Cider Digest #0372

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in 

Cider Digest

 · 7 months ago

Subject: Cider Digest #372 Mon Nov 15 18:00:02 EST 1993 
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 18:00:04 -0500 
From: cider-request@x.org (Are you SURE you want to send it HERE?) 

Cider Digest #372          Mon Nov 15 18:00:02 EST 1993 
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues 
Jay Hersh, Digest Coordinator 

Contents: 
  Recipes, etc. (Peter R. Hoover) 
  cider press catalog (CompuCom) <v-ccsl@microsoft.com> 

Send articles for submission to cider@x.org 
Send subscribe, unsubscribe and address change requests to cider-request@x.org 
 Raw digest archives available for ftp only on export.x.org 
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 08:37:35 -0500 
From: prh4@cornell.edu (Peter R. Hoover) 
Subject: Recipes, etc. 

Having been a lurker on this list for about a week now, and having slogged 
through a modicum of old digests, I am struck by the low volume of most 
cider recipes. In this area, it used to be the custom to cellar one or more 
barrels (50 gallons each) every fall, for standard drinking purposes 
through the year, the local water not being trusted (or relished).  So when 
I started making hard cider some fifteen years ago, this was my aim.  One 
cold winter evening when my wife went down to the dirt-floored cellar for 
another pitcher of cider, and accidentally left the tap on the barrel open 
just a bit, I changed my aim a bit.  I still smell vinegar down there.  
But, in any case, here's the recipe I used for my cider this year. 

Take: 

One Toyota pickup truck load (approx. 8 bushels) little hard pears, full of 
tannin, but very sweet; 

3 bushels Northern Spy apples (drops) from a local orchard; 

2 bushels wild apples and pears from local abandoned orchards; 

3 gallons fresh Stanley prunes (depitted, mashed, depectenized with Clarex); 

1 quart unsweetened Montgomery sour cherry juice that had been sitting in 
the refrigerator for months waiting for me to decide how to use it; 

The kernels from the pits from those 3 gallons of prunes. 

Take the apples and pears, and the pot of prune juice down to the local 
cider mill, with a 60 gallon barrel.  Convince them to run the whole mess 
through their mill (at the end of the day, just before they clean the 
pomace grinder, which gets pretty gummed up by the pears, they claim).  
Press out about 64 gallons of juice, putting the excess into whatever 
containers can be scrounged.  Drag the whole mess home.  Put about ten 
gallons of fresh juice in the freezer.  Set some aside for immediate 
consumption.  Begin to work on the hardening process.   

I siphon about 50 gallons of juice into a 60 gallon plastic barrel that has 
the top cut off so I can get insidce to clean it.  With a hydrometer it 
tests out to about 8% potential alcohol, so I don't add any sugar.  I take 
out about a gallon, pitch that with an old packet of Montrachet yeast, wait 
a day, and throw that into the barrel.  Nothing much happens for a couple 
of days, so I extract another gallon and pitch it with some fresh Epernet 
yeast, let that work about a day and pitch it back into the barrel. 
Heavy-duty ferment begins in about a day, and continues about ten days.  
During this time, the barrel sits in my kitchen, covered with a towel to 
keep the air out, and that covered with a screen to keep inquisitive cats 
out (more on that at another time). When the ferment has mostly settled, I 
scoop the partially fermented juice (now about 1.5% potential alcohol 
generation remains), into six 6.5 gallon insulated carboys, and set 
fermentation locks.  Fermentation continues in these for about a week, 
still in the kitchen, and then I rack off into clean carboys, which I leave 
for another two weeks.  During this time I begin sampling a fairly strong, 
tart, and astringent cider, which gets strangely smoother after the first 
glass, and has a self-limiting quality (you can't get out of your chair to 
get a fourth glass).  My aim is to set outside in a barrel whatever remains 
when it gets really cold, and do the apple jack trick with the auger.  
Anybody out there who has tried this or other variants for further 
concentrating the essence? Also, anybody who has worked with similarly 
large quanities of cider, with stories appertaining thereto to tell? 
                                                                                
                                 Peter R. Hoover                            
        
                          Cornell Publications Services                         
                                 East Hill Plaza                                
                                 Ithaca, NY 14850                               
                                   607 255-9454                                  
                                 (prh4@cornell.edu)                             
                                                                             
    

 
------------------------------ 

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 93 12:30:30 PST 
From: Scott Lord (CompuCom) <v-ccsl@microsoft.com> 
Subject: cider press catalog 

Looking for address for company's that sell cyder presses. 
thank you 
v-ccsl@microsoft 

------------------------------ 

End of Cider Digest 
************************