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Cider Digest #0932
Subject: Cider Digest #932, 21 November 2001
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #932 21 November 2001
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Mold in my cider? (Mark)
Champagne (cider) ("Benjamin Watson")
Cider Workshop ("Vintage Virginia Apples LLC")
sulfite (Bob and Winnie)
modifying a screw press to bladder (Dick Dunn)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Mold in my cider?
From: Mark <scaffnet@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 20:47:15 -0800 (PST)
Hi, first time post here...
Here's a strange one...
I have fermented quite a few batches of cider and
had decent to good results, but this batch I've
got working now looks like it has black spots of
mold growing on top, as well as some white
filaments of mold as well. It does not smell
bad, fermentation seems to be going slowly (it is
in the cellar; I am using wyeast sweet mead
yeast). I used camden tablets to kill off the
wild yeast 24 hrs before pitching the sweet mead
yeast.
Should I wait to see what happens or toss it?
The juice is a blend from Pine Hill in Colrain,
MA that I got at Cider Day this year.
I still have a few weeks to get good juice so I
would not be opposed to starting over if this is
the sign of a nasty batch of cider!
Any advice?
Mark from Montague, MA
scaffnet@yahoo.com
------------------------------
Subject: Champagne (cider)
From: "Benjamin Watson" <bwatson@mcttelecom.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 08:41:46 -0500
Andrew Lea wrote:
> Like Claude, I find that naturally conditioned and naturally yeasted
> ciders can keep almost indefinitely in glass bottles. The flavour
> shifts a bit but never becomes unpleasant. One thing *never* happens,
> though - the biscuity flavours characteristic of good bottle fermented
> Champagne are never produced. This is a sort of disappointment but I
> always put it down to the different chemical composition of apples vs
> grapes (apples lack sulfur-containing amino acids which may be key in
> this). Has anyone else managed to achieve this flavour with naturally
> conditioned or 'champagne' ciders?
I've never been able to duplicate the yeasty, bready aroma of a good
Champagne in my sparkling cider -- but I'm not entirely convinced it can't
be done.
My very limited understanding of the Champagne process makes me think that
this quality is caused by extended autolysis, the enzymatic action of dead
yeast cells caused by extended contact between the wine (or cider) and the
lees in the bottle after secondary fermentation has taken place.
I charge my Champagne bottles with a healthy dosage of sugar or simple syrup
at bottling, but never have tried to freeze and disgorge the lees in a
traditional methode champenoise. My theory is that leaving the lees in the
bottle should encourage autolysis. But the process can take several years in
Champagne, and I never have 5-year-old cider hanging around. Starting with
the 2000 cider, I'll set aside a few bottles to see if, over time: 1) the
cider becomes more "Champagne-like" after that time; and 2) whether the
cider holds up otherwise in extended storage. As I've said in this forum
before, my cider base is quite acidic, so the finished cider tends to store
well, and mellows a lot over time.
------------------------------
Subject: Cider Workshop
From: "Vintage Virginia Apples LLC" <fruit@vintagevirginiaapples.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 06:49:13 -0500
My family started planting old, unusual and hard to find apple varieties a
few years ago on our central Virginia farm and as these trees have started
to bear, we have become very interested in developing well crafted blends of
sweet and hard cider. What started as a small hobby orchard now has some 700
apple trees and over 200 varieties. We hope to determine what grows
especially well here and in an era of decreasing budgets for this kind of
experimentation in academic and commercial venues, it is intriguing to think
the results of our interests may be helpful in not only preserving heirloom
varieties, but helping identify newer varieties that do not deserve to be
overlooked. With a careful and low spray program, we are obviously going
to have a lot of less than perfect fruit and cider is the perfect outlet for
this, we think. This interest has led us to organize workshops to share the
information from which we are benefiting and we are sponsoring one on cider
making December 1st, featuring a session on apple cultivar selection for
cider, the science and mechanics of making cider and tasting some renowned
ciders such as the French ones available here. This will also be a forum
for those attending to share their experiences and perhaps some of their
ciders, should they care to do so. Registration is $10. The meeting will
be from 9 a.m. to noon, December 1, 2001 at Rural Ridge Farm, North Garden
Virginia. For more information, see www.vintagevirginiaapples.com
I do think there are numbers of people in this area who may be interested in
this sort of meeting and we hope to offer something like this annually.
Thank you for your interest and keep up the good work.
Best regards,
Charlotte Shelton
Vintage Virginia Apples, LLC
P. O. Box 210
North Garden, Virginia 22959
434.297.2326
www.vintagevirginiaapples.com
------------------------------
Subject: sulfite
From: Bob and Winnie <natvwine@cut.net>
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 09:26:20 -0700
> Claude, did you not add sulfite at any time? if so, do you do this often?
>
Bob, Z4 Utah
> Subject: Aged cider
> From: Claude Jolicoeur
> Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 16:49:45 -0500
>
> As a follow-up to a discussion on this list a little while ago, I found
> last week a cider bottle that had remained from a batch I had done in 1990.
> This cider was done with a mixture of early/mid-season apples like
> McIntosh, Duchesse, Melba, and some crabs. Pressing was done by end of
> September 1990, and the cider started fermentation by itself, without any
> added yeast. I didn't add any sulfite either.
>
------------------------------
Subject: modifying a screw press to bladder
From: rcd@talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 10:27:30 -0700 (MST)
It was a miserable year for apples in our area, but the fall weather has
been beautiful. I bought a small amount of good commercial apples to
press, just to keep my hand in. I've got a small screw/basket type press
(Happy Valley Ranch; you may have seen their ads; this is _not_ an
endorsement).
A friend of mine, Dave Shenk, had been bugging me to try out an idea he had
for improving the pressing. Dave is clever with mechanical stuff, a
tinkerer, and a hopeless auction addict. He showed up, I got the press set
up, apples ground and ready to press. He brought out an air compressor and
set it up on the lawn near the press. Then he brought out his prize find:
a pneumatic bladder from a truck suspension. It looks a bit like a tire:
two metal plates with a rubber bladder, cross-section like this:
______
( )
(______)
I've put a few pictures at www.talisman.com/cider/bladder.html; that will
make it clearer than I can ever hope to explain it in words.
There's a fitting for the air hose in the top metal plate. The bladder
is just about 12" diameter. We threw a towel over it, because it was not
quite (!) food-grade clean. The bladder with the towel fit snugly inside
the press basket. We left the press plate in, with the bladder on top of
it. We brought the press screw down just snug against the top plate of
the bladder, to give the bladder something to push against, and connected
the air hose. We brought the pressure up as slowly as we could, paused a
bit for the first heavy run of juice, then brought it up again to higher
pressure (ultimately about 60 psi).
I got the best yield out of the press that I've gotten to date. I stopped
at 60 psi because I was concerned about the press basket and other hardware,
not because I was concerned about the bladder. (A few years ago I managed
to snap the weld on one of the bands on the press basket just by normal
screw pressure. The welds were poor quality.) The whole process was one
of those happy events where Everything Just Worked.
I described this impromptu modification to Andrew Lea, who congratulated us
on re-inventing the "Willmes pneumatic bladder press".
And to be sure, there's nothing terribly clever or new about a bladder press.
What I think *was* clever was finding a cast-off truck part that just fit
the task and worked on the first try with no more modification than a clean
towel.
Nor is it the way I'd design a press from the outset...but I think the idea
of this heavy-duty suspension system pneumatic bladder might give other
folks some ideas to work out a press design, since it gives a source for
the major item (the bladder and plates) that you can't make up in a home
workshop.
Relative to a hydraulic press - the possible advantage is that if you have
a leak, you're leaking air instead of hydraulic fluid. This might be a
concern with a full hydraulic system using a separate pump and hoses. I
wouldn't worry about it in the smaller designs that just use a bottle jack
operated by hand with a lever. And although a hydraulic system would be
capable of much higher pressure, we had plenty of pressure.
- ---
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
...Simpler is better.
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #932
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