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Cider Digest #0715
Subject: Cider Digest #715, 3 January 1998
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #715 3 January 1998
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Digest stats (Cider Digest)
(Carol Guy)
Copy of: What is the perfect cider? (Andrew Lea)
Copy of: Acidity Measurements (Andrew Lea)
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Subject: Digest stats
From: cider@raven.talisman.com (Cider Digest)
Date: 31 Dec 97 00:36:44 MST (Wed)
For anybody who likes to gather numbers...
Year-end summary of digest statistics, which indicates something (I think).
Total subscriber count runs around 540, up and down. It grew this year.
Notably, the Cider digest grew faster than the Mead-Lovers Digest, which
seems to have leveled off.
Total number of digests thie year is 79, total content about .5 MB. This
is a digest every four and a half days or so.
It seems like a lot of people reading per contributor. For comparison, the
mead digest has twice the people but about three times the content.
- ---
Cider Digest cider-request@talisman.com
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor Boulder County, Colorado USA
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Subject:
From: Carol Guy <caguy@iafrica.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 09:25:39 -0000
Subject: A US cider standard
From: "Luedtke, Jim @ MIN" <jluedtke@isisys.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 10:48:00 -0500
Jim asked about a cider available in the US. I am in South Africa, and
have had a similar experience, I recently found a cider called "Scrumpy
Jack", which, if it is available in the US, seems to be a pretty good
standard to work to.
CAROL GUY
(caguy@iafrica.com)
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Subject: Copy of: What is the perfect cider?
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 06:47:33 -0500
Mark Montefusco recently wrote:
>>In some ways, the search for the archetypal English cider is a
>>quest more enjoyed in the undertaking than in the conclusion.
>>Don't worry too much about what other people think of a given
>>cider -- try it yourself. It may fit perfectly with your mental
>>idea of what constitutes the perfect cider. Above all, enjoy
>>the process.
How much I agree with him! Although personally, as an Englishman, it
saddens me to find that what is nowadays sold here in the UK as cider is a
fermented glucose syrup with about 25% apple juice, and is therefore a
highly 'dumbed down' version of what I regard as the 'real thing', one has
to admit that it sells well and the cider industry here has expanded
probably three fold in volume terms in the last 20 years by selling it.
Lots of people enjoy it and to them it IS cider!
Sad to say, the cidermakers would probably never have done as well by
sticking to tradition, since they are marketing into the same area as other
lightweight flavour-free drinks (so-called 'lagers'). But, since I have
the chance to make my own cider, I can do it MY way for my own pleasure
since I have no-one to compete against! Somebody else on these pages
recently posted an item slagging off most mainstream UK ciders - fair
enough, though his support for Inch's and Thatchers may well be short lived
since they too are rapidly treading the mainstream path.
The best commercial UK cider I have recently come across is a Dunkerton's
bottled blend sold through Waitrose, one of our large supermarket chains -
although this epitomises what I believe a good commercial cider can be, it
costs about twice that of the mainstream competition (apples are more
expensive than glucose syrup) and it's probably in pretty limited supply!
It's almost certainly pasteurised and artificially carbonated, but then
I've never regarded this as a problem if the ingredients are good to start
with. On the other hand, if you're looking for something still and murky
and slightly vinegary (which some people in the UK regard as truly
traditional), then that won't suit you either!
Lots of Germans enjoy 'Frankfurter Ebbelwoi' which is a perfectly genuine
cider but far too dry and acidic for me, and is a world apart from the
French 'cidre bouchee' which is sweet and low alcohol. Different again
from the Spanish ciders, too (I would guess, though I've never tasted them
myself). Thank heavens the EU abandoned its plans to force us all into a
single dull conformity of what is cider!
Incidentally I've never been clear why people should expect cider to taste
like apples - do we expect wine to taste like grapes or beer to taste like
barley?? Of course not! The flavour of a fermentation is conditioned by
the raw material but it doesn't taste OF that raw material - and I can tell
you as a flavour chemist that none of the original flavour volatiles of
apples remain in the cider, they're all newly made during fermentation.
Enjoy the search for the Ultimate, and have a Happy New Year!
And many grateful thanks to Dick Dunn for hosting and organising this
Digest!
Andrew Lea, nr Oxford, UK
------------------------------
Subject: Copy of: Acidity Measurements
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 06:47:32 -0500
In digest ~713, Bruce Dunlop asked as follows:
>>There are many references to acid levels in apple cider, but no
>>clear method for measurement. Does anyone know of a standard
>>method for acid titration used by the cider industry? Thanks.
The standard used by the UK cider industry is titration with sodium
hydroxide to pH 8.1, or using phenolphthalein as an indicator. The results
are expressed in terms of malic acid, typically coming out from 0.2 - 0.6%.
Andrew Lea, nr Oxford, UK
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/andrew_lea
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End of Cider Digest #715
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