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Cider Digest #0996
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Subject: Cider Digest #996, 1 October 2002
Cider Digest #996 1 October 2002
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Concentrating Cider ("Dennis Henry")
Malo-lactic and another way of acid reduction (Andrew Lea)
Pressure Fermentation Query ("Mark Ellis")
Making pear cider (Scott Conley)
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Subject: Concentrating Cider
From: "Dennis Henry" <dennis.henry@comdev.ca>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 14:45:48 -0400
Lee,
I've done this a few times to make a dessert wine. What I find works
best is to freeze the cider in a plastic container, then let it thaw at just
above the freezing point while positioned such that the syrup can drip
out into another container. You let it drip until you have clear water
coming out, then discard the rest of the ice that is left.
I've done small amounts in a large pop bottle and larger amounts using
a 5gal pail with holes drilled in the bottom that fits inside another pail.
For the latter, you need to freeze in another container and dump the ice
blocks in.
You can get sucessively higher SG by taking what you collected the
first time and freezing it again.
One other thing to be aware of is that this process will cause some
oxidation, which is fine when you are fermenting the resulting juice
(the yeast will consume the oxygen). However, sometimes I use
some as sweetener for an off-dry wine and in this case, I recommend
suphiting the juice prior to freezing to protect it. Just keep in mind
that the sulphites will be concentrated also, so you have to factor
that into the amount you use.
Dennis
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Subject: Malo-lactic and another way of acid reduction
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 19:25:58 +0100
Steve Jackson asked:
> Are
> there any visible physical manifestations of malolactic fermentation?
> For two years running I've seen some turbulent activity in my carboys of
> cider when S.G.'s were nil, and the cider otherwise almost totally at rest.
> Time of year mid or late summer.Lees is roused, and a fair amount of bubbles
> are produced.
This sounds very much like MLF to me. All the classical signs indeed.
Traditionally the cider was supposed to be working again, after its
winter chill, in sympathy with the flowering of the trees (which just
happens to co-incide with the advent of warm summer weather!).
Sometimes the cider does not become turbulent because the bacterial load
is low, but just gently fills with gas and becomes slightly fizzy.
To check it you'd need to make acidity measurements before and after, or
follow the appearance of lactic acid by TLC. (I've just put a picture of
a TLC plate on my website - go to the left hand menu bar and click on
Malo-lactic).
A couple of US visitors stopped by recently (they know who they are!)
and told me they'd been advised to use the Lalvin yeast 71B because it
would reduce the malic acid duirng primary fermentation by 20%. I was
sceptical but according to all the literatire this is certainly true for
grape wines (where malic is generally only a minor acid - except for
those of us here in chilly Northern Europe where it may be 50% of the
total acid with tartaric being the rest!). I could find no data on what
happened in apple where malic forms over 80% of the total.
As it happened I gave a lecture (on yeasts, uncannily enough) at Core
Food and Drink (Pershore College) the following week and Peter Mitchell
(the Director) mentioned that they too had been using 71B for cider. I
asked him to check his fermentation records and he found that the last
time they used it the acid dropped from 0.5 to 0.4% at the end of
fermentation.
So I now believe this to be true and it opens yet another possibility
for people with slightly acid fruit who would like to lose about
one-fifth of the acid without any chemical manipulation - use 71B and it
will do the job for you!
Andrew Lea
- ----------------------------------
Visit the Wittenham Hill Cider Page at
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Pressure Fermentation Query
From: "Mark Ellis" <mark@artisansrus.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 21:51:13 +1000
G'day All,
Was reading a bit of info regarding fermenting under pressure in
large kegs in a single fermentation to produce sparkling product.
Then racking off under pressure to empty keg and counter pressure
bottling etc to finish off with no need to secondary ferment,
riddling, disgorge and so on.
Primarily I am concerned about its application with cider and
perry, but also presents an interesting thought for white
wine/Champers styles.
Has anyone had experience with this?
Is the end result better or worse than secondary ferments in
bottle?
Is fermentation speed reduced because of pressure?
Is yeast autolysis a issue?
So many questions......
Thanks for humouring me.
Mark E. in Oz
* http://www.Artisansrus.com *
Promoting the Ancient Fermentable Arts
-> Discussion Forums
******** / \********
------------------------------
Subject: Making pear cider
From: Scott Conley <sconley@rochester.rr.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 21:41:30 -0400
Making pear cider
This past year I made hard apple cider for the first time.
It turned out so-so. Hopefully it will get better with time. This
year I would like to try making pear cider. What differences are
there between making pear cider and apple cider? What kind of yeast
should I use? My goal is to make a low alcohol content pear cider
with medium effervescence. I have found relatively little
information about how to make pear cider, the only source I saw
mentioned that one needs to add much more sulfite, but didn't say how
much. Will mixing ascorbic acid and metabisulfite work?
Concentrating cider
According to _Cider_ by Proulx and Nichols, concentrating
cider, either by distillation or the freezing method is illegal.
Despite this, there is some information about the freezing method,
and very detailed information about setting up a home still!
- --
Scott
sconley@rochester.rr.com
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End of Cider Digest #996
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