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Cider Digest #1206
Subject: Cider Digest #1206, 9 March 2005
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1206 9 March 2005
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: Cider Digest #1205, Cider apple tree for a shady yard? (Evan C Owen)
Re: Cider Digest #1203, 27 February 2005Cider & Digest #1204, 2 March 2 ("...)
Re: Keeving with Enzymes ("Gary Awdey")
Re:Cider Digest # 1025: Keeving Perry? (Tuolomne@aol.com)
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Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1205, Cider apple tree for a shady yard?
From: Evan C Owen <fnon@juno.com>
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 22:16:16 -0500
I suspect shade tolerance is a trait that could show variation amongst
the varieties, but I've not heard of it. Sun exposure on fruit spurs has
been correlated to yield. But I'm from your neck of the woods and often
see "seedling" (non-dwarf rootstock) trees that can compete for a spot in
the canopy and bear fruit.
Evan in Mass.
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Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1203, 27 February 2005Cider & Digest #1204, 2 March 2
From: "Bob Capshew" <rcapshew@epowerc.net>
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 08:01:59 -0500
>I have absolutely no idea if there were a couple of dominant cider press
>makers a hundred years ago, or if there were smaller manufacturers in each
>major apple-producing area. For that matter, how big was the market? Were
>there companies who were specialists in cider presses, or was it just one
>part of a larger farm-equipment product line?
Grinders for home use first appeared in the United States around 1850.
Prior to this time, most substantial quantities of cider were made at the
local mill. The advent of the home cider equipment is described by Jonathan
S. Buell in the The Cider Makers' Manual published in 1869 as follows:
"In 1852 Mr. W. O. Hickock, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, invented a portable
cider mill, which consisted of a pair of small horizontal cylinders, armed
with small spirally arranged teeth or spikes, revolving close together, one
at a higher velocity than the other. The apples were first broken by the
action of a coarsely fluted roller, which revolved against a table under
the hopper, and after passing between the cylinders, the apples were not
only bruised but also grated into the required pomace. This machine was
capable of grinding one hundred bushels of apples per day. It occupied
only the space of a few feet, and was easily transported on a light wagon
from one neighborhood to another, as might be desired. This mill was for
a time in high repute, and the inventor was enabled to sell as many as a
thousand of them during one season."
The design proved to be very succesful and led to many immitations.
Early manufacturers tended to be individual inventors such a W.O. Hickock
but most were either agricultural implement manufacturers or retailers.
Some of the agricultural implement makers were The Superior Drill Company
(Springfield, Ohio), The Empire State Press Co. (Fulton, New York), The
Hydraulic Press Company (Springfield, Ohio), P.P. Mast & Co. (Springfield,
Ohio), New Jersey Agricultural Works (Trenton, New Jersey) and A.B Farquhar
Co., Ltd. (York, Pennsylvania). Retailers such as Sears, Roebuck &
Co. (Chicago, Illinois) and Red Cross Manufacturing Co. (Bluffton, Indiana)
joined the market in the late 1900s and during Prohibition.
Without a name, patent number or location on the grinder it is very difficult
to determine which company manufactured the grinder.
Bob Capshew
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Keeving with Enzymes
From: "Gary Awdey" <gawdey@att.net>
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 23:40:45 -0500
In CD#1205 Charles McGonegal wrote:
>My observation is that a standard wine pectinase for clarification and
>settling doesn't do anything visible to common pear must. It doesn't
>clear it, doesn't change the mouthfeel, nada. The same enzyme at half
>the usage rate will drop the solids out of suspension from a cider must
>overnight. It must affect the mouthfeel, but I don't notice it.
I don't have any experience yet with PME in perry but have some cider
observations and speculation that could help explain what Charles has seen.
Overnight settling is pretty impressive! It sounds like Charles has hit on
a pretty useful phenomenon and achieved some relatively large precipitate
particles because those are the ones that tend to settle faster. If his
juice showed the same reduction in SG that my apple juice did this year
because of all the rain in this part of the country then that would have
contributed to faster settling too (though normally I'd prefer higher SG to
give the precipitate more buoyancy and minimize opposition to the action of
gas bubbles lifting the precipitate to form a brown cap).
The lack of similar settling effect in Charles' batch given full dosage of
pectinase makes sense because there's an important relationship between the
amount of precipitating ions available in the must and the amount of those
ions that would be needed to bind together the stripped pectin chains (and
the smaller fragments resulting from the action of some other enzymes) by
cross-linking them into larger particles. If there aren't enough
precipitating ions to bind the pectin chains (and the risk of that shortage
is increased as the PME concentration is increased and as the PME remains
active in the juice for a longer period of time) then the stripped pectin
chains will achieve like net charge and repel each other. This is what is
done intentionally in one commercial use of "pure" PME. It is added to
freshly pressed apple juice (without any additional calcium ions) to keep
the pectin in suspension and make the fresh-pressed appearance remain stable
over a much longer shelf life.
A down side of the no-calcium-added approach is that timing may be much more
critical. If the particles don't settle quickly or get lifted by gas
bubbles so they can be removed the PME will continue to strip the methyl
ions from the pectin chains until the chains are completely demethylated or
until the PME is inactivated (which is very unlikely to happen quickly
enough to be useful). One of the recent PME trial users reported having a
nice suspended pectin clot form in his juice, only to have it dissolve back
into the juice days later before the bubbles of incipient fermentation could
lift it to the surface. It's possible this may have happened because there
wasn't enough calcium chloride added to his juice. When you measure out the
recommended amount of calcium chloride or carbonate it seems like quite a
lot and it seems ludicrous that it could all be consumed. However some
rough calculations used by researchers (and kindly provided by Andrew Lea
last year) showed to my satisfaction that the substantial amount of
precipitating ions recommended is based on the assumption of a typical
number of fully demethylated pectin chains. It should be noted that the
amount of pectin in a must can vary tremendously and not every situation
will be typical. Some critical factors influencing the amount of suspended
pectin include fruit variety, ripeness, length and conditions of fruit
storage prior to pressing, whether or not the milled fruit was macerated
prior to pressing, and whether or not extractive enzymes were used in that
maceration.
By the way, it is not always necessary to add PME or a pectinase blend
containing it, even if the amount of PME occurring naturally in the fruit is
low. If you have enough time before fermentation (as I did recently after
carelessly adding a full kill dose of sodium metabisulfite when intending to
add only a partial-kill dose) then the PME that occurs naturally in the
fruit may eventually do the job. I wouldn't exactly call it a keeve (more
like a "bottom keeve" and not really a procedure I'd recommend) but a batch
with PME and CaCl2 clarified the quickest by far. The pectin separated by
settling, not by rising to form a brown cap. A batch with only CaCl2 added
also clarified gradually over the course of a few weeks. A batch with CaCl2
and pure pectin lyase (a chain-splitting enzyme) clarified eventually but
took longer than the batch containing CaCl2 only, suggesting that the
smaller fragments are more difficult to remove by settling. If pear juice
has a higher proportion of chain-splitting enzymes than apple juice
(relative to the amount of PME and of precipitating ions to remove those
chains) then this could account for much of the difficulty in clarifying
perry. It sounds like perry is a ripe area for experimentation with PME!
Gary Awdey
Eden, NY
------------------------------
Subject: Re:Cider Digest # 1025: Keeving Perry?
From: Tuolomne@aol.com
Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 06:47:14 EST
I have keeved perry for a couple of years now using Le Kit Klercidre produced
by Standa Industrie in France - basically this is Pectin Esterase and a
CaCl2 solution in the proportions they recommend for keeving cider. As I
understand it this kit is not used in France for perry but I thought it
worth a go. Nothing ventured...
The results as regards a chapeau brun and clarification have been variable
and on reflection I think it would have been useful to have had control
fermentations with batches (of the same pears) without the kit added.
Unfortunately I have not to date had enough pears to do this.
For my first attempt the resulting perry was very drinkable and the
fermentation slowed almost too much - it took about 2.5 months in bottle to
generate a sparkling product. The second year's trial is still in barrel
so I cannot comment yet on the result. However of the 5 batches 2 had an
excellent chapeau brun and 3 had only a little - somewhat curious as the
differing results came from the same batch of pears pressed on the same day.
Hope this is of some help.
Regards
Martin Harris
Burford Farm, Herefordshire, UK.
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End of Cider Digest #1206
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