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Cider Digest #1153
Subject: Cider Digest #1153, 2 August 2004
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1153 2 August 2004
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Acid adjustment in single variety cider (Andrew Lea)
Press Care ("Harrison Gibbs")
RE: PME and Juice production ("McGonegal, Charles")
Re: Pectic Enzymes (Scott Smith)
Who am us, anyway? (Cider Digest Admin)
Growing zones for cider varieties? ("Peter Johnson")
high acid cider (Mike Camp)
Re: Acid adjustment in single variety cider ("Drew Zimmerman")
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Acid adjustment in single variety cider
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 16:36:10 +0100
Donald Davenport wrote:
> Making a single variety cider out of Kingston Black makes sense to me
> because the components are all there. Sufficient tannin and sugar.
> Acid +/- .6% The perfect combination.
>
> But, on the other hand, Dabinett seems to be extremely low in acid.
> (.18%)
>
> Are people adding malic acid to their Dabinett must to lower the pH?
> Again, sorry if I'm missing the big picture here.
I don't think you're missing anything here Donald. Au contraire, I
think you're being very sharp (pun not intended!). Certainly in the UK,
I believe there are a few small makers who are genuinely producing
single variety Dabinett ciders with no extra acid - for this reason they
are generally somewhat unbalanced and evident as such. As for the rest -
well just bear in mind that in the UK no labelling of cider for acid and
similar additions is currently required! Nor, so far as I am aware, is
there any restriction on the amount of a 'claimed' juice in a so-called
single variety. It might perhaps be a mistake to assume that all the
alcohol in the bottle comes just from the fruit named on the label!
Andrew Lea
- --
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Press Care
From: "Harrison Gibbs" <rharrisong@lycos.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 10:54:18 -0500
Subject: Press Care
From: Harrison Gibbs <rharrisong@lycos.com>
I recently bought a new Italian fruit press (the ratchet variety) to
press apples for cider. stripped the screw on a smaller screw press a
few years ago and have not pressed any fruit since. Is there any special
treatment that I should follow, especially regarding the wooden basket?
Beyond a good rinse, how should I clean the press after its use? Finally,
I want to press grapes as well. Will that cause a problem? I know the wood
will get stained, but are their any other precautions that I should take?
Harrison Gibbs
Williamsburg, VA
------------------------------
Subject: RE: PME and Juice production
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 11:31:39 -0500
First,
Someone send me back to Organic 201. I reversed cis- and trans- in my
analogy last post. That's regardless of whether it's a reasonable analogy
or not.
In response to Gary's comment about use of pectolytic enzymes in increasing
juice yield - the distillation study I noted in the previous post was to
answer a similar question - what's the effect of these enzymes used to
increase juice yield on the final distillate. That study calls pectic
enzymes things like 'softening agents' and juicing enzems, rather than
clarifying enzymes.
My understanding is that in a pomace pressing setting, pectinase may
liberate more juice, but it's at the expense of the mechanical properties of
the pomace. The pomace gets so soft and slippery that it becomes
impractical to press - at least with a normal rack and cloth press. Of
course, the people who I talk to generally put up a fuss when I ask them to
press simple pears, too.
Grapes are already soft and slippery compared to apples. And the pressures
in a basket or bladder press are usually less than half those in a rack and
cloth press. Stone fruit have an even bigger pulp degradation problem. A
little pectinase activity renders them into complete mush.
Charles
AEppelTreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Pectic Enzymes
From: Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 12:36:31 -0400
Thanks for the replies to my questions, I think I understand things
better now. The key missing bit for me was how the pectate anions bind
with thiamin and amino acids to reduce nitrogen content of the juice.
Here is a summary of my understanding of the chemistry at this point:
The PME demethylates the pectin chain, so the long chains now have
multiple negatively-charged sites on them. Some of these sites will
bind with nitrogen-containing compounds, and other sites on the same
molecule (?) will bind with Ca ions. The resulting "salt" will be less
soluble and so the whole big molecule will come out of solution, thus
precipitating nitrogenous compounds as a side effect. Is this
accurate? I also understand why more pectin in the fruit will give a
better result: more pectin means more anions means more nitrogenous
compounds bind and are precipitated. In fact, it suggests that pectin
powder could be added to low-pectin juice to increase the amount of
nitrogen removed by a keeve.
One reason why I would like to understand the chemistry better is to
figure out whether it would help or hurt to add a conventional pectic
enzyme as well. My impression now is that a traditional pectic enzyme
would hurt a keeve, because it would break apart these chains and the
Ca ions would end up precipitating fewer or no nitrogen-containing
compounds.
One other thing I wonder is if other fruit juices could be keeved and
fermented slowly. For example, suppose grapes did not contain much
natural PME (I really have no idea about this), but could be keeved by
addition of the new PME enzymes and a new style of wine obtained.
Scott
------------------------------
Subject: Who am us, anyway?
From: cider-request@talisman.com (Cider Digest Admin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 11:22:31 -0600 (MDT)
This from the last Cider Digest...
> Hello Dick Dunn,
>
> It is always such a pleasure to read your Cider Digest.
PLEASE! It's not "my" Cider Digest. I didn't create it, and I don't edit
it. I yost put da bits where dey tell me, ya?
As an individual (rcd@talisman.com) I'm a subscriber and occasional
contributor, but with no status different from any other subscriber
(save that I always get my copy of a new digest first). As digest
janitor (cider-request@talisman.com) I handle the email stuff but
make no judgments on content. That is, the digest is -not- edited.
The Cider Digest is a collective effort, a sort of polite anarchy.
- -rcd
------------------------------
Subject: Growing zones for cider varieties?
From: "Peter Johnson" <johnson_peter@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 06:38:49 -0500
Hello,
Does anyone know the US growing zones for the following cider varieties? I
live in zone 4 and was hoping to plant some or all of these.
Bramley's Seedling; Roxbury Russet; Brown's Apple; Kingston Black; Porter's
Perfection; Stoke Red.
Thanks,
Peter Johnson
------------------------------
Subject: high acid cider
From: Mike Camp <graciespop@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 10:33:42 -0700 (PDT)
I'm currently bottling last fall's cider and, upon
tasting, found it to be pretty acidic. Testing with
my TA test kit found the acidity to be around .80%
(assuming that I did it correctly, which is a grand
assumption). I did use a large percentage of some
fairly acidic apples (probably over half of my press
was spitzenburg and newtown pippin).
My questions are thus: What can I do to fix the high
acidity (or should I forget about it)? Will high acid
ciders 'mellow' with age and, if so, will encouraging
a malo-lactic fermentation help? Should I assume that
my high acid is due to the apples used or should I be
getting ready to bottle some nice vinegar?
Lastly, I also have some perry that I've tried darn
near everything I know of to make it clear (pectin,
egg white, etc.). It's still extremely hazy with no
signs of clearing. Any hope?
Mike Camp
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Acid adjustment in single variety cider
From: "Drew Zimmerman" <drewzimmer@comcast.net>
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 17:26:16 -0700
At WSU Mount Vernon we've been making varietal ciders in order to
collect cider characteristic data that can be attributed to the specific
apple variety. In order to do this with sweet and bitter sweet apples,
we add malic acid to adjust the pH to 3.7. This is done for health
reasons as SO2 is not effective over 4.0 pH and the resulting cider may
have characteristics derived from other than normal yeast fermentation.
Varieties that have pH values lower than 3.8 are not adjusted.
It's true that when the acidity is increased on low acid apples the
flavor profile is changed, but, one does get a very good idea of what
that variety would add to a cider blend. It's interesting that some of
the varieties like Dabinett, Harry Masters Jersey, Muscadet de Dieppe,
Brown Snout and others make very tasty ciders with the addition of pure
malic acid. One would not guess that the flavor is not all natural.
This tends to make me wonder about commercial varietal ciders claiming
to be made from bitter sweet apples, especially if they claim 100%
varietal. However, if they are following oenological protocol, they can
add up to 25% of another variety and still claim "varietal" status. 25%
Bramleys can make any low acid cider quite perky I'd say.
In some instances the cidermaker has to do what he has to do. If the
apples are all gone and the juice acidity is too low, the most logical
recourse is to add malic acid or risk losing the whole batch. Malic
acid is after all a natural apple constituent.
Drew Zimmerman
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1153
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