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Cider Digest #1069
From: cider-request@talisman.com
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Subject: Cider Digest #1069, 24 August 2003
Cider Digest #1069 24 August 2003
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
misconceptions and progress (Dick Dunn)
Disgorging 401 ("McGonegal, Charles")
Cider Stability/Aging (Robert Sandefer)
Fermented Beverage Production (Andrew Lea)
press preparation ("Ben Rodman")
Re: Where to buy apples or juice in Northern California? ("Pat Maloney")
How I Got My Cider Orchard (mkiley)
Mike Thomas (CD#1068) (Ross McKay)
RE: Northern CA Juice ("David Dodge")
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Subject: misconceptions and progress
From: rcd@talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 11:03:19 -0600 (MDT)
Benjamin Watson <bwatson@monad.net> wrote:
>...Finally, thanks as always to Andrew for setting me straight on
> Brettanomyces vs. lactobacilli. I often rip off replies on this list
> before checking my facts -- whether I know what I'm talking about or
> not. It's good to have a chemist on hand to keep us honest.
Ben, you're hardly the only one who has misunderstood this!
It has been a widespread belief that the "farmyard" character in cider
comes from a slight Brett infection. Nor is it an unreasonable idea, and
if one is coming from a wine-making perspective it makes perfect sense...
it's just that cider is apparently different.
I'm sure that corrections like this can be frustrating or even embarrassing
to a writer like Ben, but it's not as if he can research and verify every
piece of information starting from first principles. It's necessary, in
order to get anything done, to accept some amount of "common knowledge".
And that's bound to go wrong once in a while. Brett _vs_ Lacto is one
such, and a while back there was the matter of long-time widespread misuse
of "vintage".
But that's not a bad thing. On the contrary, I find it encouraging that
we're uncovering past mistakes in our understanding and even developing a
bit of new knowledge. It means something's happening; it's a sign that our
craft is alive.
Dick
------------------------------
Subject: Disgorging 401
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 13:56:34 -0500
Note: _NOT_ a 100 level course! Cider bottles at high pressure are bombs.
My wife and I can show you the scars. Assume that I'm putting in whole
bunchs of disclaimers and caveats into this space warning the intrepid
disgorger that injuries are their own blinking problem.
1) Start with riddled, bottle fermented cider. We run 5-6 atmospheres
pressure in heavy champagne glass. It amounts to 20g/L or more at bottling.
Bottle with crown caps. Bidules under the crowns help - but aren't
necessary. Riddling can be really easy - put the bottles upside down in
their cases on the basement floor (or whereever). A couple of times a day,
as you walk by, lift up a flap of each case so the bottom of the case comes
about an inch off the floor. Drop it. Repeat as often as practical. In a
week or so, the bottles will be clear again - all the sediment in the necks.
2) Chill the riddled bottles - 45-55F is fine.
3) Prepare dosage and equipment to add dosage and topup wine. I use a 50
brix sugar in still cider dosage, and still cider topup. You will need a
nice _heavy_ churchkey bottle opener.
4) Don safety gear. I suggest smock/lab coat, eyeglasses with sideshields,
kevlar gloves.
5) A la vollee disgorging - dexter. Pick up a riddled bottle, keeping the
neck down. Grasp it by the neck with your left hand, resting the weight of
the bottle on your forearm. Take the churchkey in your right hand and
position it on the crown cap, ready to remove it, with the handle, and your
hand above the bottle. Tilt your left arm in a smooth motion. The gas
bubble in the bottom (remember, it's upside down) will slide along the side
of the bottle, towards the cap. When it reaches the cap, all the yeast will
run back into the bottle. So when the bubble is about 3/4 of the way up the
next, give that push on the churchkey handle and pop the cap. Don't
interrupt the upward swing of the bottle while you do that. The cap and
bidule will rocket away. A small amount of cider sprays sideways and back.
You need to do this into a wall, or outside, away from victims. The whole
motion takes about one second.
If you pop too soon, you will loose a lot of cider. If you pop too late,
some of the yeast will escape the disgorging. You will probably loose about
an ounce if your technique is good. Sinister folks should switch hands.
6) Dosage and top-up, I will leave as an exercise to the student to figure
out how to do. A syringe for each, maybe? Remember, the cider will foam a
bit when you add solutions to it.
7) Close the bottle - crown cap ot champagne cork.
At least one bottle should be left upcapped, for enjoyment whilst you
disgorge the rest.
------------------------------
Subject: Cider Stability/Aging
From: Robert Sandefer <melamor@vzavenue.net>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 17:50:09 -0400
My last cider batch was a New England-style cider (4 gallons commercial
pasteurized juice, 1.38 gallons fresh-pressed juice, 2 lbs brown sugar, 8
oz raisins, 1 oz oak chips, yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme, acid blend, and
Campden tablets) with a starting SG of 1.065. After 24 hours, I pitched a
packet of Lalvin K1-V1116 yeast and left it alone for 4+ months and then
racked into a glass carboy. At racking, it had a SG of 1.002. 18 days later
(in August 2002), I racked and bottled it in 48 12-fl-oz amber beer bottles
sealed with crown caps.
Over the last month, I have noticed some bizarre tastes and aromas in this
cider. At first, the cider was just different, and I put it down to aging
effects. Then I ran into a few bottles that were mildly unpalatable (the
cider had always been sour, bone-dry, and alcoholic but it had also been
pleasant enough, clean, refreshing, and fruity). I just didn't want to
drink this "unpalatable" cider, but I discovered it seemd to vary by bottle-
- -some were "off" yet most were fine. I figured that I had gotten lazy in
sanitizing the bottles on bottling day and a few picked up something.
Unfortunately, the percentage of "off" bottles increased and the "off"ness
became more pronounced (although never very). It seemed to include a drop
in the sourness of the cider which was slightly offset by the appearance of
a vile sourness. An unpleasant bitterness also manifested, and in a few
bottles a yeasty aroma. Fortunately, I drank the last bottle a few days
ago, so the batch can't get any worse.
Note that the "off"ness was never very pronounced, and I could never detect
solvent, acetic, or sulfurous notes.
All this leads me to two sets of questions:
1. Any ideas what happened? I am generally pretty nuts about sanitation,
but anything's pssible I suppose. Could the above just have been this cider
extending past its aging potential?
2. In general, how long do the readers' ciders last? What sort of minimum
and maximum aging does everyone use for ciders?
------------------------------
Subject: Fermented Beverage Production
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 21:32:43 +0100
Dick wrote:
> This would be as good a time as any to mention that a recent revision of
> _Fermented_Beverage_Production_, edited by Andrew Lea and Jean-Francois
> Drilleau, just became available.
>
> Andrew cautioned me that this book is pretty technical (although the cider
> chapter is approachable by a person with moderate background) and that it's
> _not_ a book for the amateur...it has an awful lot to do with the industry.
>
Just a minor correction.. the book is edited by myself and John Piggot.
Drilleau co-authored the cider chapter with me, though.
More details at http://www.wkap.nl/prod/b/0-306-47706-8
It has 17 chapters viz:
Fermentable Extracts
Fermentation
Beers
Cider
White Wine
Red Wine
Sparkling Wine
Fortified Wine
Cognac
Armagnac
Whiskies
Rum
Flavoured Spirits
Speciality products
Tequila, Cachaca, Pisco
Filtration
Flavour Chemistry
And just to re-iterate - it's for industry professionals, and assumes
graduate-level technical knowledge of the business. It's not a DIY
manual!
Andrew
- ----------------------------------
Visit the Wittenham Hill Cider Page at
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: press preparation
From: "Ben Rodman" <brew-cat@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 19:18:29 -0600
Greetings group,
I'm looking for resources/advice on treating the staves on a new press.
The manufacturer naturally has an incredibly expensive "flexible" epoxy
that is, by his report, the cat's meow; I've also heard that mineral oil,
other epoxys, and nothing at all work OK. The press will be used for varied
fruits and see frequent and vigorous use as a rental in our shop. Can
anyone steer me to enlightenment on various treatment options?
Ben Rodman
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Where to buy apples or juice in Northern California?
From: "Pat Maloney" <pmaloney@callatg.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 18:52:43 -0700
David,
I've purchased Kingston Blacks and other antique apples at Walker Apples on
Upp Road, off Graton Road, just outside Graton in Sebastopol. I'm not sure
if they have any "cider" apples, per se, but they have over 20 different
varieties of apples, including the Gravenstein, the signature apple of the
North Coast. You could always call and find out if they have a particular
variety you are looking for. Walker Apples is open every day from 8 a.m. to
6 p.m. through November. (707) 823-4310. You can go there and sample any of
the apples they have available at the moment. Big fun and nice people. Be
sure to pet the dog.
A quick web search also shows the following: "In Mendocino County, you'll
find antique apples such as Northern Spy and Spitzenberg at Gowan's Oak
Tree, 6600 Highway 128, Philo. (707) 895-3353."
Good luck!
Pat Maloney
------------------------------
Subject: How I Got My Cider Orchard
From: mkiley <mkiley@gwi.net>
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 07:28:08 -0400
I've wanted to tell this story for a while but time has been scant. As
always it's long, sorry.
Last September I married a cider loving gal. We met ten years ago when she
came to a party I had with two meads on tap and a hundred champagne bottles
of sparkling cyser and she said to herself, I want this guy.
Instead of registering for silver and china, a process repugnant to us both,
we registered for antique varieties of apple trees with Cummins Nursery in
upstate New York. Jim Cummins seemed a little bemused with the idea but
went along with it and was wonderful, dealing with insistant relatives and
eccentric friends ( one New Yorker wanted him to dig up an adult tree and
ship it here ) equally well. In the end we had a pot of money enough for
260 trees and after sorting out what varieties we wanted and they had over
the last winter we went out to Ithaca on June 1st, my birthday, and picked
them up.
It was late for planting trees in the north but with the latest spring on
record here I couldn't bring my bees up to the blueberry fields till the
20th of May and it was the way it had to be. Fortunately for us the cold,
late spring-like weather continued for three weeks and the trees settled in
well. I rented an eighteen inch earth auger for the front of my Bobcat and
we got the trees in in two days. I mulched with two inches of raw bark
mulch from a local saw mill and laid out Ram drip irrigation on top of the
mulch. At the recommendation of an orchardist I bought the Ram tubing with
emitters every two feet and in the next eleven weeks of rainless heat it
made all the difference for our little trees.
We got two dozen varieties on five different root stocks and have only lost
two trees so far. Deer are going to be a problem and I'm struggling with
the options. Any suggestions on the most cost effective way to keep them
out would be appreciated. Electric fencing would seem the best way except
that I'm in Georgia for the whole winter and would be unable to keep an eye
on it. Thus I need a passive system. Just the posts are going to cost as
much as the mulch and irrigation combined. Eliot Coleman suggests fine
landscape netting, saying that it is the cheapest way to keep out deer, does
any one know anything about this?
In the meantime the wild apples here look like a normal, if not record, crop
and good hot weather, adequate water and sun promise good cider. In recent
years the press I use has been getting less and less use and if there are
any cider makers in mid-coast Maine that want to get in on our pressing day
let me know. It is old and creaky but we can do 100 gallons an hour pretty
easily with enough hands. Usually we press on the last weekend of October.
The Cider Digest has been a terrific resource for me and I offer my
heartfelt thanks to all for the knowledge and fellowship.
Michael Kiley
- --
Gourmet honey direct from the beekeeper....<http://www.beeherenow.com>
------------------------------
Subject: Mike Thomas (CD#1068)
From: Ross McKay <rosko@zeta.org.au>
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2003 10:07:20 +1000
G'day,
Mike Thomas wrote:
>Ross McKay was interested in pear juice yields. The company I work for
>use a 5 tonne Bucher-Guyer press and we get a yield of around 820
>litres per tonne.
Wow! I suspected that I was tossing out a lot of juice with the pulp!
(Recall, I got about 630ml/kg from my juice extractor - equates to
630L/tonne). So with a commercial press, you are getting a whopping 30%
more juice than my humble Breville! That's quite a lot of juice I'm
throwing away :(
OK, so how about home-made presses, or basket presses? Can anyone give
an estimate on their efficiency?
Don't worry, I'm not about to throw away my juice extractor, but maybe I
need to start thinking about a press - I just tossed over 6L of pear
juice which could be fermenting now :)
>We make cider with concentrate made from bittersweet varieties sourced
>from France or New Zealand and this is purely to allow a consistent
>quality product year-round and because there are not a lot of areas in
>Australia where it is economically feasible to grow cider apples. We
>also bottle pasteurise our products but mainly to avoid in-bottle
>fermentation/spoilage and consequent exploding bottles. If you don't
>carefully control the heating and cooling you can end up with some
>really awful flavours.
Mike, it sounds like you are making some real cider over there - would
you mind telling me the brand so that I can chase it down somehow? Over
here on the east coast (near Newcastle) I'm lucky if I can find anything
other than Strongbow, which as you no doubt know is made much as Aussie
megalager is made - with lots of cane sugar. (Please reply off-list if
you'd rather not publicise...)
cheers,
Ross.
- --
Ross McKay, WebAware Pty Ltd
"Since when were you so generously inarticulate?" - Elvis Costello
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Northern CA Juice
From: "David Dodge" <daviddodge@comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2003 00:58:03 -0500
For fresh pressed juice in Northern CA try the Apple Hill orchards just
north of Placerville. There are about 50 apple orchards in the area with
about 5-10 pressing juice. You can research the different sources at
www.applehill.com. My favorite source was Boa Vista Orchards, a bit of a
tourist trap but they had good juice that I believe was unpasteurized.
I have since moved to Texas where there is only one orchard that I've heard
of and it's somewhat of a commercial experiment (little hot here). Actually
I'm trying a little experiment of my own with my first four backyard trees.
Sadly I just drank the last bottle of the last batch I made from Boa Vista
juice 3 years ago and I can understand the sentiment of "openly weeping"
from a previous posting. I'm thinking of making a road trip... :)
David Dodge
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1069
*************************
