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Cider Digest #0578
Subject: Cider Digest #578, 7 February 1996
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #578 7 February 1996
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
mail order hard cider? (Erich List)
milky white cider/gelatin (P. Edwards)
Re: milky white cider (Michael S Ferdinando)
Re: milky white cider (Dick Dunn) ("Michael H. Warfield")
Gelatin (re: milky white cider) (Steven Rezsutek)
cider yeasts (Tracy Thomason)
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Subject: mail order hard cider?
From: Erich List <elist@deltanet.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 16:47:19 -0800
A friend brought back a hard cider from Vermont a few months ago. I think
it was called woodchuck cider?? Are there any mail order places that sell
hard cider? I live on the west coast and there is only 1 brand I can buy
out here. I have not tried making my own yet, but if someone can point me
to a beginners receipe, I might try!
Thanks,
Erich
elist@deltanet.com
------------------------------
Subject: milky white cider/gelatin
From: pedwards@iquest.net (P. Edwards)
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 07:21:18 -0500
A couple of people have asked about adding gelatin to cider, only to have
the cider turn milky white and stay that way.
That happened to me last year, so I looked in some of my old winemaking
books, and found that the same thing would happen in white wine, because it
has insufficient tannin, so I added a couple of teaspoons, and Bingo, the
cider cleared in a few days,
Also, these excerpts are from the Presque Isle Winemaking supply catalog:
"Natural Grape Tannin:
This form of tannin is derived from grape rather than animal sources. The
addition of about one gram (1/2 teaspoon) per five gallons of wine will
help in clarification of most fruit, vegtable and honey wines. Before
fining a white wine with gelatin, you should add an equivalent weight of
tannin. Not needed with red wines which contain plenty of natural
tannins."
Also:
"Gelatin, powder:
....Because it removes tannins, it softens a red wine which is too
astringent.... When used with white wines you should first add an
equivalent weight of grape tannin to prevent a haze from excess gelatin..."
BTW, the Presque Isle catalog has loads of great stuff cider-makers might
find usefull. Call them at (814) 725-1314 for info. BTW, I have no
affiliation w/ them,other than planning on buying some things from them
soon.
Now, back to cider. I suppose if you made sure that you had enough
astringent apples in your cider blend, the haze from gelatin may not be so
much of a problem, but I doubt that most grocery store or farm market sweet
cider has much in the way of astringent apples in it.
Anymore, tho, I just let my ciders clear naturally. The latest cold snap
here caused the temp in my little basement closet to get into the mid-40's,
and the 20 gallons of cider in there (5 gal wild, 10 gal w/ champagne
yeast, and 5 gallons raspberry cider) to clear dramatically. Some beer
yeasts hang in suspension until the beer is chilled, too. Gelatin seems
to work in beer, but beer has some tannins from from the barley in it.
Has anyone had any experience with Sparkalloid as a fining agent for cider?
I would assume that Isinglass would cause the same problems as gelatin.
Anyway, I hope y'all find this info helpful...
- --Paul Edwards (pedwards@iquest.net)
------------------------------
Subject: Re: milky white cider
From: msf2@cornell.edu (Michael S Ferdinando)
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 08:25:32 -0500
In #577, rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn) wrote...
>In #576, chuckmw@mcs.com (Charles Wettergreen) wrote...
>...
>> It fermented out nicely over the next 3-4 months. I racked once, and after
>> about 6 months it cleared. But I had to fiddle with it...
>>
>> So, I added some gelatin to try and clear it a little better.
>
>Funny, I tried the same thing on one batch I've got going here.
>
- -[snip]-
I usually don't bother with any type of finings in my beer. With my cider,
clarity problems tend to be the result of pectin haze. I usually boil my
cider before I add a commercial yeast culture (which sets the pectin), so I
_have_ to add pectic enzyme. Am acquaintence who uses Campden tablets for
cider also adds a little pectic enzyme for clarity.
I use a liquid pectic enzyme that I bought from my local homebrew supply
store. I bought a 1/2 fl. oz bottle, and it has lasted me for four
five-gallon batches of cider, plus two fruit meads and one fruit ale. I
think it cost me about $3.
- -[snip]-
>In my case, I decided that what I had done was to violate a cardinal rule:
>"If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Looks like the idea of gelatin fining
>may be a homebrewing or mead-making thing that doesn't carry over to cider,
>but I'm curious about the difference between Chuck's experience and mine
>with respect to eventual clearing.
- -[snip]-
I tend to agree with your "cardinal rule." I don't bother with finings of
any sort in my beer because I think a slight lack of clarity adds to the
"homebrewishness" (for lack of a better word) of my beer. It certainly
doesn't affect the flavor, nose, or mouth feel of the brew, which are to me
the most important qualities.
Gelatin, egg whites, Irish moss, polyclar, and Isenglass (all finings used
to aid in clarity for beers and wines) all work in pretty much the same
way: the soluable protiens in the finings are oppositely charged to the
opaque soluable proteins in the must/wort. The finings attract the other
soluable proteins, then settle out once they have combined (or something
like that-- last month's _Zymurgy_ had a comparison of finings). I know
that regular finings won't affect pectin haze, which does not carry a
charge.
Anyway, good luck!
Michael S Ferdinando
Production Control Assistant--Cornellcard
Cornell University Office of the Bursar, 260 Day Hall, Ithaca NY 14853
607-255-5980 // msf2@cornell.edu // fax: 607-255-6442
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
--Bill Gates, 1981
------------------------------
Subject: Re: milky white cider (Dick Dunn)
From: "Michael H. Warfield" <mhw@wittsend.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 09:25:36 -0500 (EST)
Hello,
> Subject: re: milky white cider
> From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
> Date: 25 Jan 96 14:14:54 MST (Thu)
>
> In #576, chuckmw@mcs.com (Charles Wettergreen) wrote...
> ...
> > It fermented out nicely over the next 3-4 months. I racked once, and after
> > about 6 months it cleared. But I had to fiddle with it...
> >
> > So, I added some gelatin to try and clear it a little better.
>
> Funny, I tried the same thing on one batch I've got going here.
>
> > As I poured in the gelatin, the whole mixture (cider + gelatin) turned a
> > pure milky white. It is now opaque.
>
> That also happened to mine right away. But...
>
> > It has been a month now. It doesn't clear, it doesn't settle.
>
> In mine, the whatever-it-is coagulated over a few hours and mostly settled
> out within a day or so. I can't say that the result, after it settled, is
> brilliantly clear, but it's somewhat clearer than it was before I screwed
> around with it.
>
> It sure looks like the amount of gruk I got out is way more than can be
> explained by the original slight lack of clarity...it's got to be mostly
> structure from the gelatin.
>
> > What have I done?
>
> In my case, I decided that what I had done was to violate a cardinal rule:
> "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Looks like the idea of gelatin fining
> may be a homebrewing or mead-making thing that doesn't carry over to cider,
> but I'm curious about the difference between Chuck's experience and mine
> with respect to eventual clearing.
Sorry for quoting so much of the original but there are longish
delays in this digest at times.
I've been doing hard cider for a number of years and never needed
recourse to fining even when using cloudy "fresh" cider. It generally
clears in and of itself. I do use sparkaloid powder as a fining agent
for my wines and there-in may be a clue as to what has gone wrong here.
When you say you used gelatin, do you mean just plain unflavored gelatin
with nothing else? This could be BAD NEWS in cider.
Sparkaloid powder is basicly gelatin with tannin added in. It's
my understanding that tannins are required to help facilitate the
coagulation process and are bound up in the resulting "gunk" at the bottom.
Most books on wine, when they mention gelatin, also mention that gelatin
will "strip" tannins from the wine. If you have a harsh tannic wine to
begin with - this can be good. This can reduce the tannic harshness and
leave a smoother wine. If the wine is already well balanced or weak in
tannins, this can leave the wine weak or insipid. To use gelatin, which
has no tannins, you generally need to add an appropriate amount of tannin
to "feed" the gelatin or it can affect the flavor of the wine.
Now - what does this have to do with cider? Simple. One of the
major problems with cider (result of American "Desert" apples) is that
ciders are generally very weak in tannins. I generally add three grams
(~ 1/8 teaspoon) of grape tannin to every five gallons of must just to add
body and robustness to my ciders. Three grams may not seem like much but the
difference is like night and day! The ciders just come out WAY TOO WEAK
tasting and lifeless if I don't add some tannin. Now, if the cider is already
very weak in tannins and tannins are required for gelatin to coagulate and
settle out... Think we might have a clue here???
You may have had a batch of cider which is simply way WAY
too low on tannin to begin with and there is nothing there for the
gelatin to bind to. The other individual may have had a batch with a
little more tannin in it.
MORAL: Do not add plain gelatin to cider without also adding
tannin. You may get away with it or you may not. You may be pleased
with the results or you may be very disappointed. Because you generally
cannot measure the tannin level to begin with, you will NOT be able to
predict what will happen in advance. Better yet, I swear by sparkaloid
powder. It has the correct balance of gelatin and tannin to minimize
the demand on the cider/wine/mead without affecting the flavor. Better
better yet, try adding a little (VERY LITTLE - EASY TO ADD TOO MUCH)
grape tannin. You may be pleasantly surprised at the effect on the taste!
> - ---
> Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com -or- raven!rcd Boulder, Colorado USA
> ...Simpler is better.
Mike
- --
Michael H. Warfield | (770) 985-6132 | mhw@WittsEnd.com
(The Mad Wizard) | (770) 925-8248 | http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
NIC whois: MHW9 | An optimist believes we live in the best of all
PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471 | possible worlds. A pessimist is sure of it!
------------------------------
Subject: Gelatin (re: milky white cider)
From: Steven Rezsutek <steve@synapse.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 10:44:42 -0500
Dick Dunn writes:
> Looks like the idea of gelatin fining
> may be a homebrewing or mead-making thing that doesn't carry over to cider,
> but I'm curious about the difference between Chuck's experience and mine
> with respect to eventual clearing.
My guess is that the difference in results was due to a different level
of tannin in your ciders.
Gelatin fining doesn't work "by itself" -- it needs another agent to
bind with. This is usually tannin, but the Wine Lab recommend Kiesolsol
[I have no knowledge of, or experience with, it myself]. Note that in
the case of a red wine, there is usually sufficient tannin already
present, and none need be added, whereas with a white, and presumably
cider, additional tannin would have to be added to get effective fining.
Before fining a batch of wine, trials are usually done to determine the
required amount of fining agent, since you don't want to wind up with
not enough, or worse yet, overfining your wine, which can lead to other
problems. This course of action would seem to be even more relevant to
ciders, IMHO.
Just for grins, I looked up recommended "doses" last night in several
references. I've only used a gelatin fining once (white wine), so I
won't recommend any specific course of action, other than to run trials
first, and to use the minimum amount necessary. Too much could strip
tannin and flavor from your cider. I would suspect that the dose would
be on the low side with cider, as it has some natural tannin already.
[I took the liberty of converting everthing to consistant units (grams
per hectoliter) to make it easier to compare.]
1) 1.5 - 3 g/hL gelatin
+ 13 - 26 cc/ hL Kiesolsol soln. (30%?)
source: Wine Lab catalog
2) 5 - 6 g/hL gelatin
+ 10 g/hL tannin
source: Peynaud "Knowing and Making Wine"
3) 2.25 - 9 g/hL gelatin
no amount of tanning given
source: notes from a commercial winemaking class I took.
4) 13.2 g/hL gelatin
13.2 g/hL tannin
source: Jackish "Modern Winemaking"
Good luck,
Steve
------------------------------
Subject: cider yeasts
From: Tracy Thomason <102472.1404@compuserve.com>
Date: 07 Feb 96 10:45:43 EST
Can anyone suggest some good yeasts to use for ciders? I can't find a true
cider yeast (maybe I'm looking in the wrong places), so I've been using Lavlin
1118 champagne yeast and Whitbread ale yeast.
Thanks,
Tracy Thomason
102472.1404@compuserve.com
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #578
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