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Cider Digest #0627
Subject: Cider Digest #627, 23 November 1996
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #627 23 November 1996
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: The FDA's inquiry into contaminated apple juice (Michael Vezie)
Re: E. coli (Marc Montefusco)
Re: Champagne yeast (John Reese)
Re: E. coli debate (Brian Dixon)
giving children cider ("Dana H. Myers")
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Subject: Re: The FDA's inquiry into contaminated apple juice
From: Michael Vezie <mlv@pobox.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 00:07:53 -0500
At 09:00 PM 11/21/96 MST, John Ross <johnross@halcyon.com> wrote:
>I talked today to an administrator at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
>about their response to the e. coli contamination in fresh apple juice. I
>explained to him that many of us who make our own hard cider buy fresh juice
>from cider mills or farm stands, and that we would not be able to do so if
>the cider producers were required to pasteurize all their product.
We wouldn't? Why not? I pasteurized my first batch. Best batch I ever
brewed (okay, I've only brewed two batches, and the second one isn't as
good as the first).
Now, if they start requiring preservatives, that's another story, of course.
In Christ,
michael
=============================================
= Michael Vezie, dv@best.com, mlv@pobox.com =
=============================================
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Subject: Re: E. coli
From: Marc Montefusco <mmontefusco@mmsw.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 09:15:28 -0500
Does anyone in this group have information on the effect of potassium
metabisulfite on E. coli? Also, might this treatment be an acceptable form
of "pasteurization" from the standpoint of either the CDC or the FDA?
Marc Montefusco
New World Cider
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Champagne yeast
From: John Reese <John_Reese@mail.campbell-mithun.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 09:19:21 +0300
> How cold will champagne yeast ferment down to?
My Lalvin Champagne 1118 batch is having a hard time at 62 degrees.
Fermentation is very slow, though I double-pitched (twice the normal
amount of yeast), aerated well, etc.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: E. coli debate
From: Brian Dixon <briand@hpcvsgen.cv.hp.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 96 7:55:50 PST
> Subject: RE: E. coli debate (WAS: Re: Cider Digest #624, 10 November 199
> From: Timothy Sherburne <cchaos@northwest.com>
> Date: Mon, 18 Nov 96 06:59:30 -0800
>
>
> In Cider Digest #625, Brian Dixon <briand@hpcvsgen.cv.hp.com> writes:
>
> >David Miller in "The Complete Handbook of Home Brewing" specifically states
> >that e. coli strains of bacteria are anaerobit and can live in environments
> >like brewed and fermented beer (just in case anyone wants a published
> >reference).
>
> [snip]
> [accidentally also snipped the reference for the following. It's from]
> [p. 178 in Dave Miller's book "The Complete Handbook of Home Brewing"]
> "Coliforms are highly adabptable and almost ubiquitous. They normally
> reside in the intestines of animals and humans, and often contaminate
> water supplies because of inadequate sewage treatment. They are known as
> "wort spoilers" because they attack during cooling and the lag period.
> During this time they can multiply like wildfire. Once active
> fermentation begins, the pH of the wort drops and coliforms can no longer
> function. Sources of coliform infection include unwashed hands, dirty
> equipment, contaiminated water supplies, and even airbourne dust
> particles. The four genera are Klebsiella, Citrobacter, Enterobacter, and
> Escherichia (E. coli)."
>
> I'm assuming that the same information does apply to cider, since there
> is a similar pH drop that occurs when the sugars in the solution are
> consumed by yeast.
>
I'm starting to wonder if my memory was serving me right or not, because
the quote you have stated above certainly sounds familiar to what I
was remembering, but it clearly takes an opposite stance to what I was
thinking. I'd be getting pretty picky about terms if I argued that
"no longer function" meant "dying" or "dormant". I'm sure that if Dave
meant "dormant", then he'd have said so (especially given his statement
about 'no known pathogens can survive' and all that.) I'm going to go
double check the book myself, but for now I'm going to stand humbly
corrected until someone else can show that E. coli can indeed survive
in beer. Thanks for doing what I should have, Timothy...you took a
careful look at the text to verify things a second time!
As far as cider goes, I would expect that if beer is safe, then cider
would certainly be safe since the final pH of cider is going to be
in the mid-3's to the low-4's, which even lower than beer's range of
the low- to mid-4's, and since Miller mentioned pH (not something else)
as the environmental change that prevents E. coli from being able to
function.
Brian
------------------------------
Subject: giving children cider
From: "Dana H. Myers" <myers@bigboy.West.Sun.COM>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 13:14:40 -0800 (PST)
>From Cider Digest #626, 11/21/96:
> Subject: The FDA's inquiry into contaminated apple juice
> From: John Ross <johnross@halcyon.com>
> Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 22:06:48 -0800
[...]
> Does the fact that we're talking about an "adult beverage" make any
> difference? It would appear that most if not all of the victims of the
> recent contaminations (both Odwalla apple juice and Jack-in-the-Box
> hamburgers) were very small children. And as responsible adults, none of us
> would give any of our hard cider to a three-year-old child.
Every one of my three children has, at one time or another, expressed
interest in what I'm drinking, and sometimes I'm drinking something
with alcohol when then they do this. I've always let them have a sip
or two. Usually they only want a sip or two, but sometimes I have to
give them something else to distract them. I don't think I'm being
even the slightest bit irresponsible doing this. I want my kids to
have a healthy attitude about drinking, and therefore I'm avoiding
making alcohol a tabu.
Dana K6JQ
Dana@Source.Net
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #627
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