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Cider Digest #0696
Subject: Cider Digest #696, 22 October 1997
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #696 22 October 1997
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Apple variety ("David Johnson")
Re: Cider Digest #695, 20 October 1997 (Chasman)
Re: Corn sugar ("Wegeng,Donald")
best weekend (Chuck Wettergreen)
Re: Cider Digest #695, 20 October 1997 ("Dione Wolfe, Dragonweyr, NM dkey@medu
sa.unm.edu")
corn sugar (reply) ("John R. Bowen")
re: High Alcohol cider (Dick Dunn)
Sussreserve (Andrew Lea)
High alcohol (again) (Andrew Lea)
alcohol levels (Derek Bisset)
Sweeter Cider (Nicole and Mark Jahnke)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Apple variety
From: "David Johnson" <dmjalj@inwave.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 23:16:34 -0500
This is not strictly a cider question,but I figure someone here might know.
In my last batch of cyser, I used some apples from my orchard that I had
been telling myself were Bramley's Seedling. But I got to thinking and
looking more closely at those apples. They were very large and flat (is
oblate the right word?). They were mainly plain green with some having a red
cheek. They also had these very prominent bulges that extend from the
blossom end to almost the stem. Each has about 5 of these. I looked at them
and thought about it. I began to think these were really Calville Blanc
d'Hiver. When I bought these trees, I thought I'd never need to write stuff
like that down. The appearance of these apples are really striking. Are
these trees good for cider? Does anyone know the ripening dates?
I plan to add one more tree to my orchard. Is there one variety that my
future ciders cannot simply do without? I already have :Red Astrachan,
Downing Tart, Lubsk Queen, Golden Russet, Akero, Esopus Spitzenberg, Irish
Peach(AKA Early Crofton?), Hudsen's Golden Gem, Alexander, and Ashmead's
Kernel. Personally, I think the names are a lot of fun.I am looking for that
one cider apple that is the secret to fine cider. I wouldn't mind if it was
another russet. I tasted Orin and Gold Rush and remember that they were good
to eat, but don't know how they would blend in cider.
Whatever I choose, my only disappointment will be that it will not be a
part of my Millenium cider.
dave
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #695, 20 October 1997
From: Chasman <cwhudak@mail.adnc.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 22:35:21 -0700
Previously I wrote:
>
>>> I do know, however that the clove flavor which 3056 produces
>>>is from a compound called 4-vinylguaicol.
Andrew replied:
>
>Clove flavours are usually attributed to eugenol (related to vinyl
>guiacol). 4VG is the 'stuffy' off-flavour in orange juice. However, all
>these compounds can be spicy depending on context, so I'm not disagreeing
>with Charles here!
Refer to "German Wheat Beer", Eric Warner, Brewers Publications, 1992
On page 50, Section three has a break down "Content of Phenolic Substances"
which is data derived from some 22 German Weiss beers, figures are in ug/L
(ppb):
Compound Mean Xmin Xmax
- -------------------------------------------------------------
Phenol 40 + 110
Guaiacol 120 + 360
4-vinyl phenol 970 10 7390
4-vinyl guaiacol 1500 280 3710
Eugenol 70 + 215
Isoeugenol 38 + 156
4-vinyl syringol 310 96 586
4-hydroxy benzaldehyde 125 + 318
Aceto Vanillone 153 + 474
While eugenol is a component of the "clove-like" flavors, it is not the
major consituent of the flavor profile in German Wheat beers. This book
discusses this issue at length and most people who have studied German
wheat beers mention 4-VG almost exclusively in relation to "clove" flavors.
Charles
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Corn sugar
From: "Wegeng,Donald" <Donald_Wegeng@xn.xerox.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 04:55:10 PDT
>Normally, a wine maker, I wanted to
>know the precise way to add corn sugar (for the "sparkling" effect) to
>my recipe before bottling. If I understand the process right, it's just
>added to the must before bottling. I would imagine not having to stir
>the corn sugar into the must as you would also be stirring up the bottom
>sediment. Any responses would be appreciated.
I started making cider after being a homebrewer, so making sparkling
cider seemed natural. For a five gallon batch, my method is to heat
the corn sugar in an equal amount of water until the water boils, then
I pour this sugar-water mixture into an empty five gallon carboy. I
then rack the cider into this carboy. This seems to mix the sugar
with the cider pretty well. I often add a package of yeast at the
same time. I then bottle the cider, using crown caps.
I usually use 0.75 cups of corn sugar per five gallon batch. The folks
who judge cider for the AHA competition have commented that my entries
are not carbonated enough for the "carbonated cider" style, but this
is how I like it.
/Don
donald_wegeng@xn.xerox.com
------------------------------
Subject: best weekend
From: Chuck Wettergreen <chuckmw@Mcs.Net>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 09:03:20 -0500 (CDT)
To: cider@talisman.com.
Cider makers!
I have to report that last weekend was the best ever. A friend of mine,
who lives on about 2 acres with about 6 various apple trees, said that
I could "have 'em all". Fortunately, he lives just around the corner
from a small family cider mill. The missus and I treked out there
Saturday morning, and with my hand made apple-picker made from an
expanding paint pole and a gallon milk jug, proceeded to "pick 'em all".
Three hours later we had about three and a half 55 gallon plastic trash
bins (which my friend uses to make oceans of wine) full of apples. I'm
unsure what the apples were; I believe a quarter were jonathans (deep red,
wide crown narrowing to pronounced lobes, semi-sweet) with the rest being
some variety of gold apple with a slight blush of red (large round apple,
no lobes, red tinges on larger apples, sweet and firm). All were
unsprayed.
The cider mill charged $1.50/gallon for pressing the 20 gallons of juice,
with a $5.00 discount for the 24oz bottle of cyser I brought for them made
from their last years' juice. The mill owner also allowed me to pick about
two quarts of small red crab apples from his orchard (little ones about 1"
in diameter, bright yellow and red, tart, tart, tart) which I added to
offset the dessert-apple blandness.
I offered my friend half of the juice, thank God he only wanted 5 gallons!
This is the *best* juice I've ever had (can you tell I'm prejudiced). Very
sweet (OG 1.060 at 45 degF), but then the slight sour/tannins kick in on
the back of the tongue causing noticable increases in salivation (I'm not
kidding!).
Five gallons are in the fridge fermenting naturally at 5 degC, as per
correspondence with Andrew Lea (thanks Andrew), although I did add a
couple of pounds of secret recipe special brown-like sugar. The other 10
gallons were pasteurized with 21 pounds of honey and are happily
blowing off from my carboys fermenting with Lalvin K1116.
Life is good...
Chuck
* RM 1.3 00946 *
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #695, 20 October 1997
From: "Dione Wolfe, Dragonweyr, NM dkey@medusa.unm.edu" <DKEY@MEDUSA.UNM.EDU>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 11:08:22 -0700 (MST)
Addition of corn sugar for sparkling: Rack the mead into another clean bucket
with the corn sugar already added. Leave as much of the bottom residue behind
and bottle immediately. I used champaign bottles and plastic corks wired down
for my last batch (strawberry kiwi melomel--Millenium Mead!) Crown caps work
too.
Never Thirst,
Dione
------------------------------
Subject: corn sugar (reply)
From: "John R. Bowen" <jbowen@primary.net>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 1956 13:57:32 +0000
Pete, there are some factors to consider here. Most of us brewers (if
I may be so bold as to speak for most of us) who prime with corn sugar
and bottle will rack the beer into a bottling bucket which contains
the corn sugar, usually dissolved in about a cup of water. The
swirling of the flow from the racking tube and/or a quick stir with a
big spoon takes care of the mixing, and the racking leaves the
sediment behind prior to the mixing and bottling.
An alternate method, if you don't wish to rack into another bottling
bucket, is to bottle prime, where you add usually about 3/4 treaspoon
of dry sugar directly to each (12 fl. oz) bottle before filling.
Works well, although more work. Many brewers shun it because 1) they
don't think it is reproducible from bottle to bottle, and 2) they
cannot sterilize or sanitize the dry corn sugar as they can with the
dissolved.
Of course with cider you must address two other questions:
1. Has the yeast in your completed fermentation sufficient alcohol
tolerence to ferment the added corn sugar? Usually, I think, not a
problem for the 8% or so we usually see, but if you are one of the
rocket fuel masters....
2. Has the yeast sufficient quantity and vitality to ferment the
added sugar? If it has been sitting as sediment for 6 months and the
cider is clear, enough may have settled and/or died that carbonation
could be iffy, or at least take a LONG time. Perhaps a test batch or
a reinnoculation with fresh yeast prior to bottling would be in order.
Yours for more fizz,
John Bowen
------------------------------
Subject: re: High Alcohol cider
From: rcd@raven.talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: 22 Oct 97 00:14:30 MDT (Wed)
I'm somewhat surprised at the responses either defending the high-alcohol
cider quest, or attacking those who challenge it.
(Let me point out that I'm not speaking _ex_cathedra_ here.)
Keep in mind that this started from someone who admitted to having no
experience making cider, and who asked *twice* how to get high alcohol,
with *no* other considerations. Asking for "a simple XXX recipe with a
high level of alcohol" or how to "crank it up" is pretty plain. It's a
quest for an intoxicant. Let's stop trying to be nice and understanding
and namby-pamby politically correct. This digest is about serious cider;
it is not about expedient ways to get 40-proof booze.
[In a dark moment, I wonder if the original postings were bait. Do keep in
mind that sometimes postings are intended to troll for flames, or in an
even worse case, to expose a digest/list/newsgroup/BB to media scrutiny as
promoting unsavory activity.]
If you want a strong cider, fine...speak right up, but talk about something
that's going to be balanced, that has something about it beyond booze.
"David Johnson" <dmjalj@inwave.com> asked about "improving the potential
for aging" and broached the idea of a cider for the Millenium. David, I
think that's a fine idea, so let's discuss it, but please let's keep it
separate from the idea of merely getting drunk quickly! If I live over the
edge of the millenium, I intend to drink some special cider and mead for
the occasion.
> Doesn't the alcohol work to prolong the life of the product?...
Yes, but it doesn't take much alcohol. I just recently re-checked a cider
I made from the 1994 harvest, starting with juice a bit under 1.050 OG, and
it has held up just fine. OK, 1997-1994 = 3 years, so if you make a sound
cider from this year's harvest or the next, and do a good job of it, you'll
have it for 2000 or 2001 (depending on when you intend to celebrate), and
you won't need to push the alcohol.
> ...How would you go about
> making a vintage cider meant to be layed down for a few years? Wouldn't a
> higher alcohol be part of the equation?...
I think that 8% should be plenty. I'm thinking, among other things, that
I've got some Old Foghorn barleywine from 1983 that is still very nice, and
beer is more delicate than cider in this sense, and I don't think the OF
was much over 8%. Yes, I think that for longer keeping you don't want a
cider down in the 2-3% range (like some French)...I don't know, but I tend
to side with David's attitude here. Still, 8% is a lot; I think we can
stop there and not try to increase the alcohol artificially to 2-2.5x more.
Sherwood Botsford <sherwood@Math.UAlberta.CA> wrote about other reasons for
boosting alcohol content:
> If your working with fresh fruit, all your fruit comes at once.
> Bottling a years worth of cider takes a lot of bottles.
Yes, but (a) the question was how to increase alcohol, not how to concen-
trate the cider. Making a concentrated cider, then diluting it for use, is
a very interesting proposition, but it's complicated...not at all the
simple request of "cranking up" the alcohol.
> Also, depending on how long you want to keep it, and what your storage
> conditions are, you may want to store it at a concentration that will
> discourage it changing to vinegar.
The alcohol from fermentation doesn't discourage vinegar. Acetobacter
turns alcohol into acetic acid. You prevent vinegar by keeping it clean
and keeping out acetobacter. (Don't confuse vinegar with oxidation, BTW...
many folks do.)
> Some people prefer smaller volumes of more potent stuff.
> I'd like to end up with an 'apple sherry'
...and next...
> If you are going hunting/camping/fishing/canoeing/hiking etc,
> and you like a drink in the evening, carrying your alchohol diluted
> 12:1 with water is a pain...
Yes, but both of these still raise the question of keeping the alcohol in
balance with the taste. If I want a stronger drink, I go for something
distilled, because it concentrates both the alcohol *and* the base. Going
camping, like cider but don't want to carry it? Take Calvados.
I think Sherwood has some interesting points, topics for good further
threads here, but they're wide of the topic of the guy who just wants to
crank up the alcohol. I'd actually like to know what lies between cider
and calvados, if anything...something that would carry increased character
of apple along with the increased alcohol.
In this thread, I like least the following comments:
> No one is holding a gun to your head to force you to do anything. So, if you
> have comment, it would be polite to mention that a drink that strong is not to
> your taste and let it go at that...
This is NOT a matter of taste. This digest exists to discuss cider, not
easily-made cheap intoxicants. The requested 20% alcohol (no concern for
taste/balance/character) is not a cider, and the nature of the request
indicates that alcohol is the only real concern. The original postings
had no place here, and quite frankly, deserved to be flamed to a crisp.
>...Your kind of talk might get you a bent nose if delivered in person...
I have principles, and I stand by them. If you are so crude as to suggest
that I'll get punched out for refusing to tell someone how to turn cider
into cheap booze, then come around and we'll talk about it in person. I'll
take the chance that somebody will punch me for my principles, but that
person better take the chance of being tossed in jail. If your only
interest is maximizing the alcohol in cider, then please go away at your
earliest convenience, and DO NOT come back.
>...The ONE major pissoff I have about these BB's is that
> some people take anonymity to mean they can be a nasty and rude as they
> please.
This is not a BB.
Aside from that, yes, you are right. We are defending the purpose of the
Cider Digest as being about cider (not cheap booze and easy drunkenness),
and you're hiding behind net-anonymity to rudely attack us.
The issue here is not strong cider; the issue is the idea of using cider as
cheap booze.
- ---
Dick Dunn rcd, domain talisman.com Boulder County, Colorado USA
...Reality is neat! It works even if you don't believe in it!
------------------------------
Subject: Sussreserve
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 14:19:48 -0400
Sorry I didn't explain this rather obscure term - 'Sussreserve' is a German
word which denotes grape-juice which has been kept (heavily sulphited,
sterile-filtered, kept cold under high CO2, deep-frozen or whatever) for
later addition to the fermented wine to sweeten it. This practice is
normal in Northern Germany and in the UK wine industry (yes there really is
one!). But you need a helluva lot more than 50 ppm sulphite to keep it -
up to 2000 ppm - and then you need special equipment to remove the sulphite
again. Same would be true for apple juice! I think all modern sussreserve
is deep-frozen to keep it.
Andrew Lea
nr Oxford, UK
------------------------------
Subject: High alcohol (again)
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 14:19:50 -0400
I'm not quite as puritanical as it sounds, and I have been known to make
high alcohol dessert wines from fortified apple juice myself - but that's
the whole point, they're NOT ciders and we should treat them as an utterly
different drink! One of the best I did was from apple juice conc
fermented to dryness at about 15% alcohol, then left stoppered with cotton
wool in a jar with about one-fifth headspace, for about ten years (yes ten
years!). During this time it slowly oxidised (didn't go acetic because the
cotton wool kept out the bacteria) to a gorgeous brown sherry-like liquid
with all the right cooked and nutty tones. To be drunk as an aperitif in
small glasses. Try it if you have the time!
However, I must stress that there is absolutely no need for high alcohol in
a regular cider just to 'keep' it. I'm drinking my own cider (naturally
conditioned) now two years old at about 6% alcohol - any cider properly
bottled or kept in a tightly stoppered vessel should keep for years. Only
if you let the air and microbes get it will it start to deteriorate.
Andrew Lea
nr Oxford, UK
------------------------------
Subject: alcohol levels
From: Derek Bisset <derek_bisset@bc.sympatico.ca>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 08:57:58 -0700
There was discussion about quality in cider at one time. Quality
should still matter when increasing alcohol level in a cider. A good
sherry or port is not vodka or neutral spirit.
It should be possible to make a cider with higher levels of acid,
fruitiness and tannin which can stand the alcohol level being raised
above the normal 5-8%. This is one of the points about using proper cider
apples. They can give flavour and body to the cider which can stand the
alcohol. I have tasted cider which had this done by adding an aromatic
honey to a cider apple blend raising the level to about 11%. The result
had another sweetening honey added and the yeast was then filtered out.
A dozen so people with little experience of cider tasting this
preferred it to dry cider made with the same apples. They found the
flavour of the dry cider too strong. The alcohol level was only about
half.
The cider was made with one third local commercial dessert culls,one
third crabapples , and one third cider apples.
The maker commented that he had no problems with the keeping
qualities of this cider. He felt that the higher alcohol was stopping
refermentation. I'm not so sure. After a year a bottle I kept had done
some further fermentation, probably malolactic.
------------------------------
Subject: Sweeter Cider
From: Nicole and Mark Jahnke <nicole@coredcs.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 22:01:40 -0500
Shouldn't it be possible to generate a sweeter product by adding a
non-fermentable sugar such as malto-dextrin to the mash? I know this works
well for beer making but I'm a novice at hard cider (my very first batches
are still fermenting).
Mark Jahnke
Stevens Point, Wisconsin
nicole@coredcs.com
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #696
*************************
