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Cider Digest #1222
Subject: Cider Digest #1222, 13 May 2005
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1222 13 May 2005
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Pressing Pears ("McGonegal, Charles")
Perry chemistry ("McGonegal, Charles")
Re: Cider Digest #1221, 10 May 2005 (Bill Rhyne)
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Subject: Pressing Pears
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 07:54:53 -0500
More two bits...
(And here I was, trying to lay low and not end up on the top three list
this year. <sigh>)
Duck D. is absolutly correct in stating that common pears are difficult
to press. And that is one of the reasons that 'sweet perry' simply
isn't to be had. =20
Pears in quantitiy can be hard to find. There don't seem to be any
substantial orchards remaining in the Midwest, for instance. They were
not replanted after the previous generation's fireblight epidemic.
If you can find pears, the next problem is pressing. Maximum aroma (of
not sweetness) develops just as (or after) the pears transition from
fibrous (and pressable) to soft and difficult. Pears are hard to wash.
They sink, so you can't use a flume tank. They aren't round (and don't
roll straight), so they pile up in a bristle-based apple washer. Also,
not being round, they don't bounce the same way apples do, and they are
much more prone to plugging up the grinder chute. The resulting pomace
has a lot more fine/smooth paste-like material. It plugs up press
cloths. I use a high rate of rice hulls. The other fellow who presses
for us doesn't like the job of mixing in the hulls, so he half-loads the
press cloths. (Ripe Bosc is the worst, IMHO) The end result is about
2.2-2.6 gallons per bushel, compared to 3.5-4.0 for nearly all apples.
Cortland ripe enough to have a yellow verging on white ground (rather
than green) with a thick waxy bloom comes close to Bartlett and Comice.
The resulting juice is _really_ viscous. Like Golden Russet apple. It
is so thick and sweet and foamy and coating that it does not make a
pleasant beverage. So orchards wouldn't make it for the fresh cider
market.
Now, about perry pears. My experience is limited. Your milage may vary
- - so there.
Perry pears appear to go soft in a manner different from common pears.
Common pears fairly gradually transition from hard to soft, developing
aroma while slowly (if at all) changing in Brix. Perry pears seem to
stay rock hard and fibrous right up to the point where they turn soft
_and brown_. The transition from white flesh to brown is fast (hours to
days depending on variety, it seems). In some varieties it occurs from
the core out, but in most it seems to start from spots through the body
of the fruit. The juice released from the brown fruit is higher in Brix
and intensely flavored. It is very easily expressed and expressed
clear, not cloudy. You can get substantial quantities by hand sqeezing
the fruit carefully. Too much pressure creates a pulpy mess. The brown
fleshed fruit behaves very much like frozen (and thawed) crab apples do
- - you can express clear juice with finger pressure. I assume this is
what bletted medlars do, too - but I've not found any medlars or
hawthorns to try it on. Browning perry pears would be has hard to press
in a cider press as common pears. But a bladder press and rice hulls
might work.
The exception to this was Red Pear. It behaved like a common pear.
It's possible that my sample wasn't true-to-type.
Now, I did not care for the juice expressed from browning perry pears.
It was _really_ flavorful and aromatic, so it was tempting. But it
tasted very wrong to me. Cloying and artificial. But I can't confirm
that browning perry pears are bad, rotten, or wrong and that my tastes
aren't simply ignorant and parochial. White fleshed (and hard) perry
pears taste much like bittersharp versions of common pears. The
Herefordshire perry makers I've spoken with didn't directly answer the
question of 'are the brown ones bad'. A lot more juice expresses from
them, and they can be really hard to tell without cutting open. All the
authentic English perries I've had have some of the brown juice flavor
to them - it's part of what gives them the 'ethyl' character. The US
cidermaker I know who is getting experience with perry pears says he's
been learning to tell the brown ones by how they feel under his fingers
on the sorting table. And he avoids them. But doing that will change
the character of the end product a lot, driving it in the direction of a
tart common pear taste.
On another hand, 'sweet perry' from perry pears is an incredibly
complex, slightly bitter and refreshingly tart beverage. Not clinging,
coating or cloying at all. Anyone who has developed a taste for sweet
apple cider from sweet/sharp type apples would go ape over it. I think
it could be sold like fresh sweet cider for an infusion of cash in the
harvest season. What a dilemma - sell as juice or ferment?
When I look this over, it really suggests that the difficulties of pear
pressing can be managed (somewhat) by timing. Trade aroma and flavor
intensity for ease of pressing. This is more easily done for common
pears. It seems to be an outright art for perry pears. And is much
harder to manage than apples, in either case. Considering the emphasis
given to 'time to milling' in the old texts on perry, I bet that the
observation is pretty close to the mark.
------------------------------
Subject: Perry chemistry
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 08:07:24 -0500
I doubt that the answer to this question exists within the Digest
membership (unless Andrew knows), but I'll pose it as something to think
about.
D.Dunn, in the last CD, mentions a supposed perry vulnerabilty to
acetification. The authentic English perries I've tried all have a
flavor in them that reminds me (though not exactly) of acetic notes. I
don't think the French ones do. (Someone remind me in 10 years to
comment on whether French poire pears brown/blet like English perry
pears do. I ought to have some fruit by then :-) Common pear wines
don't seem to, either.
Pear brandy/eau de vie doesn't seem to have an acetic note. I think
that it would be very hardy to remove entirely, even by distillation.
Nearly all pear brandy, European included, is made from
Bartlett/Williams pears.
My question: Is the acetic character actually coming from acetic acid
due to a vulnerability to spoilage? Or might it be ethyl ethers and
esters (reaction products of terpenes, for instance) that simply aren't
present in apples? (Or even in all pears.)
Charles McGonegal
AEppelTreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1221, 10 May 2005
From: Bill Rhyne <bill_rhyne@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 09:37:59 -0700 (PDT)
Re: Perry
Since the discussion has moved to perry recently, I thought that I would
mention that back in 1995-96 period, the UC-Davis extension, Roederer
Estates Winery, and the local Mendocino County pear farmers performed an
analysis of the local pears for perry (cider) potential. They fermented
Bartletts, Winter Nellis, and Bosc pears which are grown in the area. IN
addition to the technical analysis, they also looked at the economics of
production and selling so the costs estimates were included for producing a
commercial product. The report may be available via the UC-Davis Agriculture
and Natural Resources webpage. An article about the findings was published
in the Wine Business Monthly back then.
When we were researching the Rhyne Cyder business project back in 1996, we
met with the folks up at Roederer and we were able to taste the samples.
The perrys were clean but kind of tasteless from our impression. That
was why we focused on apples. They were more interesting. That said,
many consumers have a very positive impression of "pear cider", more than
apple so we were always being told that we should do a pear cider by the
consumers. I think that there is good market potential for perry.
Aloha!
Bill Rhyne
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End of Cider Digest #1222
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