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Cider Digest #0180
Subject: Some thoughts
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 15:05:16 cdt
From: "Butts,Stephen J" <BUTTS@AC.GRIN.EDU>
Gentlemen (and ladies, although I've not seen any communications therefrom):
I realize that it's a free country and good ol' American inventiveness should
not be discouraged and that every now and then something truly wonderful may
come from just throwing very disparate stuff into a pot and waiting to see
what happens. Nevertheless, recent submissions (and earlier ones, prior to
the "scrumpie" exchange) impell me to offer a few Thoughts:
1. Cider is not beer.
2. Cider is not beer.
3. Cider is NOT beer. Cider is WINE. It's apple wine. You don't boil
grape juice to make wine, and you don't boil apple juice to make cider.
Also, you don't add beer stuff like malt: if you do, you get (if you're
lucky) a weak beer with musty apple overtones.
[Now don't y'all get me wrong: a good, malty, chewy homebrew is ter-
rific, and I've enjoyed more than my share; it's just that my carboys
a full of slowly perking cider all winter long.]
4. Which brings me to the next point: don't expect to make cider quickly.
Primary fermentation may take as long as 12-14 weeks or even longer,
and that doesn't include settling time.
5. Sugar: Can't complain here; addition of sugar is traditional. But
that doesn't mean it's required. I've found that while (of course)
additional sugar raises the alcohol content, it harshens the taste of
the cider and tends to kill the subtle apple-y nose of the product.
Your choice. For me, however, the whole point of doing cider is to
get something that says "apple" to me at the end.
Well, THAT'S off my chest. A good apple-crushing season to all.
- -- Steve Butts (BUTTS@GRIN1.BitNet)
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Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 12:27 CDT
From: arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)
Subject: Cider
To: Cider Digest
Fm: Jack Schmidling
As my entire cider experience spans only four batches, two
of which are still fermenting, I will exhaust my entire data
base in one posting.....
All apples are off my two trees. One is a red delicious and
the other is something like a McIntosh. They are mixed
equaly by weight before crushing. Gravity of blend is
around 1.040 and I get about .6 gal from 10 lbs of apples.
BATCH #1 was an experiment to determine the effects of
Pasteurizing apple juice.
I heated a gallon of fresh crushed juice to 180F and held
for 30 minutes. I then refrigerated it overnight and
compared it to a gallon that went directly into the frige
after crushing.
Both my wife and I preferred the Pasteurized juice and could
see no reason not to do it on future batches.
BATCH #2 was to determine the effect of diluting fresh juice
with water. My crusher/press is rather tedious to use and
being kinda lazy.....
Mixed 1/2 gal juice with 1/2 gal water and two cups of sugar
for gravity of 1.036. Heated to 180F and cooled. The taste
was not substantially different from the pure juice. I
then pitched with pure cultured Whitbread yeast. It
fermented lethargically for several weeks and I filled a few
plastic bottles but they never properly carbonated. We
ended up drinking it all before it fermented out but I don't
think it ever would have in any reasonable time. The
gravity was still almost 1.03 after three weeks. My guess
is that the yeast was not appropriate.
BATCH #3 was actually a Fall wine that I had been planning
since apple blossom time. We harvested mulberries and
elderberries as they ripened and froze them. The grapes
ripened about the same time as the apples and that is when
we made the wine.
The fruit, about 10 lbs total, along with 2 gallons of apple
juice, and 5 lbs sugar, was heated to 180F and allowed to
cool to about 150F. To this was added another 3 gallons of
juice that had been previously pasteurized and refrigerated
to speed up the cooling.
The flavor of this mixture was very pleasant and the
Mullberries seemed to predominate at this point. The
gravity was 1.074 and I pitched pure cultured Red Star
Champagne yeast.
The beauty of having a spigot on the fermenter is that one
can taste it on a regular basis and it just kept getting
better. I racked it after a week (1.020) and a week later
it was 1.005 and tasted like a first class Beaujolais. It
is now totally dry and I am not sure just what I will do
next. I am leaning toward finishing it as is and aging on
oak chips. The alternative is to keep adding sugar till it
dies and retains a bit of sweetness but that gets the
alcohol up above where I like it.
BATCH #4 was a five gallon version of #2 but pitched with
pure cultured Edme yeast. It fermented vigorously and is
now in secondary. I plan to keg and force carbonate it when
fermentation stops and it clears a bit.
That's my total experience with cider.
js
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