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Cider Digest #1035
From: cider-request@talisman.com
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Subject: Cider Digest #1035, 13 April 2003
Cider Digest #1035 13 April 2003
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
rootstocks for cider apples ("Ingels, Dr Stephen")
Re: cider and e coli (Terence L Bradshaw)
Cyser won't carbonate (Gary Kaucher)
Different Rootstocks for Honeycrisp ("Sgroppino Farms")
Old trees / new trees (Andrew Lea)
Trace nutrition (Andrew Lea)
Re: Dereks comments on E-coli ("squeeze")
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Subject: rootstocks for cider apples
From: "Ingels, Dr Stephen" <SIngels@nrh-ok.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 17:36:18 -0500
On the topic of growing cider apples, I recently saw an online fruit
tree catalog (Buckingham Nurseries, UK) that mentioned supplying cider
varieties on "semivigorous" root stocks:
"Maiden and bush apple trees are mostly on M26 or MM106, semi-dwarfing
stocks. Half standards are mainly on M26, MM106 or MM111 and full
standards are on a vigorous rootstock. Cider apples are on a
semi-vigorous stock."
I'm not familiar with the term semi-vigorous in the context of a root
stock. How is that related to semi-dwarf, and what is it supposed to do
for cider apples?
Steve Ingels
------------------------------
Subject: Re: cider and e coli
From: Terence L Bradshaw <madshaw@innevi.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 20:04:53 -0400
At 09:07 AM 4/9/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>Have there been any studies completed to show that droppings of
>sheep and deer are possible sources of infection?
Yes, extensive ones. Birds are included also. That said, E. coli O157:H7,
the really nasty version, has scared folks recently because it doesn't act
like e. coli used to. It was once understood that this bug couldn't live
in the acidic environment of apple juice, but this new strain and some
others appear to be more acid tolerant. A theory exists that this strain
evolved in the more acid environment of a feedlot cow's rumen, as opposed
to pastured or wild critters. Maybe, maybe not, but you wouldn't bet a
HACCP plan on it. Healthy immune systems can handle the bug, but that's
not a reason to eat sh*t, literally. People today, with their white bread
lifestyle, are not exposed to low levels of toxins, and therefore may be
more susceptible to infection should one take hold. I however grew up on a
farm, and I certainly didn't bleach my hands before taking a swig off a
Pepsi, the drink of choice in the barn. Am I immune to food borne
illnesses? Certainly not, but I feel pretty safe personally as long as I
use common sense I use drops in my cider, I drink some fresh off the press,
but if I had kids, or grandma was coming over, would I serve it to them? I
don't know. If I were in business would I try to do things the
"traditional" way? Certainly not.
Sorry for the digression.
> All the evidence I have heard of so far indicates that there is no
>problem with cider because the process of fermentation kills off e coli . A
>good thing , considering the thousands of liters of cider made from apples
>which have dropped on cow pastures .
Yes, it does, and here's a link to a study that shows it:
http://www2.innevi.com/~madshaw/fermXecoli.doc
Terence Bradshaw
1189 Wheeler Road
Calais, VT 05648
madshaw@innevi.com
(802)229-2004
The views represented by me are mine and mine only................
------------------------------
Subject: Cyser won't carbonate
From: Gary Kaucher <gkaucher@ptd.net>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 02:02:02 -0400
My daughter is getting married on May 17, 2003 and I was hoping to provide
bottles of Cyser "Champagne" as party favors for the guests to take home
with them. I did this for her twin sister when she got married last year,
and it seemed to work out OK. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the
bottles to carbonate this time. I was wondering if someone might be able to
give some suggestions.
Here is the recipe and procedure:
2 baskets Ida Red
2 " Pears
1 " MacIntosh
1 " Staymen Winesap
1 " Fuji
1 " Mixture from my orchard
Crushed apples sprayed with pectic enzyme, ascorbic acid, and metabisulfite
solution while crushing. This yielded about 15 gallons of juice with a
natural specific gravity of 1.060. It was a dry summer! I then added about
7 lb. of wildflower honey and 1 lb. of light brown sugar. This raised the
specific gravity to 1.074.
Starting Gravity 1.074
11/14/02 - Pitched 4 packages of Pasteur Champagne yeast
11/21/02 - Specific gravity down to 1.032
- Added about 3 quarts of cranberry juice (no sugar added) made from
4 - - 12 oz. bags of cranberries (boiled in water).
- Added 4 lbs. dark brown sugar
- Added 12 - 11.5 oz. cans of Ocean Spray Liquid Concentrate
Cranberry Juice Cocktail
- These additions raised the specific gravity .010 to 1.042. So one
could say that the "adjusted" starting specific gravity is 1.074 +
.010 = 1.084 (Potential alcohol: 11.5%)
11/23/02 - Specific gravity down to 1.025
11/24/02 - Specific gravity down to 1.017
- Transferred to secondary fermenter
12/20/02 - Racked off lees
1/26/03 - Specific gravity down to .998
- Racked off lees and added 72 oz. cane sugar to 15.5 gallons cyser
raising specific gravity from .998 to 1.009
- Bottled at 1.009. DID NOT ADD ANY YEAST.
- Stored bottles at 64 degrees Fahrenheit
3/9/03 - Tested bottle -tastes great, kind of sweet, but no carbonation!
- Moved bottles to parent's house at 71 degrees Fahrenheit
4/9/03 - Tested bottle -tastes great, kind of sweet, but no carbonation!
I have had success with batches like this in the past, so I'm a little
surprised that there is no carbonation at this point. I regret not adding
yeast when I bottled, but I seem to remember getting away with this before.
This is the first time that I used pears and some natural cranberry. Also,
I was wondering if the honey might be affecting the acidity, or if I may
have depleted the nitrogen. Should I store the bottles at a higher
temperature somehow? Would this "wake up" the yeasts? Any suggestions welcome.
Gary Kaucher
Riegelsville, Pennsylvania
US
------------------------------
Subject: Different Rootstocks for Honeycrisp
From: "Sgroppino Farms" <sgroppino@sgroppino.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 02:58:15 -0400
Hey folks. . .
I'm curious what people's experiences have been growing Honeycrisp on a
wide variety of rootstocks. Many of the postings I've read on
Honeycrisp seem to be addressing the fragile graft union problems when
grafting it onto Bud 9 or M26 or another dwarfing stock. I'm going to
be growing a number of Honeycrisp on Antanovka, Bud 118, Bud 490 and on
a Bud 9/111 Interstem and would very much like to hear what kind of
successes (or problems) people have had with Honeycrisp on these other
rootstocks. How long will I need to stake the Bud 9/111 Interstem
before the tree will no longer require staking? Will Honeycrisp on Bud
118 or Antanovka have me old and gray (I'm 39) before I see my first
good crop? What kind of yields can I expect on mature Honeycrisp trees
using these rootstocks?
Any/all advice greatly appreciated.
John
* * * * *
John A Gasbarre
Sgroppino Farms
Vinalhaven Island, Maine
sgroppino@sgroppino.com
USDA Zone 5
------------------------------
Subject: Old trees / new trees
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 18:46:34 +0100
Victor Fluke wrote:
>My question is: does the age of the tree affect
> the amount of tannins in the fruit and the cider which is made? Studies
> have shown that grapes of young vines are lower in tannins. The older the
> vine, the more tannins "reserves" the vine has built up. This results in
> more tannic grapes and a longer ageing more well-rounded wine. Maybe the
> same tannin situation occurs in apple trees, which is why some makers shun
> younger trees and fruit from "bush" trees.
and Jack wrote:
> It
> can take a newly planted apple tree up to six years to settle down and
> lose its juvenile tendencies and produce fruit representative of the
> variety. For a tree on dwarfing root stock the time is much less than for
> a tree on a seedling root. My observations are that once the tree has
> settled down there are no differences in the fruit from a young tree
> compared to there fruit from an old tree, providing the old tree is
> healthy, properly pruned and fertilized.
It seems with cider there's lots of _anecdotal_ evidence that juices
from big old standard trees ferment more slowly and produce a higher
quality cider than those from bush trees. Problem is, none of these data
are from properly controlled studies. I do not know of any data which
truly compares like with like on this issue, nor can I imagine anyone
will ever obtain it!
I'm sure that what Jack says is generally true, certainly for dessert
apple growing. So my suspicion remains that it's all about nutrient
status. The big old trees in traditional cider orchards were kept so
deficient in nutrients compared to modern orchards (whether bush or
standard), that the tannins and other flavour precursors went up, the
fermentation went much more slowly, and those factors were the main
determinants of cider quality. Tree age in itself is not necessarily the
issue. So far as wine grapes are concerned, my understanding is that the
nutrient input is kept to an absolute minimum once the vines are
established (am I right?). So again, we'd be looking at the effect of
nutrient status rather than any genuine effect of vine age?
Andrew Lea
- ---------------------------------
Visit the Wittenham Hill Cider Page at
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Trace nutrition
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 17:56:09 +0100
Terry B wrote:
> I'm just saying that my
> conditioning of late has led me to eschew any practices outside of a HACCP
> plan, at least publicly.
>
Well far be it from me to speak against HACCP either! It would be more
than my professional life is worth!! Fortunately the risk element in
fermented cider is much less than in sweet cider, since it has been
shown many times that pathogens do not survive the fermentation step.
That said, it is obviously poor practice to take any fruit to the mill
which has not been harvested as cleanly as possible and washed before
processing.
> My question relates more
> to the other elements, particularly boron and calcium, both of which
> directly affect fruit quality. I spray both foliarly every year, but if
> the cider apples are not to be stored, are these materials important, so
> long as they do not limit the growth of the tree?
>
I'm no expert on trace nutrition, but so far as I know calcium is not an
issue with cider fruit. If bitter pit is the main calcium-related
disorder then I don't think this matters for cider. Regular liming, if
soil pH is low, seems to cover calcium requirements. Boron does seem to
be relevant though. Liz Copas (orchard advisor to the UK National
Association of Cidermakers) recommends correction of boron deficiency
with foliar sprays (in her book Growing Cider Apples which was published
by the NACM last year). She gives "small, corky and cracked fruits" as
deficiency symptoms - also provocation of bare wood in young trees.
Other important elements quoted by Liz are magnesium, iron and
manganese.
There is a compound top dressing available in the UK called Vitax Q4
which covers all these. Our experimental people at Long Ashton used to
use this for growing trees in pots. Now I understand there have been
some very successful NACM trials of a seaweed extract called Maxicrop
for foliar feeding. This material also has some inhibitory effect
against scab and mildew (which are the two main scourges of commercial
cider growers in the UK)
Andrew Lea
- ----------------------------------
Visit the Wittenham Hill Cider Page at
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Dereks comments on E-coli
From: "squeeze" <squeeze@mars.ark.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 16:32:35 -0700
Just to be clear where this comes from, I have operated a small scale apple
juicing plant for 20 years on Vancouver Island, BC, in compliance w/ the
prevailing food processing laws, and have never had a problem w/
contaminated apple juice, nor has any other producer in Canada.
It's the case for starters, that the bacteria of real concern is E-coli
O157:H7, which is the virulent strain of the pervasive critter that
originates in the domestic cow and no place else. This bacteria is not
airborne. The primary occurance of this microbe is in meat products, NOT
apple products, as there are virtually no commercial apple orchards that
allow any kind of animals - domestic or wild - to leave their natural
fertilizer offerings under the trees, and in fact in N.America it's
actually against the law to use "grounders" in commercial apple juice.
The only possibility of being affected by O157 contamination of apples is
if those apples come in contact w/ cow droppings - ie: direct
contamination, like you use apples that have fallen on a cow patty - with
the resulting apple product not being pasteurized. There have been a very
few cases of this somehow happening - the prominent one being the case of
the Calif outfit about 1997 who shipped contaminated unpasteurized juice to
about 5 western states and 2 CDN provinces. How that juice got
contaminated was never determined, tho of course it was blamed on some
unnamed orchardists. In other cases where O157 has been found in apple
products [all "non-commercial"], it was shown that the apple "processing"
had taken place in a kitchen where raw meat [specifically hamburger] was
being handled by the same people on the same counter, or in barns where
cows were kept.
While E-coli is the normal gut bacteria of virtually every warm blooded
thing - including you and me - the strain of bacteria found in sheep and
deer, etc has _not_ been shown to be a problem, and at any rate, most
E-coli would do no more than cause a mild "case of the runs", not the
violent, dehydrating illness that O157 produces, w/ the possibility of
death in some cases.
Common "folk wisdom" holds that fermentation kills any dangerous disease
causing organisms, but don't try to convince the food and health inspection
folks of that. My belief is that the higer acid levels of most cider
varieties and "heritage" type apples [which is what I primarily use] is
actually what protects against most contamination, but the modern dessert
varieties are very low acid, and don't inhibit bacterial growth at all.
It's interesting to note that E-coli is commonly used in production labs as
the "vector" to do genetic modifications, particularly that required in
producing vaccines, such as are commonly injected into domestic cattle.
Note also that O157:H7 suddenly appeared right around the world in a short
period about 12 or 15 years ago. Hope this shed some light on the question
for those of you who can help debunk the BS that apple juice is dangerous -
make sure you cook your meat well!!
And maybe we can talk about Patulin another time - it's the only real
problem in apple products, and the gov't folks don't want to talk much
about it. :-)
Bill <http://mars.ark.com/~squeeze/>
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1035
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