pressing the less than perfect apples. However, when the big E. coli scare came through we started pasteurizing it, and our hard cider enthusiasts were upset because they couldn't ferment it correctly anymore.
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