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Cider Digest #1114
Subject: Cider Digest #1114, 16 February 2004
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1114 16 February 2004
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Choosing a Press (John Ross)
Re: WSU Mt. Vernon Cider Apple Report (Tim Bray)
Subject: Quality presses? ("Dave")
Efficiencies of grinder and press. ("Robert LaBelle")
Harrison apple (Jason MacArthur)
ML in bottle ("Larry Flynn")
Re: Quality presses? (Dick Dunn)
MLF and sparkle ("McGonegal, Charles")
Re: "Quality presses" ("squeeze")
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Choosing a Press
From: John Ross <johnross@halcyon.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 18:38:18 -0800
Based on my own experience and inspecting a wide variety of presses at the
annual Steiliacoom (Washington) Apple Squeeze, the Correll press is the
clear choice.
The build quality on the Correll is far superior to the Happy Valley. And
the Correll's motorized grinder will consume fruit much faster and with
less physical labor than the Happy Valley's hand crank grinder. The yield
appears to be about the same.
The Steilacoom event is a community festival where about two dozen or more
cider presses are set up in a vacant lot. Until the e.coli scare of a few
years ago, people would bring their backyard fruit, and be assigned to a
press where it would be converted to juice. More recently, the organizers
sell bags of carefully washed fruit. The presses include Corrells, Happy
Valleys, Garden Ways and some very impressive home-built hydraulic
monsters, along with many different antique cider presses. So it's a great
opportunity to see how well each type of press works, and how they
compare. Seeing the two presses next to each other, the motorized Correll
is definitely the one to buy.
John Ross
Seattle
johnross@hard-cider.com
At 2/13/2004 03:40 PM, Nick Gunn wrote:
>Does
>anyone out there have any experience with either of
>these presses or have any recommendations on other
>models that would do the trick?
------------------------------
Subject: Re: WSU Mt. Vernon Cider Apple Report
From: Tim Bray <tbray@mcn.org>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 21:34:15 -0800
Great report! Are the detailed notes on the cider production
available? How about the cultivar data (bloom & harvest dates, disease,
vigor, habit, etc.)? I would love to compare your findings with my own
experience with some of these cultivars. Perhaps a co-operative data
exchange would be beneficial?
>http://mtvernon.wsu.edu/frt_hort/cider03.htm
>This report includes assay results from the 2003 harvest and an
>evaluation and ranking of ciders made from the 2002 harvest.
Thanks,
Tim
Albion, CA
------------------------------
Subject: Subject: Quality presses?
From: "Dave" <dmunson@mtco.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 09:30:38 -0600
I own a Happy Valley Press and am happy with the quality and durability of
it.
Dave Munson
------------------------------
Subject: Efficiencies of grinder and press.
From: "Robert LaBelle" <r.labelle@verizon.net>
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 18:46:14 -0500
In Cider Digest 1113, 13 Feb. Nick Gunn wrote:
> . . .I'm most worried about the efficiency factor of the grinder and
press, as >I will be using a lot of dry, dense varieties that can be a
bit stingy with >sharing their juice.
I'd suggest that a most important factor in obtaining a high yield
of juice is to break open the individual cells of the apple tissue.
This is most thoroughly accomplished, not by chopping or slicing the
apple, but by shattering it with a hammermill. In the food science
pilot plant at the Agricultural Experiment Station (Cornell U.) in
Geneva, NY we had such a machine. It's hammers could be reversed on the
spindle to present either a sharp or blunt edge, and we customarily used
the latter to prepare the mash. The rpm must be high to achieve the
required impact. Bob LaBelle r.labelle@verizon.net
------------------------------
Subject: Harrison apple
From: Jason MacArthur <rotread@localnet.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 07:49:00 -0500
Does anyone know of a source for scionwood from the Harrison apple? If
so, please let me know. Thank you, Jason MacArthur
------------------------------
Subject: ML in bottle
From: "Larry Flynn" <laflynn@nas.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 19:54:44 -0800
> I have successfully stopped a carboy of juice at 15sg through repeated (5)
> cold rackings at 34F. It has been quiet now for three weeks at a constant
> temp of 40F. Soon I will bottle it and inoculate half the bottles for a MLF.
> Will use the un-inoculated bottles as a control group. To get the MLF going
> the lab suggests 60F or higher. This means bringing the bottles into the
> house and of course my worry is that the yeasts will reactivate and I will
This line of intended action brings shivers to me spine!. EEEWWW There ain't
nothin worse mateys than some fool lets ML get goin in the bottle as it gives
off a terrible stink and the terible stinkin gets trapped in the bottle and
ew gosh almighty it'll send yee runnin to the sink ta pours it down the drain
Considered a faux paux
if ya wants ta go through malo check the malo package for ph, alchohol and
temperature requirements. If you are in the range of ml bacteria survival
go ahead and introduce but keep the temps up and get it over with It will
taste scary during the ml ferment but don't worry the ml stink scrubs out
easily with a racking and a sulfite addition then bottle it
This si of course assuming you sulfited the press to kill the wild ml
bacteria
lawrenceofdeming
Reality is that which, when you stops believing in it, don't go away.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Quality presses?
From: rcd@talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 23:42:57 -0700 (MST)
Nick Gunn <nnugkcin@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I will be either building my own, buying new, or used
> from ebay, some type of cider press that has an
> accompanying grinder attachment. Lately, I have been
> looking into the Happy Valley touble tub press and a
> similar, but motor-driven Correll Cider press...
>...anyone out there have any experience with either of
> these presses or have any recommendations on other
> models that would do the trick? I am most worried
> about the efficiency factor of the grinder and press,
> as I will be using a lot of dry, dense varieties that
> can be a bit stingy with sharing their juice...
I've had a Happy Valley press for I think six years now. It's really OK,
but only OK. (Sounds like Lucy talking to Charlie Brown?) I've put a few
tons of apples through it. It's easy enough to use, but it's not very
efficient. I figure "efficiency" in terms of juice out to apples in, by
weight, since that's easy. The HVR press "as received" gave about 45%
yield, which is to say 9 lb of juice for every 20 lb of apples. Not very
good.
I've seen the Correll presses but not used them. They look very similar
to HVR, but sometimes the devil is indeed in the details.
The efficiency of a press like the HVR is severely limited. There are two
limit points: the quality of the grinding and the pressing in the basket.
On the latter: the problem is that the mass of pulp binds up; once you get
that 12" high 12" cylinder bound up, you can put extraordinary amounts of
pressure on it and nothing will happen. The problem is that the juice just
can't get out, and the harder you push the more the juice is trapped. This
is why a rack/cloth press works so much better: there are channels for the
juice every couple inches.
On the former (quality of grind): the HVR is not particularly precise, and
the grinder is very aggressive. The result is that the grinder tends to
pull large (flat) pieces of pulp through, and these exacerbate the problem
of the press mass binding up and not releasing juice.
I've done some modifications to the grinder which got the efficiency up to
55% or so. The mods mainly had to do with increasing the precision so that
the grinder wouldn't grab large flat slabs of apple and pull them through.
I'm still working on this angle, but I'm also looking at converting the
press part of the HVR to rack-and-cloth. If anyone's done that, I really
wish you'd speak up!!
One of the points that will help, aside from other factors, is running the
grinder faster. A less-aggressive grinder running faster will give you a
nicer pulp and won't tend to grab apples at the end. This certainly argues
for a motorized grinder--which the Correll has and the HVR can have.
- ---
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: MLF and sparkle
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:48:02 -0600
Yes - it's the Ideal Gas Law - PV=nRT. Or PV~nT to get rid of that pesky
fudge factor that makes all the units match. So pressure and volume are
proportional to moles of gas and temperature. Chemists are prone to
examining every thing like an ideal gas - even Heaven and Hell.
But as for MLF, malic acid is a 4 carbon acid, and lactic acid is a 3 carbon
- - so you're only going to get 1 mole of carbon for each mole of malic acid -
about 1/4 of the about of malic acid in general terms. More over, there's
only a few tenths of a percent of malic acid in cider - unless you're
running straight crab apples. So say 5-6 g/L malic acid - that's about 1.5
g/L CO2. That's well under the 3.9 g/L required in order to put 'sparkling'
on a label regulated by the ATF.
I aim for 10g/L CO2 in my champagne style cider. That's about 5 bar. The
dosage is 20g/L sugar (since you get 1/2 yield of CO2, compared to the 1/4
for MLF). Much bigger bang for the buck. Hmmm... I guess we all want to
avoid the 'bang' part - flying glass, spilled cider - all types of hazards
to body and soul.
My supplier says that the W106 type champagne bottle is rated for 7 bar.
Wow.
Charles McGonegal
Aeppeltreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Re: "Quality presses"
From: "squeeze" <squeeze@mars.ark.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 10:24:57 -0800
Nick Gunn asks about presses - I had an old Happy Valley Ranch press for
long enough to "restore" it, and display it for a season
<http://mars.ark.com/~squeeze/pics-pg/chidleys.html> and can say that they
are good quality, and according to the previous owner, who used it for
years, it works great - the usefullness of the double basket isn't for "a
short time frame", rather it allows you to keep busy while the pressing is
done slowly [tighten, let drip, tighten, let drip, repeat, repeat!], which
is necessary w/ a ACME screw [as opposed to hydraulic] - the Correll press
looks quite the same, and I can't see the real need to have a motor driven
'grinder', as the flywheel-like hand crank on the HVR works great w/ little
effort and probably wouldn't be much, if any, slower.
If you've got the time and skills [and the need], the government designed
press and chopper on my website using a hydraulic jack is excellent.
<http://mars.ark.com/~squeeze/ag-can/ag-book.htm#5>
A while back, Dick suggested I write a bit for the digest on pressing, and
we're into the season I can come up w/ the time for that, so I should,
having many years experience on different equipment - now I've said it,
maybe I'll feel compelled to do it!!
Bill <http://mars.ark.com/~squeeze/>
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1114
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