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Cider Digest #0697
Subject: Cider Digest #697, 26 October 1997
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #697 26 October 1997
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
RE: Apple variety ("Wegeng,Donald")
Cider Mill Charges (Peter R. Hoover)
Non-fermentable sugar (robbie+@alectro.soar.cs.cmu.edu)
New Edition of Proulx/Nichols? ("Wegeng,Donald")
Re: High vs. Low ABV (Re-send) (Marc Montefusco)
What's a good newbie book? ("Kat Lonewolf")
Some Comments (Steve Butts)
Re: Cider Digest #696, 22 October 1997 (_Ralph Reed)
Spicy flavours (Andrew Lea)
sweet cider reply: ( Cider Digest #696) ("John R. Bowen")
Re: Cider Digest #696, 22 October 1997 ("Dione Wolfe, Dragonweyr, NM dkey@medu
sa.unm.edu")
The one best Cider Apple (Andrew Lea)
First Batch ("paskins@sirius.com")
Re: Cider Digest #695, 20 October 1997 (ylva van buuren)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: Apple variety
From: "Wegeng,Donald" <Donald_Wegeng@xn.xerox.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 05:29:51 PDT
>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?
Here's what the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) database
says about Calville Blanc:
"Size medium to large; shape flat conic, convex, entire fruit
prominently ribbed; skin yellow with light red flush; flesh tender,
yellowish white; flaovr sweet and subacid, aromatic; season VERY LATE.
Highest vitamin C content of any apple, more than orange juice.
Considered best apple for cider and cider vinegar. Also, good eating
apple. Excellent keeper. Med-large tree, growth habit moderate and
somewhat upright. Requires cross pollination."
Elsewhere the source for their sample is listed as Belgium, so perhaps
this is a European cider apple. I have wondered about this variety's
potential for hard cider since I first saw it listed in the Miller's
Nursery catalog, so I would be interested in your assessment of it.
BTW, the GRIN database is accessible from the web at:
http://www.ars-grin.gov/ars/NoAtlantic/Geneva/apple.html
The collection itself is housed at the NY State Agr. Experimental
Station, located in Geneva, NY.
/Don
donald_wegeng@xn.xerox.com
------------------------------
Subject: Cider Mill Charges
From: prh4@cornell.edu (Peter R. Hoover)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 09:09:25 -0400
I recently read on this list:
"The cider mill charged $1.50/gallon for pressing"
and was astonished. Around here they recently bumped the price for pressing
from $0.38 to $0.50 per gallon, because the state made them put in a new
fruit scrubber. Jugs are a quarter apiece and caps are three cents.
What do cider mills charge for pressing where you are?? Inquiring minds
want to know.
Peter R. Hoover, Cornell Publications Services, East Hill Plaza
Ithaca, NY 14850; 607 255-9454; fax, 255-5684 (prh4@cornell.edu)
------------------------------
Subject: Non-fermentable sugar
From: robbie+@alectro.soar.cs.cmu.edu
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 97 9:04:09 EDT
Nicole and Mark Jahnke <nicole@coredcs.com> wrote on Wed, 22 Oct 1997 22:01:40
in Cider Digest #696:
> Shouldn't it be possible to generate a sweeter product by adding a
> non-fermentable sugar such as malto-dextrin to the mash?
I too am a cider maker and beer brewer and was thinking the same thing
with respect to lactose. Might this work as well?
Robbie Warner
Pittsburgh, PA
<robbie@alectro.soar.cs.cmu.edu>
------------------------------
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
------------------------------
Subject: Re: High vs. Low ABV (Re-send)
From: Marc Montefusco <mmontefusco@mmsw.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 09:57:59 -0400
At the risk of prolonging an increasingly acrimonious debate on the
relative merits of adding to the "natural" alcohol level of cider, I
think we are suffering from a confusion of terms. The debate is not
really about alcohol levels, as I think the sherry-drinking contingent
has successfully demonstrated. The real question is, can we divorce the
product from the process? There are those among us, myself included, for
whom the term "cider" means, whatever beverage you can come up with
solely by manipulating the genetics of apples and yeasts, the mechanics
of pressing and storage, and an understanding of the deep chemistry of
all the above ingredients and processes. There is another contingent,
also perfectly legitimate, which is fascinated with different tastes and
combinations, and is not overly concerned with how the genie got in the
bottle.
The potential of cider is immense, and may not ever have been fully
realized, even in the various heydays of cider in the 17th and early
20th centuries. Most good winemakers have as their ultimate goal the
production of an exceptional natural beverage with as little
manipulation as possible, and I think this goal applies to ciders, as
well. The possibilities are endless, although the range of extremes is
far subtler than it would be if we took a no-holds-barred approach to
cider-making.
Nothing I can say will convince any of you to adopt a more classic,
minimalist approach to cider and cider-making. I do think there is
something that I (and others) can do, which is to make ciders that are
so enjoyable, complex, and sublime that they are their own best
advocates. Good luck to all of you, and now that I've had a chance to
spout off, let's move on to other topics.
Marc Montefusco
New World Cider
------------------------------
Subject: What's a good newbie book?
From: "Kat Lonewolf" <lonewolf@frazmtn.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 07:26:59 -0800
Hello, cider lovers
I am new to this list and a complete newbie to making cider. I
don't even have the equipment yet. And there certainly is a lot more
to making hard cider than I thought. I am starting to get the
meanings of many of the terms spoken of in posts. I realize there are
many yeast types out there(used to think there was only one!). I am
getting a feel for the equipment I will need to make my own cider.
My question is, since I don't want to bother you all with a lot
of newbie questions, what is a good, comprehensive book on
cidermaking to add to my library? I figure once I read that I can
start asking questions. Also, I live in the northern LA area, in Cal.
Anyone have any sources for equipment and bottles that I can get to
and not have to pay for shipping?
Since I became interested in making cider I decided to try to
find some at the store. I was in Trader Joe's the other day and found
a dark, dry type and a lighter, sweeter cider made by Vermont Draft
Cider. Now, I am not much of a drinker. My main reasons for making
cider are to know how mainly and to occasionally imbibe and have
gifts for friends who do drink. I found the dark cider too dry. The
light cider was better for my palate. What is the quality of this
brand and can I expect something fairly similar with my own brew?
I would have liked to have the cider a little sweeter still. Is that
possible, or am I going to be stuck with a beer-like cider? Is the
sort-of beer taste a function of the fermentation with yeast?
Uh-oh, I'm getting into stupid newbie questions. I'll stop now.
The name of a good book would be greatly appreciated.
Lonewolf
------------------------------
Subject: Some Comments
From: Steve Butts <Stephen.J.Butts@lawrence.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 09:10:24 -0500 (CDT)
Colleagues --
Coupla points:
In my own experience there are two major problems with adding corn sugar
to prime carbonation in cider. First, the sugar tends to coarsen the
taste a bit, there is a kind of hard aftertaste on the palate with it.
Second, with anything more than a moderate level of carbonation a lot
of crud falls to the bottom of the bottle, and when the top is popped
much of this gets swirled up and into your glass.
I've found that I get quite a lovely level of fizz simply by bottling
toward the tail end of a long, low-temperature secondary fermentation
and waiting 6 months or so. I don't know if it's the small bit of re-
sidual yeast or malo-lactic action, but the result is a long-lasting,
champagne-like carbonation with tiny bubbles that can last through a
complete meal. The crud amount is much less, and over this longer per-
iod it tends to stick to the bottom of the bottle rather than getting
into your glass. Give it a try with a 6-pack or so and compare with
corn sugar.
Now, regarding the whole high/low alcohol debate and the associated rise
in the temperature of the prose involved: I've been on the Digest for
at least four years now, and remember when the typical submission went
something like "how long do I boil the apple juice wort?" and "when do
I add the hops?" I take the booze debate as indicating that there are
a number of folks out there who actually CARE about cider, and together
with the much greater sophistication of the technical back-and-forth,
all this gives me great pleasure. Wheeee!
- -- Steve Butts
buttss@Lawrence.edu
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #696, 22 October 1997
From: _Ralph Reed <reedr@bcc.orst.edu>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 08:50:12 -0700 (PDT)
Cider Digest:
When making a sparkling cider, wine, beer, or whatever, a problem
is how to make sure that the sugar is evenly distributed. One doesn't
want to have some bottles that are flat and some that are hand
grenades. It is easy to dissolve sugar by putting a cup of sugar in a
2 cup kitchen measure and putting it in the microwave. Stir occassionally
(& carefully) to avoid a superheated situation. It goes in like a champ.
For beer, we then add a certain amount in a graduated cylinder. This way,
we avoid a racking of the beer. For sparkling wine, which we make in
much larger quantities, we rack all the carboys and blend and then add
sugar to each blended carboy. Then we put in a magnetic stir-bar and
stir it on a laboratory stir plate.
-ralph reed, philomath, oregon
------------------------------
Subject: Spicy flavours
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 15:57:22 -0400
Thanks for that table, Charles. As a flavour chemist by profession it did
my heart good to see it and I hope there'll be some other readers of the
Digest who can interpret it too.
Guaiacol, 4-vinyl phenol, 4-vinyl guaiacol and Eugenol are probably the
most flavour-active of those on the list - together they are truly spicy!
Note that 4-vinyl phenol is one of the known spicy contributors to
bittersweet cider flavour. Guaiacol is very potent at the part per
trillion level and has recently been discovered to cause significant taint
in pasteurised orange and apple juice via a thermophilic bacterium known as
Alicyclobacillus terrestis. But it's also the component responsible for
desirable hammy / smoky flavours in bacon and salami - so it all depends on
the context of the foodstuff.
Other good examples of such context contrasts are:
Dimethyl sulphide - responsible for manure, asparagus, sweetcorn and
tomato flavours (depending on the other flavour components in the mix) and
Acetyltetrahydropyridine - responsible for the warm comforting smell of
freshly baked bread or crackers AND the mouse-cage taint of ciders and
wines!!
I'll shut up now, for the non-chemists among you, but I must confess I do
have a weakness for this sort of information!
Andrew Lea
------------------------------
Subject: sweet cider reply: ( Cider Digest #696)
From: "John R. Bowen" <jbowen@primary.net>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 1956 13:34:12 +0000
Mark, is it possible you are confusing malto-dextrin, an
unfermentable, but not especially sweet, polysaccharide often used to
give additional body to beer, with lactose, a disaccharide which is
moderately sweet and sometimes used to sweeten stouts and meads?
Lactose is unfermentable by the normal beer Sacchromyces, and can
moderatley sweeten. The problem is that other microorganisms can
degrade it to fermentable sugars, and with cider pressed from fresh
apples (as opposed to processed frozen juice) those organisms may be
present in the finished product. The result: no sweetness and
possibly excess carbonation. So an iffy proposition, at best.
John
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #696, 22 October 1997
From: "Dione Wolfe, Dragonweyr, NM dkey@medusa.unm.edu" <DKEY@MEDUSA.UNM.EDU>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 16:18:45 -0700 (MST)
My comments about getting one's nose bent had utterly nothing to do with
standing by one's principles, nor were they intended to be a threat or an
intent for action. They were solely based on the impression that some people
are rude and abrupt in cyberspace and if they spoke the same way in person,
their nose might be at hazard for a good poke. It was an appeal to be as
polite in cyberspace as one would be in person. Whether or not this is a
bulletin board or whether someone is making cider or rocket fuel is entirely
immaterial to that point.
Dione
------------------------------
Subject: The one best Cider Apple
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 01:24:52 -0400
David Johnson wants to know the ultimate cider apple. As single varieties,
on their own, the best UK cultivars are Kingston Black, Foxwhelp, Stoke
Red. But to beef up an existing acid blend like David's , it just has to
be Dabinett. Well behaved, easy to manage (except on low potash soil), and
a classic bittersweet flavor! PLUS it seems to be available from nurseries
in the US (unlike some of our other European cultivars)!
Andrew Lea
nr Oxford, UK
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/andrew_lea
------------------------------
Subject: First Batch
From: "paskins@sirius.com" <paskins@sirius.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 22:50:25 -0700 (PDT)
Hello. I've been brewing beer, but my girlfriend likes dark/dry cider (a la
Woodchuck), so I would like to try my hand at making a batch. I was thinking
of picking up some of the fresh pressed cider at the local farmer's market
(in San Francisco) since we live in an apartment and can't really grow our
own trees on the deck.
Are there any questions I should ask of the grower to make sure that I get
the good stuff? Does anyone know of a good recipe for making a dark/dry
cider--preferrably (and to the great relief of the masses) with a relatively
low alcohol content? Also, I've found the Cider Space web site. Are there
any other good cider sites out there that I should know of?
Thanks,
Anthony Paskins
paskins@sirius.com
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #695, 20 October 1997
From: yvbmedia@limestone.kosone.com (ylva van buuren)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 19:18:25 -0500 (CDT)
>From Grant Howes>
RE:>Cider Digest #695 .
>Subject: Cider Digest
>From: Roy Bailey <lvcider@westberks.demon.co.uk>
>Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 19:36:29 +0100
>
> I couldn't agree with yuo more in that the productin of good cider is more
like producing wine that beer. Having made cider both as an amatuer and a
commercial producer ?I firmly beleave that the type and care taken of the
apples used is the only precurser to producing a good cider. In Canada cider
is sold and taxed as a wine through our government controlled liquor stores
even though it is marketed as a cooler or high alcohal alternative to beer
by the multinational companies that produce moist of them..
>Roy Bailey - Proprietor, The Lambourn Valley Cider Company
>(Real cider from the Royal County)
>The Malt House, Great Shefford, HUNGERFORD, Berks RG17 7ED, UK
>Tel & Fax: 01488 648441. http://members.aol.com/lvcider/lvcider.htm
>
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #697
*************************
