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Cider Digest #1180
Subject: Cider Digest #1180, 24 November 2004
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1180 24 November 2004
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Brun but no chapeau (Andrew Lea)
Sale of The Traditional Co. (roger mansfield)
Re: Brun but no chapeau (Donald Davenport)
Re: Brun but no chapeau (Scott Smith)
RE: Bottling with CO2 ("McGonegal, Charles")
Re: Topping with CO2 (Dick Dunn)
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Subject: Brun but no chapeau
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 10:25:58 +0000
John Howard wrote
> I have 3 five-gallon carboys filled with 4 gallons of prime juice, that have
> been CaCl2ed and PMEed, and keep at 51 degrees, for the last 12 days. There
> is an approx 3 gallon brown gelatinous mass sitting under aprox 1 gal of
> golden clear juice. No signs of fermentation yet but I'm getting nervous.
> Seems like my options are:
> 3) sit on my hands until the damn blob rises
> 4) sit on my hands until first signs of fermentation and then rack the good
> juice off the top
I'd live dangeorously and just go for those two (except you'll be
racking the juice off the bottom, not the top). As soon as fermentation
begins, gas bubbles will be generated within the 'chapeau' and perforce
it _must_ rise (famous last words!). You then have just a critical day
or two in which to catch it and rack off from underneath (always the
tricky bit! I arrange my keeving to take place up on a table so I can
allow the clear juice to escape by gravity out of the bottom tap into
the final fermentation vessel below. Traditional designs for French
cider factories were built on the same lines, I believe).
An additional question - what is the SG of the juice? By the laws of
physics the greater the density difference the more successful the
separation of the 'chapeau'. The French booklet 'Comment faire du bon
cidre' (reprinted in Proulx and Nichols) recommends a minimum juice SG
of 1.055. In my experience this certainly does help.
Good luck. (BTW I have been impressed by the Crystalzyme which Gary
supplied. I have one successful keeve completed and another in progress
now - fingers crossed!)
Andrew Lea
- --
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Sale of The Traditional Co.
From: roger mansfield <traditionalco@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:15:16 -0800 (PST)
The Traditional Co. LLC would like to announce that it has been sold to
Nick Gunn and Mimi Casteel (soon to be Mr. & Mrs Gunn)of Salem, Oregon.
The reasons for the sale to Nick & Mimi are: their committment to organic
farming; their willingness to keep The Traditional Co. name and premium
cider brands made from certified organic cider apples; and their desire
to take the company to next level to meet the insatiable demand for the
Company's ciders. It should be noted that Nick & Mimi are in the process
of putting the finishing touches on their new cidery and tasting room which
will be located next door to the world famous Bethel Heights Winery which
is just west of Salem, Oregon. Nick & Mimi plan on being open for business
at their new location by the middle of December and will advise the Digest
of their Grand Opening date. Cheers! Roger Mansfield
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Brun but no chapeau
From: Donald Davenport <djdavenport@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:14:43 -0700
On Nov 20, 2004, at 2:17 AM, cider-request@talisman.com wrote:
> Seems like my options are:
> 1) siphon the good juice off the top now and discard 75% of my prime
> juice
> 2) rack the good juice off the top and hope that the jellow will form a
> chapeau and more juice will clear
> 3) sit on my hands until the damn blob rises
> 4) sit on my hands until first signs of fermentation and then rack the
> good
> juice off the top
> 5) be more aggressive with the bubbling
I am reminded of the old radio comedian Ed Winn's recipe for baking a
turkey (certainly apropos of Thanksgiving.) You take a turkey and put
it in a pan. Then, over it, you pour a 5th of whiskey, a 5th of
scotch, and a 5th of bourbon. Then, simply, throw away the bird and
drink the gravy.
John, I think your sixth option might be to throw away the cider and
eat the chapeau. (Perhaps where the expression of 'eating one's hat'
comes from in the first place.)
Donald
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Brun but no chapeau
From: Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:41:17 -0500
John Howard writes:
> I have 3 five-gallon carboys filled with 4 gallons of prime juice, that have
> been CaCl2ed and PMEed, and keep at 51 degrees, for the last 12 days. There
> is an approx 3 gallon brown gelatinous mass sitting under aprox 1 gal of
> golden clear juice. No signs of fermentation yet but I'm getting nervous.
John, from my very limited experience with keeves I would guess that
your keeve is going OK but slowly because of the cold temperature. The
Klercidre instructions say that a keeve takes 1-2 weeks at 10C (50F).
And, my experience with their time estimates for my personal keeves is
mine took about twice as long as their times. I would just wait it
out. If it seems to be stalled I would raise the temp to 60F, since
based on my second keeve I am now feeling the gel rises a lot faster at
a higher temp.
Here is a report on my second keeve. The juice started at 75F, but I
quickly got it down to the high 50's. In a few days I again had the
initial jelling, and since the fridge also contained the other batch
that was already fermenting, I lowered the temp at this point to around
52F. Well, this seemed to really slow down the gel lifting/chapeau
formation, it took more than a week for the gel to rise whereas the
previous batch took just a couple days. On the previous batch I
lowered the temperature as well (to prevent the yeast from firing up
too fast), but it was after the chapeau had lifted most of the way.
At some point on the second batch I noticed these little white spots on
the top, and popping the top and taking a whiff I realized that
fermentation was starting on the surface and so I was headed for a
chapeau blanc, which can be to ruin. The chapeau at this point was
about 6" thick which was more than the 3" of the previous batch, but I
decided to siphon it out at this point rather than avoid a complete
failure. I ended up losing about a gallon of juice compared to the
previous batch, which was unfortunate.
The juice from this batch was from a different apples source, and
perhaps it had a different composition, but my very preliminary
conclusion is that I made a mistake to lower the temperature right
after the gel had formed, and I should have kept the temperature in the
mid-high 50's until the chapeau had lifted further. Or maybe I just
had bad luck, or maybe I should have been more patient since there
still was no vigorous fermentation going.
On my next keeves I am going to keep the temp in the high 50's until
the chapeau is completely formed. I would also be very interested in
reports from others on the temperature at which your keeves took place.
By the way I forgot to thank Gary in my previous post for all the
research he did and the information he sent--without that I would not
be keeving now.
Scott
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Bottling with CO2
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:48:49 -0600
In CD#1179 Jan Davis asks about availability of and/or alternatives to
counterpressure bottling.
Jan, I'ved looked at this, and asked around a bit several times. There seem
to be a couple options:
1) Buy new. Criveller in Niagara (both sides) makes small counter pressure
fillers. Bring $$.
2) Buy used. There are a couple good brewing design/sourcing outfits. They
may have one - but usually they have bigger 6+ spout models designed to go
into bottling lines.
3) Borrow one. Ask local microbrewies. You may luck out and find one with
a (trans)portable model that you can borrow with a suitable amount of
bribery. You _almost never_ can take your cider to a brewery for bottling.
I think I know two exceptions.
4) 'Bottle' into beverage kegs. Harder to sell. Way too much temptation to
leave one hooked up for a glass-on-demand. What's the saying? - 'Always
yield to temptation, it may not come your way again.'
5) Go back and look in the CD. This has come up before. You _can_ use a
gravity filler to bottle well carbonated, well chilled cider and get _some_
CO2 into the bottle. A couple other cidermakers have described it here
before. My observation is that when they say 'well chilled', they mean it!
Aa low as you can get it without freezing.
Charles McGonegal
AEppelTreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Topping with CO2
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 19:16:32 -0700
In CD 1179, Jan Davis <jan.davis@navy.mil> wrote:
> I do have a question for you wise cider makers - I am going to carbonate
> my cider this year, but am stumped on finding a counter-pressure filler
> beyond the single manual ones. Is there a two-spout one out there that
> someone can recommend?...
See Drew Zimmerman's article in CD 1097. There are even pictures of the
setup. It's manual but has two stations. I saw it in action last year;
it worked well.
>...Or, do I really need a counter-pressure filler?
Depends on how much carbonation you want. If you can put CO2 on the cider
and hold some pressure on it (which from the rest of your article it sounds
as if you can) while you chill it, you can dissolve a pretty good amount of
CO2. You can get the carbonation up to what would be a moderate level for
a beer without too much trouble, with refrigerator temp and 10 psi or so.
Then if you just slowly release the pressure, and transfer gently to
bottles, you won't lose an awful lot of CO2. The main objection to this
approach might be some variation (not a lot) from start to finish of
bottling. But if you think about it, you can pour a cold soda or beer
into a glass, and have the glass sit there for most of an hour, without
going flat.
I confess that my thinking is biased by my personal preference toward low/no
carbonation, so I have no trouble keeping enough CO2 in a cider to satisfy
my own tastes! But really, unless either (a) you want high champagne-like
CO2 levels or (b) you want careful bottle-to-bottle control of CO2, for
typical amateur-size batches you shouldn't really need a CPF.
Oh, one other thing to keep in mind: you can dissolve -more- CO2 at a
- -lower- temperature. (Some folks find this counter-intuitive.) So your
purpose is better served by carbonating and bottling at low temperature.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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End of Cider Digest #1180
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