Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Cider Digest #1146
Subject: Cider Digest #1146, 1 July 2004
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1146 1 July 2004
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Bottles and capping of cider (Kristen Jordan)
Bottles and Capping of Cider (Kathy Hutchins)
Re: Bottles and Capping of Cider (Dick Dunn)
Bottling Cider ("Richard & Susan Anderson")
Subject : Normandy, John Howard ("Diane Gagnon")
RE: Bottles and Capping (and sediment) ("McGonegal, Charles")
Send ONLY articles for the digest to cider@talisman.com.
Use cider-request@talisman.com for subscribe/unsubscribe/admin requests.
When subscribing, please include your name and a good address in the
message body unless you're sure your mailer generates them.
Archives of the Digest are available at www.talisman.com/cider
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Bottles and capping of cider
From: Kristen Jordan <kristen.jordan@shaw.ca>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 10:28:37 -0700
Prompted by Jan Davis' questions regarding bottles and capping of cider,
I would like to let Jan and others know about an initiative several
commercial (and soon-to-be commercial) cidermakers from British
Columbia, Washington state, Oregon and California are undertaking.
Encouraged by Peter Mitchell at his Commercial Cider & Drink Production
course last month in Mt. Vernon, WA, a group of us are conducting a
market research project with the aim of developing a unique cider
bottle. The bottle is intended for high quality, handcrafted, all
natural hard cider, and is meant to distinguish cider from other alcohol
products. Through this bottle project we hope to 1) select the most
favoured bottle design identified through consumer testing and producer
feedback; and 2) encourage as many producers as possible to use the
bottle by providing an opportunity to share in the ownership of the
bottle mold and/or to participate in the bottle order when the bottle
goes to manufacturing. All in all, we hope that this project will raise
the profile (and the price point) of handcrafted cider.
There is a consumer questionnaire and a producer questionnaire, the
latter of which includes questions on bottle shape, size, glass colour,
closures, pressure capacity and bottle cost. At a meeting of the NW
Cider Society last weekend at Merridale Ciderworks
(www.merridalecider.com), we short listed 7 bottle designs for the
project. If you are interested in filling in a producer questionnaire
and receiving pictures of the bottles via email, please let me know. If
you are interested in obtaining a copy of the consumer questionnaire and
wooden replicas of the bottle prototypes in order to conduct a consumer
survey in your area, you may also contact me directly at
kristen.jordan@shaw.ca or tel. 250 592 9917 in Victoria, BC. Please
note that I will be in Herefordshire and Somerset July 7th to 12th,
where I will be showing the survey and bottle prototypes to several UK
cidermakers.
------------------------------
Subject: Bottles and Capping of Cider
From: Kathy Hutchins <khutchins@direcway.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 14:07:04 -0400
From: "J. K. Davis" <andiroba@hotmail.com>
> But I am considering going slightly more "upscale" for my cider, bottling it
> in wine bottles to place it with the wine market vice beer. Can I count on
> wine bottles accepting a crown cap securely? I enjoy cider with a little
> carbonation, so I think a cork is out. I don't want to go the champagne
> cork route.
I don't know about regular wine bottles, but champagne bottles will take
a crown cap just fine. My ex-husband's parents run a winery in Kentucky,
and they cap their champagne bottles with crown caps until they
disgorge, at which time they cork.
Kathy Hutchins
khutchins@direcway.com
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Bottles and Capping of Cider
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 13:59:11 -0600
Jan Davis wrote:
> But I am considering going slightly more "upscale" for my cider, bottling it
> in wine bottles to place it with the wine market vice beer. Can I count on
> wine bottles accepting a crown cap securely? I enjoy cider with a little
> carbonation, so I think a cork is out...
No. Standard wine bottles won't take a crown cap at all (there's nothing
on top of the bottle to hold the cap), nor are they made to withstand any
pressure.
> Also, I've seen wine bottles with screw tops, both metal and poly. Any
> opinion on them? My first blush is that cider with those tops would be
> lumped with the cheap wines crowd.
Screw caps are slowly (VERY slowly) gaining acceptance in the wine world.
There's no technical reason against them; it's purely customer perception
that decent wines are supposed to have corks. It's changing because corks
are expensive, not wonderfully reliable, and frankly unnecessary for a wine
that in all likelihood will be served within a year of when it's bottled.
The intermediate step in this has been the "plastic cork". I don't see
ANY reason for that one, as they don't appear to breathe but you need a
corkscrew to open the bottle.
If you're concerned about cachet, go ahead and use a plastic screw cap...
just dunk the top of the bottle in a pretty sealing wax. (No! Stop!
Wait, I was only kidding, really...and I believe there's a spot in one
of the outer circles of Hades for the producer who puts sealing wax over
a wired-down champagne cork.)
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: Bottling Cider
From: "Richard & Susan Anderson" <baylonanderson@rockisland.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2004 20:24:26 -0700
While Jan's post is about capping, But I think the issue is more about
marketing than packaging. Why be on the wine shelf? True, on the plus side,
price is better. On the down side do you want to be another product on a
very crowded shelf? Worse yet your cider may end up with cheap fruit wine.
Jan's quandary is real and echoes recent postings. The real issue is how do
we get the consumer to head for the cider shelf!
On the packaging side, crown caps are easy to apply, secure and are easy to
remove by the consumer. From an economic point of view, your current
application is excellent. The beer bottle(I prefer "Amber Legacy bottle")
will handle the pressure from your light carbonation, is easy to obtain at a
reasonable price. I have not seen a wine bottle which will take a crown cap,
however champagne bottles will. A lot of wine bottle manufactures would not
recommend that you put a carbonated product into their bottles unless they
are designed for it and this presents you with a liability issue. Perhaps
you could consider dressing up the Amber Legacy bottle, dip the crown in
wax, find a foil to fit, or a dressy cap-over label to apply. Yes, there are
some cool looking bottles out there but is it worth it to add a $1 or more
per unit?
I bottle all our cider in Amber Legacy bottles and I get a bit of flack
about it from other cider producers and my wife.
But mostly, you need to find a way to get people to head for the cider
shelf. I hope we get some discussion on this.
------------------------------
Subject: Subject : Normandy, John Howard
From: "Diane Gagnon" <gagnond@endirect.qc.ca>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 22:06:40 -0400
Just a word to say that such article are quite interesting to read ,
very pertinent info from a main apple cider area. "Bravo" for this very
particular point of view from Normandy.Denis Quebec.
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Bottles and Capping (and sediment)
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 09:01:49 -0500
Hello Jan,
Crown caps will only fit on bottles with the right lip on the top. I think
it will be hard to find wine bottles with a crown finish, other than
champagne bottles. You might consider a champagne bottle with a crown
finish, rather than a champagne cork. Rhyne Cyder is done this way.
A good old W5 (Bordeaux-style) with a cork will hold a tiny amount of
pressure. Enough for a little spritz. The problem lies in consistently
sealing the bottle. They do fine if stored upright - but can run into
occasionaly leaking if stored on the side - as folks are likely to do with
something in a wine-bottle shape. Any pressure inside the bottle tries to
force cider around the cork.
Screw tops - especially something with a t-cork (cork with a plastic cap)
would probably work, but the equipment to do it properly and with sanitary
control is not cheap.
This touches on an issue I've been discussion off-CD recently. Consumer
reaction to small amounts of sediment. My customers react with alarm to
sediment in wine-shape bottles. They will accept it if the time is taken to
explain its harmless nature - but that eats up valuable time and energy.
I wonder if part of the problem is the packaging. The craft beer segment
wouldn't bat an eye at some sediment in the bottom of the bottle. They know
to decant off the top - or slurp it down and enjoy the vitamins. But beer
bottles are usually darkly colored and stored upright. So sediment isn't
obvious - and has a chance to settle to a nice compact layer.
The wine bottles I use, on the other hand, are clear - so any sediment is
really visible. Also, lots of people store wine bottles on their sides - so
any sediment gets disturbed when the bottle is removed from the rack and
placed upright for serving.
Nobody has ever commented on the small amount of sediment that accumulates
in my champagne-method cider - but that's a dark green bottle, and the
bottom is shaped to help form compact lees.
Charles McGonegal
AEppelTreow Winery.
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1146
*************************
