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Cider Digest #1048
From: cider-request@talisman.com
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Subject: Cider Digest #1048, 14 June 2003
Cider Digest #1048 14 June 2003
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: Cider Digest #1047, 11 June 2003 ("Bill Rhyne")
"industrial cider" (Dick Dunn)
Re: How did your fall batches turn out? (Scott Smith)
Re: Cider Digest #1047, 11 June 2003 ("Gary Awdey")
interstate shipping laws (Jack Eggleston)
More on containers (Jason MacArthur)
judging and conflict-of-interest (Dick Dunn)
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Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1047, 11 June 2003
From: "Bill Rhyne" <rhyne@wli.net>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 16:14:17 -0700
Re: Cider competitions, etc.
Has anyone had any experience in entering in the East Coast International
Wine Competition? It is held in New York and the Awards ceremony is on the
weekend of June 21 in Corning. Rhyne Cyder entered this year but we have not
heard anything. They have a cider category so we thought we would try it.
The competition is put on by Vine and Winery Management trade magazine. We
tried the West Coast competition in other years but we did not receive any
feedback as the wine industry is the main show, not ciders.
Several years ago, we were invited to send a case of our cider and we did
to the International Cider Exposition in Rennes, France. They had examples
from all over the world we were told.
Anyway, these are a few leads for cider showcases.
Aloha,
Bill Rhyne
------------------------------
Subject: "industrial cider"
From: rcd@talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 17:07:03 -0600 (MDT)
"McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com> wrote, in the last CD,
> ...'industrial cider' (to steal DD's phrase)...
Not my phrase, although I like it as a description for the mass-market
bad ciders. I probably picked it up from usage on the ukcider list.
Dick
------------------------------
Subject: Re: How did your fall batches turn out?
From: Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 22:09:02 -0400
Here are a couple replies to Tim's comments about my cider (thanks Tim
for the comments and the description of your batches which I found very
interesting). Hopefully some more people can eventually contribute how
their ciders went.
One thing I should have said in describing my cider batches is my goal.
My favorite cider is the Norman cider and so my general goal is to
make something like that. But I will be happy with anything that
tastes good. My apple supply now is just the common apples from local
orchards, it will be a few years before I have any crop of my own to
speak of.
>> Batch 1
>> was with some store apple juice and the Wyeast cider yeast, for an
>> experiment. It lacked acidity and sugars so I amended to bring it up
>> to 1.065 sugar and 3.8 pH. But, it tasted quite acidic.
>
> I'm confused - it lacked acidity, based on what? Taste, or litmus
> paper? Seems like it was a mistake to lower the pH. What was the gravity
> before amendment?
The initial juice clearly lacked acidity; the problem was that I relied
on the pH paper and ended up over-correcting. Since it was my first
batch of cider I was thinking it tasted quite acidic by the time I was
done correcting, but thought "those European cider apples must really
be sour!" Live and learn. The gravity was quite low, 1.045 or
thereabouts when I started.
>> and was racked and 50ppm SO2 added at 1.016 gravity.
>
> Was that done to stop fermentation? Did it work?
>
Right, and it worked. For batches 2 and 3 below, I used no SO2, I just
racked to stop. I had racked each batch toward the end, i.e. I used
the two-racking combination to slow and then stop fermentation. Those
batches both successfully stopped with the final racking. I ended up
stopping them at different final sugar values, based on my
(in)attentiveness to how the fermentation was proceeding.
>> I measured the pH with a narrow-range pH paper
>
> I'm giving up on litmus paper altogether. I don't know why, but it just
> doesn't seem to work very well in cider. I will have to cough up the bucks
> and get a pH meter.
>
I agree. My digital pH meter just arrived in the mail today, we'll see
if its any better.
> But taste seems affected more by titratable acidity than pH, anyway.
>
Also agreed, and I am planning on titrating before doing any acid
additions this coming fall. Also I have a better taste sense now, and
can hopefully rely on that more.
>
>> Batch 3
>> Similar to 2, but I goofed and accidentally re-added part of the
>> siphoned bit when I did the freeze/thaw. So I only got to 1.065.
>
> I'm curious - why the emphasis on raising the gravity?
>
I don't have the luxury of European cider apples (or even the best US
ones) so I want to concentrate the juice to get more flavor. The
biggest negative I have found in ciders is lack of flavor of any kind
(other than sweet/tart). Even the better US artisinal ciders made from
European cider apples I find lacking in flavor compared to a good
Norman cider. By far the best cider I made was the one I concentrated
to 1.080 by freezing, batch 2. It tastes nothing like a Norman cider,
more like a wine, but it has lots of interesting and pleasant flavors.
The only significant flaw it has is too much acidity, again from my
faulty acidity corrections.
Cheers,
Scott
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1047, 11 June 2003
From: "Gary Awdey" <gawdey@att.net>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 22:50:48 -0400
In Cider Digest #1047 Roy Bailey writes:
>However, the perceived taste of cider in the minds of most drinkers is of
>the West Country type, and judges at competitions tend to come from the West
>of England or to have their palates attuned only to West Country cider.
>Consequently, ciders from other parts of England stand little or no chance
>of winning at competitions. This is not sour grapes on my part - it is a fact.
>
>Indeed, as far as I am aware, all the cider competitions are held in the
>West of England, and attract very few entries from the producers in the
>east.
It's probably not reasonable to expect established cider traditions to bend
and merge. It sounds like there's an opportunity to organize a new cider
competition with judges selected to represent the Eastern Counties (East
Country?) tradition Roy mentions. I suspect there'd be no shortage of
ciders from North America if such a competition happened to be open to
international entries, since dessert fruit and cookers are widely available
to cidermakers. Eastern County ciders might also find judges in potential
North American competitions to be less influenced by tradition than by a
personal perception of what they find to be enjoyable.
According to Wallace & Marsh's SCIENCE AND FRUIT (Commemorating the Jubilee
of the Long Ashton Research Station 1903 - 1953) the earliest cider
competitions were organized by farmers who wanted to distinguish their
farmhouse ciders from others and get a better price for them. Here's an
interesting passage from the same:
"Neverthless the general distribution of cider throughout the country at the
time [circa 1906] was very limited, and in many districts the genuine
article was almost unknown and unobtainable. In some cases the so-called
cider offered for sale was a synthetic, carbonated, sweetened and
artifically-flavored concoction, entirely devoid of apple juice. The demand
for it became sufficiently extensive to arouse the makers of genuine cider
to appeal successfully to the Board of Agriculture to take steps against the
misuse of the name. Before effective prosecutions could be brought it was
necessary to prove a complete absence of apple juice or cider in the
synthetic product, and it was then found that no adequate test existed. The
task of devising a convincing test was referred to the newly-established
Cider Institute, and one of its earliest achievements was the discovery of a
test adequate to serve the needs of the Government Chemist. Convictions
were secured in due course and as a result it became illegal to designate as
'cider' any drink not derived from apple juice as a basis."
Alco-pop (and it's popularity with consumers unfamiliar with the real thing)
seems to have a longer history than most of us realize!
Gary Awdey
Eden, NY
------------------------------
Subject: interstate shipping laws
From: Jack Eggleston <jackegg4@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 06:03:10 -0700 (PDT)
An organization called "Free the Grapes" has a website
giving lots of information on alcohol shipping laws.
They obviously focus on wine, not cider, but I think
the same laws generally apply.
According to their website, 27 states still prohibit
interstate sale of alcoholic beverages. The West
coast states and a bunch of mid-western states have
reciprocity to allow shipping back and forth. Most
Northeastern states prohibit interstate shipping.
A map that shows the legal status of states can be
found at
http://www.freethegrapes.org/wine_lovers.html#laws
Virginia has had some recent (2003) judicial decisions
that should soon open up the state for alcohol
shipments. The 3-tiered legal system set up after
prohibition and still in place today to frustrate our
cider desires has been successfully challenged in some
cases under the constitutional right of the federal
government to have sole control over interstate trade.
But the constitutional amendment that repealed
prohibition gave states the right to control alcohol
trade.
I would be interested to hear from any commercial
cider producers how the trade restrictions have
affected their business.
Jack Eggleston
=====
Jack Eggleston
617-739-9842
jackegg4@yahoo.com
======================
------------------------------
Subject: More on containers
From: Jason MacArthur <rotread@localnet.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 12:56:49 -0400
In the recent discussion re: containers for cider making, I think
the subject of oxidation has gotten short thrift. What both plastic
and oak do is breath, which allows oxygen into contact with the cider,
affecting the cider in a variety of ways. I don't have much experience
with this, but it seems an important characteristic which stainless
steel containers don't share. What thoughts do cider makers have on
the effects, both positive and negative, of oxidation during and after
fermentation?
------------------------------
Subject: judging and conflict-of-interest
From: rcd@talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 17:48:45 -0600 (MDT)
Let's not lose track of another issue, aside from the made-for-competition
discussion around the Hereford Cider Museum event...Andrew had asked:
>...And what about conflict-of-interest considerations for judges who are
> also consultants to the winning entrants?
I don't think it should be too hard to come up with criteria for judges
to avoid conflict of interest. But perhaps the devil is in the details
so it bears some talking-out. (A fair bit of what follows is drawn from
understanding of competitions in various domains, not just fermented
beverages where I've only been around a few competitions.) You can infer a
lot of useful rules and "what-if's" from reading the fine print on popular
contests (on soda packages, cereal boxes, etc.).
The fundamental rule is that there should not even be the appearance of
impropriety. Everything should be obviously honest and above-board. A
point to keep in mind is that this might occasionally disqualify a judge
who might by all practical considerations be perfectly acceptable. But
it's only by erring on the side of caution that you assure you won't end
up with a shady situation that makes entrants feel cheated or that casts
doubt on the value of the awards.
You need enough judges! You need some alternates--not only in case a judge
gets sick or gets stranded by the ailing travel industry, but in case an
unforseen conflict comes up.
No person should judge a cider...
* If that person made the cider or was involved in making it (or even
producing the fruit from which it was made).
* If that person worked for the cider-maker during or since the time it
was made, either as an employee or under contract.
* If that person worked in any capacity which stood to gain (personally
or employer) from the cider-maker winning the competition.
Judges should be recognized in the community; their identities and affili-
ations should be made public as part of the competition publicity. The
judges' deliberations should be off-record, but you ought to know who is
doing the judging. Hey, face it, the identity of the judges should add
credibility to the event!
(NOTE, however, that you cannot require the judges to tell you about any
contracts they're working on, in order to verify that there's no conflict
of interest! You'll have to give them the list of entries--which also
should be public--and let them determine whether they have a conflict.
The sticking point is confidentiality of business contracts.)
And what if a conflict of interest is discovered after the competition is
over and awards have been given? The competition organizers need to retain
the right to revoke awards if a conflict turns up...and they better give
themselves that right in the competition rules, to reduce the chance of
getting sued over it. Note that they wouldn't HAVE to DQ a winner if there
were a conflict; they could decide that the winner had a wide enough margin
that the conflict didn't matter.
But all of this is a lot of verbiage that's based on two ideas: you can't
have even the *appearance* of conflict of interest, and you need to
anticipate the possibilities ahead of time.
Dick
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1048
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