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Cider Digest #0724
Subject: Cider Digest #724, 9 February 1998
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #724 9 February 1998
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Keeving, defecation, and sweet cider (Michael L. Hall)
Keeving (Andrew Lea)
Re: Cider Digest #723, 6 February 1998 (William J. Rhyne)
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Subject: Keeving, defecation, and sweet cider
From: hall@galt.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall)
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:19:53 -0700
Dean Goulding asks:
> Might you be familiar with the term 'keeving' in regards to cider
> making?
I saved the following useful article from Andrew Lea from the cider
digest about a year ago.
Mike
Subject: Keeving, defecation, and sweet cider
From: Andrew LEA <101750.3071@CompuServe.COM>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 15:28:50 -0500
In response to the last two weeks discussion, the only way I know of to
produce a sweet naturally conditioned cider is by 'keeving' (English) or
'defecation' (French), or some variant thereof, such as repeated racking
until the nutrients can no longer support yeast growth, or by going to such
a high alcohol that the yeast can't cope (but that latter isn't cider,
which in my book can never have an alcohol greater than 8%!). I've been
doing keeved cider on the 50 litre scale for the last three years, and it's
very timely to discuss it now since I've had a batch going now for just one
week and I'm waiting anxiously to see if it will keeve properly or not.
It's very traditional in both England and France. Here's how I do it.
First of all you need to start with apples low in nitrogen, to secure a
very slow fermentation. So try to choose those from mature trees which
aren't over-fertilised. Second you need a fairly high pH juice (ca 3.8 -
4) so low-acid apples are what you need. I use proper English/French
bittersweet cider varieties, but I appreciate these are almost unobtainable
for people in North America. Third you need lots of pectin, so you must
mill the fruit and let the pulp stand in the cold for at least 24 hours
before you press it. This allows soluble pectin to leach slowly out of the
cell walls. Now press the pulp and collect the juice in an absolutely
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.
The keeving now takes about a week to 10 days. Keep the temperature about
5 - 10 C (it is, here in England, now). What happens is that the natural
pectin methylesterase in the apples slowly demethylates all that lovely
pectin, forming polygalacturonic acid. That complexes with the added
calcium to form a calcium pectate gel. The chloride helps to suppress the
natural activity of the yeast. However, as the yeast slowly begins to
ferment, gas bubbles get incorporated into the gel and it rises to the
surface as the 'chapeau brun'. The heavier pectate material falls to the
bottom. If you're lucky, you're then left with a brilliant clear liquid in
between a top cap and a bottom sludge. Now you filter off the clear
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.
You will now get a very slow fermentation which is carried out only by wild
yeast (Kloeckera apiculata then succeeded by wild Saccharomyces). Much of
the nitrogen (asparagine) is taken away in the 'chapeau brun', so the
gravity should only drop slowly. Last year I had a starting gravity of
1.065 on the 22nd November. It dropped steadily to 1.030 by 7th March.
OK, you brewers, this is unbelievably slow, but it's the way you have to do
it! At 1.030 you do the first racking. Re-fit the airlock and monitor
some more - if dropping at more than two degrees a week you'll have to rack
again. Mine stabilised at about 1.025 and I then bottled it (crown caps)
in the first week of April.
Once in bottle it continues to ferment very slowly until the CO2 builds up
and then it stops. The initial flavour is heavily dominated by ethyl
acetate and can be undrinkable. But by about June the ethyl acetate is
hydrolysed / resorbed and the cider is beginning to mature. Of course it
will contain a natural yeast deposit but if you put the bottles in the
fridge for a couple of days before drinking that will settle it and it
won't be too 'popgun' when you open it.
I realise that most of you out there will think this is impossibly tedious
but it's traditional, it works and it can produce superb results. Many
commercial French ciders are now factory made like this, except that they
add a unique pectin methylesterase made especially for them, they
centrifuge the ciders if they're fermenting too fast, and it's all done in
huge refrigerated tanks at 4 C.
If you want to know more see my web page articles at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/andrew_lea
Have fun and let me know if any of you succeed. If the French and the
Brits can do it, I'm sure you can!!
Andrew Lea, Oxford, UK.
------------------------------
Subject: Keeving
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 06:20:28 -0500
Dean Goulding enquired for more information about keeving. Don't want to
blow my own trumpet too much here, but there's a detailed account on my web
pages (The science of cidermaking Part 4) under the sub-heading 'French
and English tradition' .
Alternatively try the Proulx and Nichols book. In my copy (first edition)
page 60 onwards contains an account which they lifted almost verbatim from
the French pamphlet "Comment faire du bon cidre" published by INRA sometime
in the 60's.
I try keeving every year now using added calcium chloride. Sometimes it's
more successful than others. This year it wouldn't form a proper 'chapeau
brun' -and the clot dropped to the bottom so I couldn't rack it until
fermentation was under way. I'd got plenty of pectin but I think my fruit
lacked the correct pectinesterase enzyme - next year I shall try to get the
commercial stuff from France (this is a very special enzyme NOT the usual
pectolytic preparation).
Andrew Lea
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/andrew_lea
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #723, 6 February 1998
From: rhyne@pop.winterlan.com (William J. Rhyne)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 13:12:35 -0800
RE: Keeving
Regarding a reader's question about keeving or "defecation", it is a
practice of letting fresh pressed juice settle for a period of a day or
longer, depending on the temperature. If it is cooler(40 degrees F~), it
should happen sooner and before the yeasts start to ferment. If it is
warmer(65 degrees F~), the juice may start to ferment before keeving.
Essentially, the solid parts drop to the bottom and other stuff floats to
the top to form the cap (brun chapeau). Then the juice is racked off to
another container and fermentation is begun.
RE: Rhyne Cyder
Here is an update on our little cider operation.
We are bottling a new blend of Arkansas Black with some Granny Smiths and a
little Golden Delicious mixed in. It is tasting good.
I am attempting to set-up our website in the next 2 weeks and it will be at
http://www.rhynecyder.com. Also, we were part of a filming for a story on
cider for a PBS program called "California Heartland". It will be airing
this month in California, Nebraska, Oregon, and Reno, Nevada. I have some
times here for those people in the California area.
Fresno San Jose Sacramento
KVPT Channel 18 KTEH Ch. 54 KVIE Ch. 6
1:30pm, Sun,2/22/98 Noon, Sat.2/21/98 6:30pm, Sun.2/22/98
7pm, Mon, 2/23/98 10pm,Mon,2/23/98
6pm, Tues, 2/24/98
Eureka Redding Huntington Beach
KEET, Ch. 13 KIXE, Ch. 9 KOCE, Ch. 50
7:30pm, Tues, 2/24/98 4:30pm, Sun, 2/22/98 5:30pm,Fri,2/20/98
12:30pm,Mon,2/23/98 6:30pm,Sat,2/21/98
San Bernadino Reno, Nevada San Mateo
KVCR, Ch. 24 KNPB Ch. 5 KCSM Ch. 60
7pm Tues, 2/24/98 5pm Sat, 2/21/98 7pm, Mon, 2/23/98
Los Angeles Rohnert Park San Diego
KCET Ch. 28 KRCB Ch. 22 Cox Cable Ch. 14
10am Sat, 2/21/98 7pm Sat, 2/21/98 7:30pm, Mon, 2/23/98
Cablevision Ch. 3
6:30pm, Sunday, 2/22/98
San Francisco
KQED Ch. 9
3pm, Sat, 2/21/98
This program is also broadcast on the Nebraska State Network: KYNE Omaha,
KTNE Alliance, KMNE Bassett, KHNE Hastings, KLNE lexington, KRNE Merriman,
KXNE Norfolk, KPNE North Platte.
The show is produced by KVIE Sacramento, (916)929-5843. Christine Tanaka
produced this episode.
Enjoy,
Bill Rhyne
Rhyne Cyder Company
===========================
William J. Rhyne
===========================
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End of Cider Digest #724
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