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Cider Digest #1125
Subject: Cider Digest #1125, 1 April 2004
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1125 1 April 2004
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
King pollination (Benjamin Watson)
perry pears (Benjamin Watson)
Re: Making French cider (tjhiggin@hiwaay.net)
Re: Cider Digest #1124, 29 March 2004 ("Gary Awdey")
Re: Darcy's King apple ("squeeze")
>faire du Cidre< versus >making cider< again...... ("Ernst A. Grecht")
Red Crab Apples (Grant Family)
Cider as "earliest fermented beverage"?? (Dick Dunn)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: King pollination
From: Benjamin Watson <bwatson@monad.net>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 11:52:18 -0500
I don't have any direct experience with the King apple myself, but one
source I have says that you can use Golden Delicious, Lodi, McIntosh,
or Melrose as a pollinizer for this variety. (Since Lodi also needs
another variety to pollinate, maybe that's a good choice.)
Otherwise, to test the theory that having another King tree would make
any difference (possible, but seems unlikely), I would find another
person with a King tree and cut some whips or watersprouts in the late
bud stage and put them in vases around your King tree.
Ben Watson
------------------------------
Subject: perry pears
From: Benjamin Watson <bwatson@monad.net>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 12:00:05 -0500
Someone asked a few days ago about a reference source for information
on perry pears.
I had the good fortune to get a copy of "Perry Pears," ed. by L.C.
Luckwill and A. Pollard, from the Long Ashton Research Station in
England before they went extinct (and a darn shame too). This book was
published in 1963 by the National Fruit and Cider Institute for the
University of Bristol. It's still the best ID book on perry pears I
know -- though I'd like to see a new book with color shots of the
fruits -- maybe I can persuade Charles Martell in Dymock and the
Gloucestershire County Council to take this one on.
Anyway, there should be some copies of "Perry Pears" available through
Interlibrary Loan from university collections, if not from other
sources -- or on loan from the NAFEX library.
Ben Watson
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Making French cider
From: tjhiggin@hiwaay.net
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 15:54:34 -0600 (CST)
This came across the local homebrewing list, and may be of
interest to who are worried about exploding bottles. I
have not used the product and have no idea if it works.
http://www.oztops.com.au
T.J. Higgins
Huntsville, Alabama, USA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1124, 29 March 2004
From: "Gary Awdey" <gawdey@att.net>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 20:43:49 -0500
John Gasbarre wrote:
(snip)
>This is a bit of a shot in the dark, but given the lack of info that
>turns up when you Google the words 'apple and Jaunet', this apple may
>possibly be yet one more variation of the word Genet or Janet, as in the
>cultivar Ralls Genet or Ralls Janet. That would be my guess.
>Alternatively, it may also be the cider apple Genet (or Gennet) Moyle.
(snip)
That seems like pretty reasonable speculation given the limits of what's
available online so far but it probably isn't the same as Ralls Genet,
described in THE APPLES OFNEW YORK as a Southern dessert variety, most
likely originating in Virginia (the claim involving M. Genet occurred about
100 years after the alleged occurrence, without written evidence). The
fruit has a smooth, yellow or greenish blushed and mottled skin with pinkish
red, indistinctly striped with dull carmine, overspread with a light bloom
which together with broken stripes of thin whitish scarf-skin combine to
give the fruit a rather dull appearance. The flesh is described as firm,
subacid and it is late to blossom (which gives it an advantage in years of
late late spring frost). Morgan & Richards describe Gennet Moyle as a UK
culinary variety known since the 17th Century (though Hogg & Bull say this
very sweet, slightly acid variety was the favorite in 15th century cider
orchards until it was eventually supplanted in popular esteem by Lord
Scudamore's Redstreak). Color is described as slight orange red flush, it
cooks up to a bright lemon pureé, sharp, strongly flavored, needing little
sugar, and it is noted to make a pleasant, mild cider.
In contrast, Boré & Fleckinger's "POMMIERS À CIDRE" describes Jaunet as a
cidre variety of Normandy, with solid golden-yellow skin, tender, soft,
sweet, scented flesh, average in time of blossom, with no synonyms. Also
listed with similar names (but either as distinct varieties or without
descriptive detail) are Jaunet de Gournay, Jaunet Pointu, Jaunet de Bray,
Jaune de Vitré, Génot, and Ganot. If (like me) you don't happen to read
French, reliance on online automatic translation can provide such pearls as,
"Peduncular basin: Null or not very deep, with slope, very soft or soft,
little or fairly cork-like. Presence sometimes of a gibbosity."
Gary
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Darcy's King apple
From: "squeeze" <squeeze@mars.ark.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 19:03:40 -0800
Darcy -
on the central Island, Kings are very sensitive to the weather, tho' in
some "microclimates" they can be fairly consistent, and altho' some
cultivars can be quite large, so some may consider them "heavy producers",
they rarely have a year w/ large numbers of apples - they are also one of
the more sensitive to boron deficiencies, which is a common condition
around here, and can cause lack of pollination [as well as "water core"
which Kings nearly always have], but if the tree has never produced, how
does one know it's a King?
while King peak of bloom is nearly the same as Spartan, the Belle de
Boskoop [also a triploid] has a peak of bloom 10 days ahead of the Spartan
- - so there must be something else around [wild crab in the bush? Japanese
crab?] to help the Boskoop, tho' they are a very dependable cropper
hereabouts - the Cortland will be a help for pollination w/ the Spartan and
King, not sure about the timing of the others - little known factoid: bees
prefer blooms of a particular color, so if the King and Spartan are fairly
different looking flowers, the bees may not be inclined to travel between
the 2
apple trees don't need siblings in the same yard, as there are many old
solitary King trees in the Comox Valley that do as well as Kings can - I
suggest you try some boron [I always recommend some "20 MuleTeam Borax"
from your grocer, as you're less likely to overdo it and burn the grass] -
best applied in late fall followed by application of Dolomite Lime late
winter, as water core is a problem of balance twixt boron and calcium -
never apply both at the same time
as for "lazy" trees, never met one!! but the way I'd deal w/ that is to
take a baseball bat to the trunk :-) really! - try beating the trunk
[lightly but firmly] with a bat or 2x4, as this supposedly triggers a
stress reaction that can snap a non bearing tree into producing again! if
everything fails, getting out the ax isn't a disaster, as Kings aren't in
the top 10% of desireable varieties for most folks - hope this helps, and
drop in sometime!!
Bill <http://mars.ark.com/~squeeze/>
------------------------------
Subject: >faire du Cidre< versus >making cider< again......
From: "Ernst A. Grecht" <grecht@aon.at>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 23:54:14 +0200
Thank you for your suggestions, I will report what the bottled cider will
be like.........
Does anyone know if there's a book available about "history of cider
making"; over the last month I found out that traditions of cider making
differ a lot from country to country; I'm living in Austria and
cider-making here is not very sophisticated, though there is a lot of
farmers who make their own cider. But the process is mainly - pressing,
fermenting, drinking (sometimes no keeving at all), but there are some
institutions now trying to help cider out of the shadow of wine (I believe
it makes a difference whether people are used to a drink with 5°/6° alc.
or to a drink with 10°-13° alc.)
I can take the apples from an old orchard (the trees are around 40/50
vears old), all old Austrian cider apples (but as I found out until now,
their taste is mainly sweet and sour, for the future I want to find and
plant also some sharp/bitter species that have more tannin - if anyone
knows some german/austrian/czech apples high in tannin please tell me...).
All the informations about "cidre" I found are in french, if you want to
have a look at them here are some links:
http://www.fermedeslandes.com/
** with a small history of cider making **
http://www.fruitsdebretagne.net/fabrication.htm
** a very good article about traditional cider making "en bretagne" **
http://www.encreuse.com/traditions/cidre.htm
** they fill their bottles at 1018 sg. without pasteurization..........**
http://www.fruitsdebretagne.net/cidre1.htm
** a list of french cider apples with good explanation for each
type.......**
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/association.fruits.oublies/bulcomgf.html
** might be a possibility to get french cider apple trees**
http://guy.massart.free.fr/cidrefer/plus0005.htm
**says that several old documents tell not to do keeving between 1035 and
1025 sg., fills bottles between 1020 and 1016...**
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/gael.lebras/cidre/
**very good "simple" explanation; does filling of bottles at "new" moon in
january; has three types of closures explained,claims that "capsule"
(crown-cork) adds a different taste to bottled cider......**
http://www.bmlisieux.com/normandie/cidre.htm
**Extrait de la revue Le Cidre et le Poiré, décembre 1894.**
http://www.ac-amiens.fr/ecole60/ecole_hennicourtabancourt/CE/Pomme/page2ce.htm
** ?? **
http://www.ac-rouen.fr/colleges/langlois/journal/n_13/cidre.html
http://www.saosnois.com/faire_du_bon_cidre.htm
http://picardie.asvft.free.fr/cidre.htm
Best Regards,
Ernst
------------------------------
Subject: Red Crab Apples
From: Grant Family <grants@netspace.net.au>
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 13:07:12 +1000
G'day,
Can anyone tell me anything about a deep red coloured crab apple I've
found? The fruit, skin and flesh, are a deep reddish colour, and so are the
leaves of the trees. I haven't tasted them so I can't give any info there.
What is a good starting point for blending crabs with a sweet/sharp apple
to get a reasonable tannin level?
TIA
Stuart.
------------------------------
Subject: Cider as "earliest fermented beverage"??
From: rcd@talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 00:01:02 -0700 (MST)
What was the first fermented beverage made by human beings? There's a lot
of research leading to possible answers to this question, usually based on
small but tantalizing bits of evidence: a few words in an epic poem,
paintings on a cave wall, residue in a clay vessel, and so on.
More than the research, there's a lot of debate among the partisans of each
of the candidate beverages--mead, beer, and wine--usually just lively, but
once in a while acrimonious. Each camp wants to believe that its preferred
beverage holds the special status of having been "first". Of course,
since it's all at the dawn of recorded history, evidence is scanty,
sometimes contradictory, and subject to multiple plausible interpretations.
And so, with new bits of evidence, new analytical techniques, and so on,
the apparent "winner" has switched from one to another several times
in the past decade. The one constant in all this has been that cider--
the "beverage of choice" for many of us here--has never been in the
running. We know that we can trace cider back to Roman times. That's
not nearly enough.
But cider may yet have its time in the limelight! A new excavation has
provided convincing evidence that cider was made long before any of mead,
wine, or beer. The date of the find is causing a stir in itself--because
this first crude cider was made by a pre - Homo sapiens hominid, albeit a
late-Pleistocene "man" which is very nearly human, had some tool-making
ability, and is geologically recent. But for the competition for "man's
first fermented beverage", the find with not-quite-yet-modern-man is a
sticking point. And while the evidence so far strongly supports this very
ancient cider, there are "missing links" in carrying the archaeological
record of cider forward...so this is just the beginning of a lot of work.
The evidence discovered was in East Sussex, in England. It was found at
an old archaeological dig whose reputation is well-established, near the
village of Piltdown, in strata of the same age as Piltdown Man. It
consists (so far) of residues containing cider "markers", in clay which
once apparently enclosed a (now decomposed) wooden vessel. There was
also a stone talisman, crude but clearly in the shape of a small apple.
The residues have been analyzed carefully and show traces of oligomeric
procyanidins along with the tell-tale malic acid, in proportions that
could only belong to an apple. The initial results of the study were just
presented at a small invitation-only conference on Applied Paleozymurgy
and Prehistoric-Libation Excavations. (fyi, "zymurgy" is the science of
fermentation chemistry) I was contacted by the principal investigator,
Prof. Sylvester Mayliss, who had heard of the Cider Digest and thought
folks here might be interested. Prof. Mayliss is not sure when the full
results will be published; obviously this will need proper scientific
pear review before publication and that can take months.
There's yet another twist. Naturally, some English cidermakers have heard
of the research. Now, you might think the English would be proud to have
it demonstrated that cider surely began in Britain. BUT, remember, the
major cider producing area in England is the West Country! Cider from the
southeastern area (often called the "Kentish" style--Kent is just north
of East Sussex) is generally looked down upon as a poor second by West
Country cidermakers, since it's not made from what they deem proper
cider apples, but merely "eaters and cookers". Of course we don't expect
the Pleistocene Piltdown Man to have engaged in orchard work...it's enough
of a surprise that this primitive being had managed to figure out how
to pound the juice out of apples and ferment it! Nevertheless, you can
imagine the problem--the blow to West Country esteem--if the Kentish style
is shown to have many millennia of primacy and to be the true universal
Ur-tipple of all beverages, going back in time so far as before our own
species.
- ---
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1125
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