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Cider Digest #0633
Subject: Cider Digest #633, 17 December 1996
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #633 17 December 1996
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: Keeving, defecation, and sweet cider (Brian Dixon)
Hornsby's - What IS it? (Dick Dunn)
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Subject: Re: Keeving, defecation, and sweet cider
From: Brian Dixon <briand@hpcvsgen.cv.hp.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 96 22:13:48 PST
> Subject: Keeving, defecation, and sweet cider
> From: Andrew LEA <101750.3071@CompuServe.COM>
> Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 15:28:50 -0500
Andrew! Good to see you here! I owe the success of my very first
cider to you! (And to Jean-Piere!) I for one really appreciate your
openness with your information! My cider is now 6 weeks in the bottles,
carries a nice apple aroma and flavor, a bit on the sour side but my
discriminating wife says "That's really good!". It's got a nice balance
between sour, a bit of sweet, and a bit of a white wine character that
complements the apple quite well. The Red Star Cote de Blance is a nice
yeast!
> [much discussion about how to make a traditional cider snipped]
> clean tank. Add 500 ppm (5 grams per 10 litres) of calcium chloride (NOT
> chlorate, please, as someone wrote. That will poison you!). Or you can
> add about 400 ppm of common salt (sodium chloride) and 300 ppm calcium
> carbonate (precipitated chalk), which does the same thing. Cover the tank.
Can you explain some of this? In particular, I though calcium chloride
was only available through professional outlets...home brewers and cider
makers like myself don't see it available anywhere (US), but would LOVE
to (useful for beer also.) So how can 400 ppm NaCl plus 300 ppm CaCO3
do the same thing? Does the sodium combine with the carbonate and
precipitate out, leaving volatile chloride and ionized calcium? Could I
do this in beer to raise my calcium concentration (our water is damn near
naturally distilled)? Even if sodium does combine with carbonate (I'm
not a chemist), wouldn't the 400 ppm/300ppm ratio result in excess sodium?
Inquiring minds must know! Also, do you have a ppm-to-weight conversion
for us so we can calculate the number of grams to add per liter of juice
(or water or wort)?
> [much more wonderful stuff snipped]
> liquid into another clean fermentation tank. Add about 100 ppm of sulphite
> - - at pH 3.8 - 4 this will inhibit the acetic acid bacteria but still allow
> wild yeasts to go on working. Fit an airlock. Monitor the gravity weekly.
So Andrew, how can I know that I put 100 ppm of sulphite in? Assuming
that I'm using Campden tablets, how much sulphite, in ppm and grams,
is added per tablet per gallon? And another question, if the apple juice
is not in the pH 3.8-4.0 range, how do you suggest adjusting it to be
in that range, or is there a different dose that's proper for each range
of pH's that are typical? I vaguely remember something like that from
your info in your web page, but don't remember you saying anything about
how to inhibit acetobactor (is that it?) bacteria while still allowing
wild yeast to survive...
Thanks much!
Brian
PS: Hopefully you'll get wind of my questions and answer them. I'm
excited that I may have stumbled onto something useful for beer also,
and am excited about trying your techniques next year when apple
season gets here again: here in the heart of "apple land" (Oregon/Washington).
------------------------------
Subject: Hornsby's - What IS it?
From: rcd@raven.talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: 13 Dec 96 14:23:31 MST (Fri)
Scott Bauer's tasting report in the last issue reminds me of a question
I've been meaning to ask here: Does anybody know what "Hornsby's" really
is? Coming out of Modesto, CA, there's good reason to start off with a bit
of skepticism or at least a don't-make-assumptions attitude. The label is
singularly uninformative. It's labeled "Draft Cider"--of course, it's
*not* draft, but that's a widespread perversion of the word in the US. The
last time I checked, the word "apple" was conspicuously absent from any-
where on the label. The product is identified as "An Alcohol Beverage".
That is about as non-committal as the law allows. A Hornsby's ad I saw
recently proclaims that it's "Not Your Usual" but stops right there, short
of the noun that would tell me WHAT it's not my usual version of. Is it
a "cider" (in the sense we use the term here) at all...or is it some cousin
of the wine cooler?
OK, maybe I'm being too suspicious, but when advertising dodges the obvious
question of what is being advertised, the purpose is more often to be
evasive than to be subtle. Can anybody fill in some info on Hornsby's?
- ---
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Boulder County, Colorado USA
...Simpler is better.
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End of Cider Digest #633
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