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Cider Digest #0604
Subject: Cider Digest #604, 29 June 1996
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #604 29 June 1996
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: Cider Digest #603, 24 June 1996 (Dave Kain)
berries in cider (Tracy Thomason)
Re: Berries in cider ("William S. Verplanck")
Re: Cider Digest #602, 21 June 1996 (William J. Rhyne)
Re: Cider Digest #603, 24 June 1996 (William J. Rhyne)
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Subject: Re: Cider Digest #603, 24 June 1996
From: dpk1@nysaes.cornell.edu (Dave Kain)
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 15:38:28 -0400
Re: Bad cider batches
Brinkmann wrote: ... the occasional bad batch of cider. I've found that
some of my earlier
batches of cider, which turned out fairly unpleasant to drink, make great
marinades and sauces for cooking. ...
I agree. Last fall I made crab apple cider to use in blending. I made
enough to acidify all the cider in the world (the point being, it was
really tart). Anyway, I make a couple of dishes in which I use cider
vinegar, and thought, why not try the crab apple cider. I'll never use
anything else again! The flavor is amazing - better than any standard
apple var. I've tried. Although it's very tart, these dishes are sweetened
with brown sugar, so it didn't matter. I don't know the variety - it is
planted in a commercial orchard as a pollenizer - someday I'll remember to
ask the grower. It appears to be a jelly variety, though.
Dave Kain
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Subject: berries in cider
From: tracyt@llano.net (Tracy Thomason)
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 96 13:23:26 GMT
> I am planning on making a berry cider this summer. I want to try
> it w/ and w/o apple juice. I'm also concidering using elderberries,
> blackberries, salmonberries and huckleberries. I don't plan on using
> them all together. What I need is some help with how to handle fruit.
> I don't have any fruit pressing material. All along I've been just getting
> my apple juice from the store and adding yeast to it. I love the
> resulting low alc% cider. So, how can I do this w/ berries?
Well, I've tried two ways. One, I found 100% black cherry juice at my
grocery store one the specialty aisle. I just took that and fermented it.
The first drink was horrid. But after that it wasn't too bad.
The other approach, I took 2 gallons of apple juice and 1.5 lbs of frozen
red raspberries, thawed the raspberries, boiled them in about 1/2 gallon
of apple juice and then put everything into the carboy and added the
yeast. Before bottling I racked the must into my bottling bucket with 3
quarts of apple juice (Tree Top brand) to prime, then bottled everything.
It didn't carbonate at all, but it made a light, sweet drink that I was really
pleased with. It came out a nice pink color like Cherry 7-Up.
Everybody in my taste-testing group of friends went nuts over it. About
5% abv. Blueberries are next.
Tracy
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Subject: Re: Berries in cider
From: "William S. Verplanck" <wverplan@utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 15:02:42 -0400
I picked up a small booklet, "Winemaker's Recipe Handbook" (copyright 1976,
Raymond Massaccesi), at the local brewshop. It's elderberry (3lb. fruit for
1 gal.) and blackberry (4 lb.) recipes use a nylon straining bag: Wash and
drain berries in bag; mash (I'd try a blender here, and put the pulp back
into the bag) and strain juice into primary; keeping all pulp in bag, tie
top and place in the primary fermenter.
For salmonberries and huckleberries, it suggests following the recipes for
raspberry and blueberry, respectively.
For the simple approach (I make cider the same way you do), you could try
jelly or jam (3 lb. for 1 gal.), any flavor.
Luck,
Rick
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Subject: Re: Cider Digest #602, 21 June 1996
From: rhyne@pop.winterlan.com (William J. Rhyne)
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 23:23:50 -0700
Hello!
Re: Freezing the neck of the bottle to remove sediment
As I understand it, this procedure is called "Disgorgement" and the fine
champagne houses do this labor intensive procedure. They use a glycol bath
(I think) where the necks of the bottles are inserted so that the liquid is
frozen in the neck only. Then the bottles are uncorked and the slug of ice
shoots out with the sediment. Then a "dosage" (brandy liquer or some other
special "sauce") is added to the bottle to return to the full level, the
bottle is re-corked, and ..voila! Champagne!!
Bill
Sonoma Cyder
P.S. Thank you for the reponse to my request for cider "guinea pigs". I
have my control group (or "out of control) for test tasting our cider.
===========================
Callie Konno
===========================
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Subject: Re: Cider Digest #603, 24 June 1996
From: rhyne@pop.winterlan.com (William J. Rhyne)
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 23:37:32 -0700
RE: Overcarbonation
Our first batch of cider was produced by my wife and my brother's fiancee.
They did it all by intuition and taste, without reading any books or
talking to anyone. One is an excellent gourmet cook and the other is a
French winemaker so they have some experience in the wine field. The cider
ended up tasting pretty good but it looked like dirty water. And their
calculations for carbonations were off. When we opened a bottle, two-thirds
of the cider shot out of the bottle. We even had fun with it at a party by
setting up rows of bottles and taking turns opening the bottles to see how
high the cider shot up. I think that it got as high as 6 or 7 feet from the
ground. If we wanted to drink the cider, we would freeze the bottle so most
of the cider was in a solid state so it could not escape. Using that
method, we only lost one third of the bottle.
Since that time we have done our homework and we are further up the
learning curve now but it was fun playing with our mistakes.
Ditto on cooking with cider, my wife has been using it cook chicken and
pork dishes.
Aloha, Bill Rhyne
===========================
Callie Konno
===========================
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End of Cider Digest #604
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