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Cider Digest #1289
Subject: Cider Digest #1289, 4 January 2006
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1289 4 January 2006
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Carbonation (Donald Davenport)
More GLOWS comments ("McGonegal, Charles")
Picking out macro-cider blind ("McGonegal, Charles")
Re: Press Construction and Cider Styles ("drcath@tiac.net")
cider brandy ("Howard, John")
carbonation ("Howard, John")
Re: carbonation (Claude Jolicoeur)
getting serious about competition (GLOWS etc) (Dick Dunn)
Re: carbonation (michael arighi)
Re: 2005 Glows Competition (dubious entries?) (Tim Bray)
RE: More Glows ("Terry Maloney")
re: carbonation (Dick Dunn)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Carbonation
From: Donald Davenport <djdavenport@earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 11:13:48 -0700
> The three batches already in
> the bottle were primed with either cane sugar or priming sugar. None of the
> batches carbonated in the bottles.
Mike--
As a famous politician once said, "I feel your pain." I put up two
batches, virtually identical in composition. The only difference was
that one was started about two weeks earlier than the others. Both
fermented to dryness, both taking about the same length of time to do
it. Both were primed with the same amount of sugar.
One batch threw considerable sediment and has lively carbonation. The
other threw only a little silty haze and is virtually flat.
The only difference I can tell is that there was a temperature change
as we got deeper into fall and the batch that didn't carbonate spent
some time in the bottle at a somewhat cooler temperature. Could that
make a difference? Who knows?
There's been some discussion on the Digest about hedging one's bet by
re-inoculating with a little yeast at the same time you bottle as the
commercial folks do. In at least one book, there is the suggestion of
adding a little DAP to coax things along. I'm not really thrilled with
having to do either, but I'm also after a dry, bubbly cider and a
slight "prickle" just doesn't do it for me.
I'd love to know what the experts think. Ideas?
Don Davenport
------------------------------
Subject: More GLOWS comments
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 12:35:37 -0600
As a GLOWS judge in the non-commercial division, I heartily second Gary
Awdey and the Anderson's calls for education about, and appreciation of
a wider range of cider styles - for both the consuming public _and_
prospective cider judges.
My own two bits about the GLOWS competition are on its award structure.
It was, for lack of a better description, what I'll call an
'elimination' competition. Only one award of each type (1st-3rd, which
happened to be colored Gold to Bronze) was given per Category and
Division. In my limited experience, this seems to be a feature of
brewing competitions. It contrasts with most wine competitions that
award medals based on score, and don't limit the number of medals of a
color.
I think that award structure focuses the judges too narrowly. For one
thing, it collapses all the information about sweetness/dryness and
carbonation level to meaningless trivia. It becomes useful only for
choosing tasting order, but forces you to rate sweet fizzy products
against dry, still ones. When you can't award both, if both are well
crafted, then broad expectations start coming into your decision -
especially subconsciously.
Next two bits; We, the judges, were a hard lot to please. I don't know
what our expectations of excellence were (being
unstated/undocumented/uncalibrated/unmeasured) - but they were awfully
high.
I'd like to throw some thoughts into the ether about judge training for
future consideration.
1) First is an observation/opinion. It strikes me that an awful lot of
training (in the beer circles) goes into recognizing different kinds of
faults. I suspect it extends into the cider world - look at the list of
cider sensory descriptors on Andrew Lea's site. Taken from Long Ashton
research, I think. Look how narrowly and copiously the terms are than
we think of as having negative impact. And how few and broad are the
terms we look on favorably. I'd like to see more training and tools for
recognizing/describing characters of excellence.
2) There are several groups around the nation that are seeking to become
hubs of cider knowledge and excellence - The Michigan Hard Cider Club
and MSU, for instance, the Northwest Cider Society and WSU, and the
Shelton's in Virginia. As these groups gather libraries of knowledge
and contacts, perhaps they could be encouraged to also gather libraries
of commercial samples. Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to call up a
Cider Center for some benchmark samples? More easily stated, than
accomplished, I'm sure - but a worthy goal.
3) Cider Day, with its 'Salone del Cidre' (to borrow and corrupt a
phrase) is a wonderful exposition of cider. Notably, it attracts a wide
range of producers - varying in size, location and products. It also
showcases some cideries that don't feel a pressing need to use
competitions in their marketing. Competitions like GLOWS and NWCS serve
a different purpose. I wonder if it would be beneficial to put an Expo
in front of key cider competitions? At the minimum, judges (and the
public) could have a chance to try many ciders - including ones they
don't see on the shelves in their areas or taste in competitions. But
it might also draw different media interest for each aspect, or have
other beneficial re-inforcements. But it would take more time and
effort.
I seem to be up to about a $1.25 in opinion this piece.
Charles McGonegal
AEppelTreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Picking out macro-cider blind
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 12:44:39 -0600
To pick up on something that Dick D. noted in his GLOWS commentary,
It's a lot harder to pick out macro-produced cider in a blind test than
you might think. The stuff is engineered to have broad appeal, with a
veritable arsenal of flavors and colors.
It's not even easy to figure it out when armed with an analytical
laboratory, as the continuing pile of academic papers published over the
years (centuries!) will testify.
Alas, we have no 'Titratable Apple-ality' to submit ciders to, in the
fashion that we test for acidity.
Charles McGonegal
AEppelTreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Press Construction and Cider Styles
From: "drcath@tiac.net" <drcath@tiac.net>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 15:23:55 -0500
My sincere thanks to all who replied providing excellent technical
guidelines on press frame welds and construction! This is a great resource
and I'm glad we have some MEs here in the CD. I hope to post some photos of
the welded steel frame asap so you can see the design. Thanks again for
your expertise.
Also, I'd like to add my two cents on the topic of style characteristics,
use of adjuncts, flavor profiling, judging to category, etc. I'm a
minimalist making traditional Farm Cider in the frugal Yankee fashion. That
is, with the materials and knowledge that folks had 100 years ago. The best
cider is the kind you make yourself. The best apples are the ones you can
get, so you ferment those. Keep it clean, keep the air out, and KISS.
That's about it - nectar of the gods.
I realize that commercial cidermakers need to operate at a higher level to
achieve a more controlled, targeted product for quality and consistency.
Trouble is, the lowest-common-denominator out there doesn't appreciate
those efforts (yet). They aren't receptive to style characteristics like
bittersharp, slightly tannic, etc. because they have no acquired knowledge
base (yet). How can you sell a Calvados to someone who wants a Zima?
If I envision marketing my hard cider to the masses I would emphasize that
it is 100% all-natural, fabulously nutritional, locally made from
sustainable agriculture, tied historically to the early settlement of this
nation, and any other quaint NewEnglandy attributes I can think of (but
that's just me... if I wanted to copy Bud/Miller/Coors I would just
emphasize that it is HARD... they seem to be mildly successful doing that
with their insipid products... hmmmm, I could hire that mindless Bud Lite
Stunt Guy to... nah!).
The best things in life are sometimes the ones you've figured out yourself
by the sweat of your brow. You may want to keep them secret. As such,
commercial cidermakers have a tough row to hoe because they must entice
both new customers from the beer & wine-drinker lot as well as snobs like
me who would rather make cider myself than buy it. I can change, however,
because this CD has introduced me to a fraternity of kindred spirits whom I
admire for their passion and their willingness to promote it in a brutally
competitve business. After work, I'm stopping at the packy to pick up some
hard cider for the Penn State game!
Best wishes and Cheers in 2006,
Dave
drcath@tiac.net
------------------------------
Subject: cider brandy
From: "Howard, John" <jhoward@beckerfrondorf.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 18:49:34 -0500
Warwick from Down Under wrote:
"...does anyone from the digest have any experience of growing pears in
bottles a la Poire William, how do they do it and does it work for
apples?"
I understand from talking with folks who have tried this that getting
around the greenhouse effect of the bottle on the fruit takes a great
deal of time and attention. The few apples in a bottle of brandy I have
seen all appeared shriveled unlike the pears which look very appetizing.
John Howard
Philadelphia PA
------------------------------
Subject: carbonation
From: "Howard, John" <jhoward@beckerfrondorf.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 18:57:23 -0500
Mike , I have found the WL Cider yeast to be hardy stuff, happyly
reawakening nine months later to eat up any in-bottle sweetening. To
make sure, you could always dose the bottle with a little freash yeast
along with the sugar.
John Howard
Philadelphia PA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: carbonation
From: Claude Jolicoeur <cjoli@gmc.ulaval.ca>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 23:23:24 -0500
In Cider Digest #1288, 3 January 2006
>Subject: carbonation
>From: Mike Johnson <tomijon@yahoo.com>
>Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 17:40:15 -0800 (PST)
>
>I have a recurring problem. This season I have bottled the
>first two carboys and still have one to go. The three batches already in
>the bottle were primed with either cane sugar or priming sugar. None of the
>batches carbonated in the bottles.
>
Mike,
I am afraid you are a bit in a hurray. If I follow you well, you are
talking about cider from the fall of 2005 harvest. And you seem to be
expecting this cider to be fully fermented, bottled, and naturally
carbonated in less than 3 months. Cider is not Beaujolais Nouveau. Cider
needs time. Please be patient. The ciders I make take 2 years to achieve
all this - one year carboy fermentation and one year in bottles before I
drink them. And they are very nicely carbonated. In any case, you should
wait at least a couple of months (maybe more if temperature is cold) before
assessing sussess or failure of in-bottle carbonation.
It is also possible that you do something wrong. If you tell us the
Specific Density at bottling, the amount of priming sugar you use and how
you dilute it, maybe we can find something that you do wrong.
Claude
------------------------------
Subject: getting serious about competition (GLOWS etc)
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 23:53:03 -0700
Pondering onward from the GLOWS results (see previous Cider Digests) and
particularly considering Rich Anderson's recent note, I think if this is
the best we can do on cider competition, I'm going to have to side with
some of the east-coast cidermakers who think we are nowhere near ready for
serious cider competitions in the US! A competition MUST be able to
distinguish between a real cider and a glucose wine before the results can
be taken seriously.
Rich Anderson (Westcott Bay Cider) noted that in the GLOWS competition,
there were 4 ciders in the commercial Standard/English category, and that
theirs was the fourth (the one that got no award).
I said earlier that two of the winners (silver and bronze) didn't even
belong in the category based on -objective- criteria. Strongbow (silver)
and Woodpecker (bronze) are "glucose wines"--so-called ciders by legal
classification but they get more than half their fermentables from sugar
rather than apple juice, so entirely outside the Standard Cider BJCP
category.
This makes Rich's situation deplorable, because he was cut out of an award
by two bogus entries. But it's even worse...beyond the above, Rich wrote:
> What I found discouraging are the judging notes received after the
> competition which suggested that because our cider lacked sweetness it was a
> fault...
I have to be harsh: That's just plain incompetent judging. Again it's not
even a matter of subjective evaluation! The subcategory of English cider
is -expected- to be dry in most cases. Do go read the style description...
as I would have HOPED the judges would have been required to do.
What I'm getting at is that, given the style description, an English cider
CANNOT be too dry. It's a factual impossibility. Direct quote:
Overall Impression: Generally dry, full-bodied, austere.
I wish the judges could try a -really- dry English cider. One that comes
to mind is the excellent Burrow Hill bottle-fermented Stoke Red. It is a
wonderful cider, but unless you've tried something like it you cannot
imagine how dry a cider can be. Westcott Bay is lush and fruity by
comparison! (but overall, still full but dry).
Strongbow, which is considered dry only by six-pack-cider standards, is
actually medium sweet at > 2.5% RS. Woodpecker, at 4.6% RS, is way into
the sweet range.
Beyond that, if you look at the BJCP guidelines, you find Westcott Bay as
one of the few US "Commercial Examples" of the style!
So a guiding US example of the style loses out in competition to two fake
ciders. Hello???
(Moreover, Westcott Bay placed tops two years running in the Northwest
Cider Society competition, a reputable event with a good entry field
and experienced double-blind judging.)
I was willing to write off the presence of Strongbow and Woodpecker in
a category for which they're not qualified as bad entries from the
producer/importer (not respecting criteria for the category), and minor
inadequate checking by the competition folks. But to see them win in a
category (where they don't even belong) over one of the best examples of
the category...that casts serious doubt on the competition and judging
itself.
More trouble is, the competition results weren't completely upside-down.
There were some good ciders in the awards, some bad ones in the awards,
at least one good one knocked out...so what significance is there to the
results?
Apparently we have a LONG way to go with competitions in the US.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: carbonation
From: michael arighi <calzinman@earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 22:52:47 -0800
On Tue, 2006-01-03 at 10:16 -0700, Mike Johnson <tomijon@yahoo.com>
wrote:
>I have a recurring problem. This season I have bottled the
>first two carboys and still have one to go. The three batches already
>in the bottle were primed with either cane sugar or priming sugar.
>None of the batches carbonated in the bottles.
At a guess, I'd suggest that your yeast ran out of nutrients. Might try
bottling with just a bit of yeast nutrient (I used to use a B vitamin --
B6, maybe? Somebody help me out?). That should reinvigorate the
fermentation.
In my experience, I've found invert sugar works best (probably what
you're getting as "priming sugar"). It's monosacchride sugar, like
glucose, rather than a disacchride, like sucrose. I make my own, 'cause
it's cheaper. Boil up a sugar syrup in a non-reactive kettle with a bit
of citric acid (or lemon juice) and give it about 10 min. boiling. The
acid breaks the double bond and "inverts" the disacchride into (double
the quantity of) monosacchride sugar (I may have the chemistry a bit
cocked up, but I got it originally from a beer brewing book and checked
it with my food technologist father and, empirically, it works). The
fermented monosacchride sugars don't have the typically sour taste of
fermented disacchrides, since the yeast hasn't had to create invertase,
which tastes sour, to "invert" it to glucose.
- --
"The dressing of vines is never finished...admire a spacious vineyard if
you like, but farm a small one."
"Georgics"
Virgil (Publius Virgilius Maro)
- --Michael Arighi
------------------------------
Subject: Re: 2005 Glows Competition (dubious entries?)
From: Tim Bray <tbray@mcn.org>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 18:31:43 -0800
I'm going to take issue with a few of Gary's assertions. First, I have to
state my assumption that Dick is correct about Strongbow not meeting the
guideline for Standard Cider. Is it possible that they entered a specialty
product, not their mass-market product?
Now, here's where I differ:
> It is a difficult question of where you
>should draw the line and who should have the responsibility of drawing it.
It doesn't seem difficult to me at all. The line is drawn by the BJCP
categories, and the responsibility rests on the entrant to abide by the
rules. What is unclear?
>You can hardly blame the makers of Strongbow for entering it in the
>competition to see how it would fare.
We certainly CAN blame them if it's a fraudulent entry! Presumably they
know how their cider is made. Therefore, either (A) they failed to read
the category descriptions, or (B) they ignored them. Either way, Strongbow
deserves blame for entering a contest with a product that did not
qualify. (Or (C), they did in fact enter a specialty product that meets
the guidelines. Is there any way to check?)
> At worst it could have been
>disqualified or fared poorly in judging.
No, at worst it wins a prize that it did not deserve, thereby enhancing its
reputation at the expense of others. Not only that, it reinforces
inaccurate perceptions in the judges themselves.
> Only winners draw attention to the
>results so there was little to have been lost.
Sure, very little risk for Strongbow. Even if they get caught violating
the rules, only a handful of fanatics will ever know or care. It's the
real cider-makers who lose.
> Competition organizers will
>certainly have the option of rejecting entries or disqualifying them if they
>know them to be low in fruit content or heavily chaptalized.
Yes -but that's a big IF. All of these contests rely on the entrants to
obey the rules, don't they?
Having said all that, it does seem to reflect rather badly on the
judges/organizers of the contest that they did not recognize Strongbow and
Woodpecker as not meeting their guidelines. This is a recurring problem in
every field - the paucity of really good judges.
Cheers,
Tim
------------------------------
Subject: RE: More Glows
From: "Terry Maloney" <terry@westcountycider.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 18:15:21 -0500
It may seem unduly restrictive, but it might help solve the problem if
Serious Cider Competitions were to require their commercial entries to be
made from apples. Period.
Terry Maloney
West County Cider
Colrain, Massachusetts
www.westcountycider.com
------------------------------
Subject: re: carbonation
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 21:14:07 -0700
Mike Johnson <tomijon@yahoo.com> wrote in the last digest:
> ...I have a recurring problem. This season I have bottled the
> first two carboys and still have one to go. The three batches already in
> the bottle were primed with either cane sugar or priming sugar. None of the
> batches carbonated in the bottles...
The main part of the information we're missing is the timetable. Rather
than us trying to guess it (wrong), fill it in.
There are two time-related concerns, sort-of-opposite:
1. Did you wait long enough to allow carbonation in-bottle? Remember that
the yeast slow down as alcohol builds up. Even with healthy yeast, be sure
to allow enough for fermentation to finish.
2. Did you wait too long, such that the yeast went dormant? Once the
fermentation "finishes" and the cider drops clear, the yeast aren't in the
mood to do much of anything and it may take a while before they restart.
I've had meads, where the tail end of the fermentation dragged on for a
long time, where I primed with sugar at bottling and it took a year for
the mead to carbonate...BUT it did eventually do so! Now, cider isn't
mead and you shouldn't see anything so extreme, but I'm mentioning it
just to illustrate the point.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1289
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