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Cider Digest #0626
Subject: Cider Digest #626, 21 November 1996
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #626 21 November 1996
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: Champage yeast (Brian Dixon)
RE: E. coli debate (WAS: Re: Cider Digest #624, 10 November 199 (Timothy Sherb
urne)
The FDA's inquiry into contaminated apple juice (John Ross)
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Subject: Re: Champage yeast
From: Brian Dixon <briand@hpcvsgen.cv.hp.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 96 14:59:02 PST
> How cold will champagne yeast ferment down to? 60F? 40F? How about white
> wine yeast?
> Thanks,
> - -Duff
My Redstar Cote de Blanc white wine yeast, with which I am very happy,
fermented down to 55 F with absolutely no problems. Not exactly a
comprehensive answer I know, but it's something. I didn't worry about it
since I had been advised that about 59F was optimum for making cider.
How about those Canadians up there in the Great White North..what have
you guys experience?
Brian
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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).
Do you have a page number on this? I didn't remember anything like this
in Miller's book (The Complete Handbook of Home Brewing), so I checked it
out. In fact, what I found was the exact opposite of your claims. Page
178, (second full paragraph) makes the following statement:
"There is good news and bad news about infections. The bad news is that
all cases are terminal. You cannot give a carboy of infected beer a shot
of penicillin and expect it to recover. Once the bacterica have worked
their evil changes, all you can do is through out the results and try
again. The good news is that human pathogens cannot survive in beer:
conditions are too different from those which prevail in the human body.
Thus, an infected brew, no matter how revolting it tastes, cannot make
you sick."
Miller continues on the same page to state that E. coli will not survive
after fermentation begins (third paragraph on page 178):
"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.
| Timothy Sherburne | Creative Chaos |
| Software Developer | cchaos@northwest.com |
| Macintosh & Java | |
------------------------------
Subject: The FDA's inquiry into contaminated apple juice
From: John Ross <johnross@halcyon.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 22:06:48 -0800
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.
Here's what I learned:
First, nothing is going to happen immediately. Before any regulation goes
onto the books, the FDA will encourage all interested parties to comment.
The first step in this process will be a meeting in Washington, D.C. next
month. Depending on the outcome, it may be followed by a series of public
comment periods. They're not going to spring anything on us without allowing
(and encouraging) everybody who has any concerns to participate in the process.
Second, while the Centers for Disease Control would like to remove all
unpasteurized cider from the market right away, the FDA wants to explore all
possible options before doing anything--this might include radiation,
"pulsed light" and other techniques to destroy the bacteria, rather than (or
as an alternative to) heat treatment. I don't have the technical expertise
to know which of these processes would or would not make fermentation
impossible or impractical. It's my sense that the FDA would even consider a
well thought-out proposal to allow continued sale of fresh juice.
Third, the FDA's regulatory jurisdiction extends only to interstate
activities--as I understand it (and I'm not an exert in this stuff), even if
they restrict interstate sales, they cannot control sale within the same
state where the juice is pressed. Of course, it's very likely that many (if
not most) states would follow a federal regulation with rules of their own,
but it's not an automatic thing.
And finally, it's still not clear exactly where the contamination was
introduced into the Odwalla juice. But it's pretty clear that groundfall
apples are a prime suspect.
As hobby cider makers, I think we need to keep on top of this. My contact at
the FDA was sympathetic to our concerns, and has promised to keep me advised
of meetings, requests for comments and so forth. I will share any
information I receive with this list. If we can come to a consensus, I think
it would be useful to submit comments as a group when the time comes.
Is anybody reading this close to Washington DC and in a position to
participate in the FDA's December meeting?
And is anyone able to provide definitive answers to a couple of critical
questions that have been floating around this list:
Does fermentation kill e. coli bacteria? How much alcohol is needed to do so?
Would the tannic acid that is the characteristic of good cider apples kill
off the bacteria?
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.
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End of Cider Digest #626
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