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Cider Digest #0698
Subject: Cider Digest #698, 27 October 1997
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #698 27 October 1997
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Cider and aging ("David Johnson")
Different yeasts for ciders (Reg Tulk or Matt Beumer)
bottling (Reg Tulk or Matt Beumer)
Hints for better cider (Reg Tulk or Matt Beumer)
Re:New Edition of Proulx/Nichols? (Terence Bradshaw)
Re: Cider Mill Charges (Jon McCoy)
incidental high alcohol cider ("Y. Vetter")
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Subject: Cider and aging
From: "David Johnson" <dmjalj@inwave.com>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 17:35:59 -0600
I want to thank those who took time to respond to my post about apples to
add to my orchard. It appears that I will be adding more than one more
apple. On further research (I found the original label), It appears that the
tree in question really is Bramley's Seedling. I intend to find a place for
Dabinett. I, however, plan to have an apple tasting to try to select the
next few apples. I will be ordering from Applesource to help me in my
decision. Calville Blanc will be a candidate.
On another note, this idea of a cider to lay down has really got me
thinking. I haven't had the chance to taste a cider over time and follow
it's tasting properties. I guess the way to approach it is to think about
how a cider "declines". Is it mainly a loss of desirable flavors(apple
flavor or aroma,tanins, acid, etc.)or gaining undesirable flavors
(oxidation, autolysis, bacterial flavors, etc.). Once the characteristics
of decline are identified one can then find the causes and ways to combat
them. For instance, if part of the process of declining is loss of apple
flavor and aroma, then we can look at trying to put more apple flavor in at
the beginning. This might be done by variety selection. Another way (alluded
to by Andrew Lea) would be to use apple concentrate to increase the apple
character. If it is tannins, then variety selection is also important. There
must also be ways to prevent the flavors of oxidation, autolysis, and
bacterial contamination. I agree that increasing the alcohol should not be
the only way to approach this but high alcohol content does slow most
bacterial action. Please share your knowledge, oh experienced cidermakers!
Dave
------------------------------
Subject: Different yeasts for ciders
From: Reg Tulk or Matt Beumer <regtulk@PRIMENET.COM>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 09:20:40 -0800
With regard to the entry "Algebra and MLF", John Bowen stated:
> Another question on the 3056. Are you using it because you already
> have a nice healthy culture from your beer secondary, or are you
> trying to get that banana/clove flavor in the cider? A local brewer
> told me he had tried 3056 to get the flavor, and it wasn't formed. He
> speculated that 3056 needed something from the wheat malt to form
> those compounds. I am currently fermenting a gallon of cider with
> 3056 and a little wheat malt, and the banana seems to be coming
> through nicely. While using 3056 from your secondary is not the same
> as from a fresh starter, please let us know if the banana/clove is
> present in the cider.
>
I found solidification in John's statements and experimentation
concerning something I had learned from the guru at the local brew
store. He stated that most beer yeasts give off the different esters
when reacting with (eating) Maltose. Being that cider contains only
fructose, there will be no estery acid conversions, thus it wouldn't
matter which one of the 60+ different ale or lager yeasts for sale today
in your cider. The only difference is the attenuation, yielding
different alcohol levels. If I am totally wrong (or even partly wrong),
I am open for discussion on this topic, considering that as of Nov.1, my
roommate and I will be making a whole bunch of cider. Oddly enough, the
stuff we made last year, we accidentally used mead yeast. It was very
nice and dry (champagne-like), but as I said "WAS". We went through a
lot of the stuff this year. We would like to try different ways of
brewing the stuff, but we would like any insight when using ale
yeasts-vs- champagne-vs- lager, etc. We could be e-mailed at
regtulk@primenet.com
Thanks- Matt Beumer
------------------------------
Subject: bottling
From: Reg Tulk or Matt Beumer <regtulk@primenet.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 09:38:46 -0800
Regarding Andrew Lea's concern regarding in-bottle fermentation:
> By the way, like John Bowen, I'm puzzled how Dan expects to stop his
added 'sussreserve' from fermenting in storage or re-fermenting once he's
sweetened his cider!! MLF never occurs in most juices because the natural
yeast fermentation takes over far more quickly, BUT in traditional French
cider-making with really slow primary fermentations (e.g. 6 months) the
MLF can occur concurrently with the alcoholic fermentation. Many years
ago there was a Swiss system (the Boehi) for keeping fresh 'sussreserve'
juice unfermented indefinitely under high CO2 (which inhibited the
yeast). Unfortunately the MLF went on regardless, which is one reason
why the system fell out of use.
Personally, I will not drink cider unless it is sparkling. Bottling in
champagne magna will usually stop the fermentation, yet carbonating
quite well. The amount of CO2 and pressure will stop the fermentation
without exploding the champagne bottles (they're so darn thick!).If you
keep your ears to the ground (Dan), you could call area banquet rooms
where plenty of wedding receptions are held and ask if they could retain
bottles for you- perhaps in return for a gift of the home-brewed cider.
Let them know up front what you want to do and they would be more than
happy to oblige, since most places need to count the number of bottles
of champagne they served, etc. Even bars on New Year's will have a boat
load. Not only that, but your cider will probably still be fermenting by
that time anyway. Plastic corks and baskets are relativvely cheap at the
local homebrew place.
Good luck and happy hunting!
- -Matt Beumer (regtulk@primenet.com)
------------------------------
Subject: Hints for better cider
From: Reg Tulk or Matt Beumer <regtulk@primenet.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 10:08:03 -0800
Mike Cukrow wrote:
> 1) How can I make a sweet cider (can be a still cider, if that makes a
> difference)?
> 2) What are campden tablets, and what do they do? (I have seen these in
> quite a few recipes)
> 3) what is the benefit or result of adding frozen apple juice
> concentrate to cider, in addition to apple juice?
>
> Thank you in advance for your help!
>
> Mike Cukrow
> mcukrow@nac.net
First, Campden tablets are a wild yeast killer used mainly in making
wine. Grapes and apples have a thing called a "bloom" which is the waxy
coating on apples and the white powdery substance on grapes. Mostly,
these are natural indigenous yeasts which would be ideal in making your
brew, and some take that risk for authenticity's sake. Unfortunately,
there are a lot of natural "wild" yeasts that can turn your brew into
vinegar. You want to kill off these wild ones so your pitching yeast has
a clean environment. In some cases, if you have a large enough starter,
there will typically be a mass carnage of the wild ones. It's would be
like an army setting up camp in Pisek, ND. Just to be safe, especially
if you don't know how long the cider sat before you picked it up (sans
sulfites, of course), you crush 1-2 campden tablets / gallon to
inocculate your juice. you let it sit for a couple days, then pitch
yeast. If you can get juice the same day as it is being pressed, you may
go without. My roommate and I have been successful.
Sweeter cider, may be still. Piece of cake. Add sugar and let the yeast
ferment out. Any residual sugar will remain. If you are using a
champagne yeast, you will come close to rocket fuel (12-15%) if you keep
adding sugar until it finally stops. Try using a low attenuation beer
yeast (2-4%) and you will have a less hard cider. A more fine tuning
could be done. Sample the brew in stages and when it gets to the
palatable point, add potassium metabisulfite (yeast killer). If you want
sparkling cider, when palatable, bottle into champagne magna (or magnums
if you prefer)and the pressure will let the yeast go dormant. Note that
you will not want to have added any sugar in either of the last two
ideas at the first trial. If you see that sugar needs to be added to
sweeten it up, try and experiment. Champagne bottles are meant to hold
liquids under high pressure, so you need not to worry about exploding
bottles . Make sure that they are champagne bottles and not wine
bottles. We don't want cider bombs going off leaving shards of glass to
be quickly shot into various body parts.
Lastly, adding concentrate will try and return some of the
"Non-fermented" taste back into the cider. My personal opinion- Why
bother if it is going to taste like a lot of the commercial crap that
I've tasted (NOTE: This is my opinion and I have no intentions of
creating a world-wide boycott of WOODCHUCK CIDER). Homebrew is always
best anyway, because you made it!!!
Have fun and play safe-
Matt Beumer (regtulk@primenet.com)
------------------------------
Subject: Re:New Edition of Proulx/Nichols?
From: tbradsha@zoo.uvm.edu (Terence Bradshaw)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 11:31:43 -0600 (CST)
>Subject: New Edition of Proulx/Nichols?
>From: "Wegeng,Donald" <Donald_Wegeng@xn.xerox.com>
>Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 06:20:16 PDT
>
>Rumor has it that a new edition of the Proulx/Nichols cider book was
> published in the US on July 1, 1997 by HarperCollins. has anyone seen
> it? Can anyone comment on whether it would be worthwhile to replace
> my original copy with the new edition?
>
>Thanks,
>/Don
I spoke with Lew Nichols in July and he mentioned the new book. It was not
released yet as he was putting in some finishing touches. One change will
be the loss of the anecdotes, recipes, and illustrations in the margins of
the original...a pretty big loss, in my eyes, but the publisher wants to
slim it down.
We also drank some wonderful varietal Ribston Pippin Cider.......
- -----------------------------------------------------------
Terence Bradshaw
Fruit Grower
work:
Tougas Family Farm, 246 Ball Street, Northboro, MA 01532
home:
721 Main Street, Shrewsbury, MA 01545 (508) 845-2083
Internet:
tbradsha@zoo.uvm.edu
http://www.uvm.edu/~tbradsha/home.html
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Mill Charges
From: Jon McCoy <shooter@aa.net>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 15:07:30 -0800
Peter R. Hoover asks:
>What do cider mills charge for pressing where you are?? Inquiring minds
>want to know.
Near my parents' house is a cider mill, which has become a fruit &
vegetable stand, as well as selling stupid curios to the city folk. They
charge $4.00 per gallon, pressed on site, available as apple or
apple/strawberry cider, sold in white plastic milk jugs. I asked if I
could save anything by arriving on a pressing day with some carboys, but
they said the only price break would be for 55gal drums. Makes $20 batches
almost the same as beer kits.
Unfortunately, my first attempt failed miserably. Trying to save some
money, we used old pickle buckets, scrubbed and soaked until the smell was
gone. Or so we thought. Now it's fertilizing the flower beds, and I'm
trying to schedule the next batch so that I can primary in the (new)
plastic beer primary, then rack to a carboy.
- -- Jon McCoy
- -- Federal Way, WA
One needs only two things in life;
WD-40 to make things go,
and Duct Tape to make them stop.
------------------------------
Subject: incidental high alcohol cider
From: "Y. Vetter" <yav@u.washington.edu>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 14:02:37 -0800 (PST)
I have no interest in debating either the merits of high alcohol cider or
the suitability of this venue for discussing them. However, I have
'accidentally' generated a high alcohol 'cider' that might
interest some digest readers. Last summer I collected a variety of
(exclusively) crab apples from friends, neighbors, and random aquaintances
in Seattle. I ground and pressed them (in my home-made rig) and got 3
gallons of a beautiful, extravagantly red red juice the was so tart and
astringent that it was completely un-drinkable, even diluted and
sweetened. I pitched champagne yeast and allowed to ferment. After primary
ferment it remained undrinkable. After what appeared to be secondary
(MLF) fermentation, sugar made it just barely palatable. I wished to
bottle a still, semi-sweet cider that didn't need to be sweetened at the
table, so (ignorant of controversial nature of my actions, and not too
anxious about what seemed to be turning out to be a middling batch of
cider) I started weekly addition of a few cups of table sugar to the
liquid. My idea was to get all of the nitrogen (or other essential
nutrients) used up, and then to add just a little more sugar for
sweetness. It took a total of about 2-3 lbs of sugar before my weekly
addition failed to re-invigorate the ferment. I haven't bothered to
figure out how much added alcohol this is. I stopped adding sugar and
waited about 6 months (until last weekend) before tasting and bottling my
'cider' (or whatever you want to call it). The results are spectacular.
The 'cider' tastes, more than anything, like a late-harvest Reisling, and
a good one at that. The flavor is so intense that I can't imagine
drinking enough to get hammered, so the high alcohol content issue is
probably moot. To my (admittedly prejudiced) palatte, this is by far the
most interesting apple beverage I've ever produced or even drunk.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yves-Alain Vetter IIIIII ___________
University of Washington (o o) (
School of Oceanography __O____ (
Box 357940 /\ I |
Seattle, WA 98195 / \ /J |
J \ / | (
(206) 543-0147 | I \| / (
| | ^!^\___/ / (
/\ ^!^ (____ / |/ (
/ \ // / () |
/\ \ /\ / / () |
/ \/\/\ /\/\/\ /(_/ _()__ (
/ \/ \ (_/ /____/\ (
/ / \ |" "|| (
Ain't no bad skiing, only lousy skiers.
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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End of Cider Digest #698
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