Cider Digest #0428

Published in

· 8 months ago

Subject: Cider Digest #428 Wed Mar 30 19:00:04 EDT 1994 
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 94 19:00:04 -0400 
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Cider Digest #428          Wed Mar 30 19:00:04 EDT 1994 
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues 
Jay Hersh, Digest Coordinator 

Contents: 
  Sparkling Cider (Stephen J Butts) 

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Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 09:12:23 -0500 (cdt) 
From: Stephen J Butts <BUTTS@AC.GRIN.EDU> 
Subject: Sparkling Cider 

In the two years or so I've been watching the Digest there have been a number  
of discussions about how best to achieve a sparkling cider, with far more  
failures than successes reported.  It's important to remember that cider is  
NOT beer, cider is, essentially, wine, and it responds better to wine tech-  
niques than to those common to beer-making. 

First of all, cider is slow, much more so than beer, with long, gentle  
fermentations.  Everything takes more time, and time is well-rewarded. I sus-  
pect that in many cases a primed bottle of cider may take 6 months to a year 
to become carbonated.  I don't believe it's alcohol-attentuation that is the 
problem, especially with wine or champagne yeasts (after all, wines ferment 
out to 12-14% or more). 

For quicker results, however, I have had some success with the following: 
bottle the cider sometime before the fermentation really tails off, and keep 
it relatively cold.  As you might imagine, this is tricky, and thick bottles 
are required.  But the cold make the carbonation slow and more CO2 is  
disolved, and this reduces the pressure.  A major drawback is the sediment  
produced -- cider clears very slowly and early bottling captures much of the 
crud, which boils up when the bottle is opened.  Champagne-makers solve this  
by fermenting with the neck of the bottle down, freezing the sediment, popp-  
ing it out and re-corking, a bit past the ability of most of us home brewers. 
But if you time things right, chill thoroughly and open the bottle very care-  
fully, you can keep cloudiness to a minimum. 

- -- Steve Butts 
   BUTTS@AC.GRIN.EDU 

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