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Cider Digest #1042
From: cider-request@talisman.com
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Subject: Cider Digest #1042, 21 May 2003
Cider Digest #1042 21 May 2003
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
("Julian Temperley")
used wooden barrels (samuel billing)
post-fermentation sweetness ("Benjamin Watson")
New Cider Maker - Harcourt, Victoria, Australia (Peter Goddard)
Hagloe Crab (Andrew Lea)
corks (Derek Bisset)
More Thoughts on Tradition ("Richard & Susan Anderson")
Re: Oak barrels (Terence L Bradshaw)
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Subject:
From: "Julian Temperley" <somcb@globalnet.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 21:43:41 +0100
Congratulations---- almost a clean sweep for the USA at the Hereford
Cidermuseum Cider Competetion, in the UK. First for the Boston Beer Co
in the Dry , Medium and Sweet, and a near miss for the US in the
bottle fermented class. We have a serious competition in Somerset at the
Bath and West Show it would be nice to see you there next May. Julian
Temperley. Burrow Hill Cider
------------------------------
Subject: used wooden barrels
From: samuel billing <samuelfromme@yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 03:23:57 -0700 (PDT)
Jason
I have found a good source of used wooden barrels in southern Maine if
your interested in traveling that far. The number is 207-883-6378. He is
located in Scarborough, Just south of Portland. The best time to call
him is after 5 weekdays or on weekends. He also has a big selection of
metal and plastic food grade barrels.
------------------------------
Subject: post-fermentation sweetness
From: "Benjamin Watson" <bwatson@monad.net>
Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 09:18:25 -0400
J.R. Marker asked:
> I'd like to tag another question onto this, if I may be so bold. When I
> am tasting juice before fermentation, what should I be looking for to
> know that there will still be flavor after the sugar is gone? Would
> love not to have to add so much juice back after fermentation.
There's no simple answer to the tasting question. I've fermented 100% Golden
Russet juice before, and the specific gravity and sweetness at the outset is
great (even the acidity was decent). Yet, fermented out, it is relatively
one-dimensional and uninteresting -- great mouthfeel, but boring taste. (I
could have predicted that by drinking the sweet cider -- it's good, but the
rich sweetness overwhelms the other elements.) It's great for blending with
the high-acid seedling apple juice that we have, though.
My advice would be to look for a juice that sounds like what you already buy
- -- something that you like to drink, that has the depth of taste that
late-season apples like russets lend, plus a sprightliness or "brightness"
of decent acidity that many apples (like the fine Esopus Spitzenburg) confer
to the juice. If your fermented cider tastes thin and "flabby," it would
probably be good to try and get a juice pressed from some European
bittersweets or bittersharps, or from wild apples or even russets or dessert
varieties like Liberty, which have a bit more tannin in their skins.
When you say that your finished, fermented cider lacks "apple flavor," you
may well be missing that crucial balance of the three elements (sweetness,
acidity, and body) more than actual taste.
I would suggest trying an experiment with a gallon of the same juice, from
the same orchard you buy from now. If you want to avoid stopping
fermentation before it's completely finished -- which is probably the best
method for retaining residual sugar and flavor -- I would add extra sugar to
the juice to bring up its specific gravity before fermenting. Then I would
go out and buy a sweet mead yeast and use that to ferment the juice. Mead
yeast, unlike Pasteur Champagne, Epernay/Cotes des Blancs, and other common
white wine yeast strains, tends to not work well at higher alcohol levels,
and will generally leave a residual sweetness.
You might or might not like the flavor characteristics that the yeast
contributes, but if so, you're only out a gallon of juice and a packet of
yeast.
Ben Watson
------------------------------
Subject: New Cider Maker - Harcourt, Victoria, Australia
From: Peter Goddard <p.goddard@latrobe.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 10:20:36 +1000
To let Oz cider buffs know - Henry's at Harcourt in Central
Victoria has opened for business with cider & perry. They are at
219 Reservoir road. Harcourt (03)5474 2177 - open for tasting
& sales Wednesdays to Sundays. I think his current brew
(mainly Pink Lady I think) is very good - I tried it last week. They
have also planted a lot of traditional cider varieties, so we can
expect that some interesting stuff is on the way.
Peter Goddard.
------------------------------
Subject: Hagloe Crab
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 21:34:47 +0100
In reply to my enquiry:
>
> > Does anyone know of Hagloe Crab being used anywhere on either side of
> > the Atlantic? In the US, Coxe speaks of it in similar terms to the
> > Harrison, the Winesap and the Hewes Crab. I wonder how widely it was
> > actually grown?
>
Thomas Beckett wrote:
> Lee Calhoun lists the Hagloe among the extinct varieties in /Old
> Southern Apples/. That's not the end of the story necessarily, as a
> handful of such "extinct" varieties have turned up since 1995 when that
> book was published. Here's his entry:
>
> "SUMMER HAGLOE (Hagloe, Russian Hagloe): An old cooking apple of
> unknown origin first described in 1817. Tree productive but a slow
> grower with new shoots which are thick and blunt.
> "Fruit large, roundish oblate; skin pale green or whitish yellow striped
> with red, often with a thin bloom; stem short and thick in a broad open
> cavity; calyx closed; basin small and round; flesh white, rather coarse,
> tender, juicy, subacid. Ripe July-August. Catalog listings MD, VA, NC
> ((1869-1904)."
>
That is very intriguing! Hogg's description (the Fruit Manual 1884) is
as follows:
"Fruit small, 2 inches wide and the same in height; ovate , flattened and
irregularly shaped. Skin pale yellow streaked with red next the sun,
and covered with a few patches of grey russet. Eye open with flat
reflexed segments. Stalk short. Flesh soft and woolly, but not dry......
A most excellent cider apple... a dry soil with a calcareous subsoil
being considered the best adapted for producing its cider in perfection"
Well it's difficult to tell if it's the same apple or not! On the other
hand the name Hagloe is so unusual (and refers just to one tiny parish
in Gloucestershire) that it seems unlikely it would have been mistaken
for anything else. Though the Russian connection is obscure! And
certainly in the UK there's no way it would be mature by July /
August. Anyway a few specimens are still alive and kicking on its
home patch, even if no more than a curiosity
(http://www.orchard-group.uklinux.net/glos/apples/index.html). Another
(UK) correspondent has told me that the grafts take very badly, which is
a pity since I would be interested to grow it because it would suit my
soil here very well.
Many thanks for the info, Thomas.
Andrew Lea, nr Oxford, UK.
------------------------------
Subject: corks
From: Derek Bisset <derek_bisset@shaw.ca>
Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 08:56:10 -0700
The comment by Jack Feil about putting cider on the wine shelf is
worth noting I think
. For too long cider has had the image of being a cheap drink available
in large quantity . The only economical way to produce cider like that is
to use cheap ingredients and a cheap process . We aren't going to get
quality cider in the marketplace unless we are willing to pay at least jug
wine prices and give commercial cider makers a chance to produce a good
product . I have heard some commercial winemakers say that they would be
quite happy to produce a good cider in their wineries , and could , if they
would get a decent price but that they can't hope to get juice from
selected cider apples , make cider only once a year (unlike microbrew beer
which can be made anytime ) and use a wine like process , including
bottling and not go under doing it .
Cider drinkers are waiting to see good cider burst on to the North
American marketplace as good wine and microbrew beer have done . If apple
growers and commercial cider makers are going to do it we are going to have
to pay them .
------------------------------
Subject: More Thoughts on Tradition
From: "Richard & Susan Anderson" <baylonanderson@rockisland.com>
Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 11:18:50 -0700
Recent postings regarding cider definitions, brings to mind one definition
that I dislike, that being "hard cider". As many readers know, in Europe
"cider" is the juice of fermented apples. Only in North America has it been
changed to "hard cider" by lore, literature and federal law pertaining to
its manufacture. In my view, "hard cider" sounds like the kind of stuff that
happens by accident, apple juice left on a back porch; the sort of stuff the
old farmer made, good for a hang over, good for a funny story but not a
particularly good drink.
Why change? First of all, according to the New Oxford Dictionary the
definition of "cider" is fermented apple juice. All the precedents to the
word suggest that is it a fermented drink.
According to Warcollier, "hard" cider is cider which contains unacceptable
levels of acetic acid.
Do you want hard water? serve hard time? or sleep on a hard mattress?
Literally, "hard" and "cider" are a lame linguistic coupling.
It seems to me if we want to get beyond the point where the most available
ciders are a bland, sweet, carbonated drink with some apple content by
chance, there needs to be a effort to get rid of the "hard" and proclaim
"cider" as fermented apple juice, that it can be dry or sweet, that it can
be still or carbonated etc. Any ideas on this? or am I just raising the
wrath of those who believe that we should adhere to our provincial
mythology?
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Oak barrels
From: Terence L Bradshaw <madshaw@innevi.com>
Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 07:20:30 -0400
>I live in the eastern U.S. (Vermont) and I am looking for a few good
>oak barrels- preferably well used as I am not interested in the flavor
>of the oak. Do any cidermakers have any suggestions for sourcing sound
>barrels?
Check out Orchard Equipment and Supply Company: www.oescoinc.com;
1-800-634-5557
Not only do they have all the tools you need for your orcharding, but in
Conway MA, they're just about in your back yard. They have fresh, used
bourbon barrels for around $125 I recall.
Terry B
Terence Bradshaw
1189 Wheeler Road
Calais, VT 05648
madshaw@innevi.com
(802)229-2004
The views represented by me are mine and mine only................
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1042
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