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Cider Digest #1300
Subject: Cider Digest #1300, 15 February 2006
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1300 15 February 2006
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: siphoning by mouth - was RE: Annie Proulx (Erroll Ozgencil)
Re: Proulx and Nichols (Terence Bradshaw)
Re: Annie Proulx (Benjamin Watson)
Re: Kit cider, normal sugar, and yeasty flavours (Andrew Lea)
Proulx and Nichols (Andrew Lea)
Microbial instability (Jason MacArthur)
Re: Cider Digest #1299, 11 February 2006 (Jason MacArthur)
Kit cider, normal sugar, and yeasty flavours. (Roy Bailey)
Butte County, Cider Apples ? (casey jennings)
Northern Cider Apples (Rob Stiles)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: siphoning by mouth - was RE: Annie Proulx
From: Erroll Ozgencil <errollo@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 13:39:52 -0800
> really archaic boners, like sucking on a siphon hose to start racking.
> Isn't that pretty much inoculating your cider with a culture of your mouth
> bacteria?!? And even the homebrewing community mostly got rid of that one
I used to be deathly afraid of contaminating my beer/wine/mead/cider
that way until someone observed that the bacteria living in your mouth
are going from a pH neutral, non-alcoholic environment that's almost
100F to an acidic, alcoholic environment that's about 40F cooler.
Erroll
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Proulx and Nichols
From: Terence Bradshaw <tblists@pshift.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 17:30:19 -0500
>Actually it's been in print all along, and is now in its third edition.
>It's not the best American cider book. (I claim that title goes to Ben
>Watson's _Cider:_Hard_and_Sweet_.) But it's good and it's available.
>
> <snip>
>
>The reason I'm not crazy about Proulx and Nichols is that it's got some
>really archaic boners, like sucking on a siphon hose to start racking.
>Isn't that pretty much inoculating your cider with a culture of your mouth
>bacteria?!? And even the homebrewing community mostly got rid of that one
>twenty years ago or more. (Their racking technique also has you put a
>stick with a brad and a rubber band into the cider, which seems slightly
>chancy, but pales in comparison to the mouth-suction part.) It wouldn't
>take much other than a careful reading by a cider-knowledgable reviewer
>to get rid of these few "old-style" techniques and ideas.
>
>I don't know that either Proulx or Nichols are aware of the Cider Digest.
>I wish they were.
>- --
>Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
Lew Nichols used to live in the town next to my hometown, and still has
his cider house and orchard there. He lives somewhere in the greater
Upper Connecticut Valley area, not sure if New Hampshire or Vermont.
I've run into him a few times and he certainly knows his cider stuff.
Annie Proulx is his ex-wife. Last I knew they had an arrangement that
he could continue to revise the book and keep the proceeds, so any new
additions are his. I confess to not having the newer editions, just my
very well-used, dogeared copy. I don't know if Lew is aware of the
digest or not, and my sense is that he wouldn't care either way, as he
seems a bit reclusive these days.
As for the book's value, I'll respectfully disagree with Dick and say
that as a /manual/, I prefer this book to Watson's. They really are
complimentary, and Ben filled in some gaps especially with specifics on
the European cider fruit. Proulx and Nichol's book, however
out-of-date some of its methods, really is the best 'how-to' on cider
out there, IMO. I think Ben even acknowledges that in his book where he
leaves the detailed steps up to them.
And by the way, I am not afraid to start a siphon by mouth if necessary,
which seems to be more than 50% of the time.
Terry B
================
Terence Bradshaw
1189 Wheeler Road
Calais, VT 05648
tblists@pshift.com
(802)229-2004
1450 feet, zone 4A/B?
The views represented are mine and mine only........
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Annie Proulx
From: Benjamin Watson <bwatson@worldpath.net>
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 18:54:58 -0500
I was more than a little humbled by the comments of our Cider Janitron,
Dick Dunn, who says he prefers my book, "Cider, Hard and Sweet" to
Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols "Cider".
I have something of a unique perspective, since I used to be an editor
for Storey, the publisher of Proulx and Nichols book. It first came
out, I believe, in the early 1980s, when the company was still called
Garden Way Publishing and based up in Burlington. It has much good
information, but I wrote my own book in a different way, because I felt
that (7-8 years ago) most people didn't know how to make cider, and
needed a beginner's book, rather than launching them into barrel
fermentation and keeving from the git-go. So I tried to be very
thorough and very basic. In essence, I took what I felt were the best
qualities of three books that were then in print: Paul Correnty's "The
Art of Cidermaking" (now out of print, unfortunately), Proulx and
Nichols' book, and Vrest Orton's classic, "The American Cider Book."
Then I added my own peculiar (and I do mean peculiar) touch to the
subject.
Annie Proulx is a fine writer, both of fiction and nonfiction -- but
she's moved from Vermont to Wyoming, writes exclusively fiction now,
and I gather is embarrassed that she ever wrote anything for the likes
of Rodale and Garden Way -- which is too bad. Her book on salad
gardening is one of my favorites.
At any rate, Storey continues to keep the book periodically updated (I
believe the third edition came out around 2000, about the time my book
went into paperback. Annie no longer works on the updates; they hire
someone else to do it when it needs doing. I don't know if Lew Nichols
is still with us, or still making cider -- he used to be in Vershire,
VT, which is where Proulx hailed from too, and where there is still a
commercial cidery (Flag Hill Farm, run by Sabra Ewing and Sebastian
Lousada).
In any case, although I keep saying this, I am planning to work on a
thorough-going revision and expansion of my book, hopefully starting
this spring, and in fact spoke with my publisher last week about it.
Since I was essentially a neophyte and just this side of an ignoramus
about cidermaking in 1999, I trust that I will do a better job this
time around. I am overhauling the resources, the recipes, and adding
things like an intermediate level cider making section, revised
varieties info., and info. on ice cider and perry. My goal is to have
the new edition out in the Fall of 2007.
Ben Watson
Francestown, NH
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Kit cider, normal sugar, and yeasty flavours
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 11:32:43 +0000
Daniel Pittman wrote:
> A couple of questions here, from a novice brewer:
>
Welcome..... but first of all you have you throw away all you ever
learnt about brewing and think winemaking instead. Apples are fruits
not grains!
> My first batch turned out fairly bad, to my taste. It was extremely
> dry and has a yeasty aftertaste.
I'm afraid this is normal. All fully fermented ciders are very dry
because there is no sugar left (unlike beer where there are lots of
slightly sweet non-fermentable sugars that remain). How to retain
natural sweetness, or how to add it back, is a vexing question which has
consumed many kB of discourse on this Digest!
> I wondered if the yeasty taste could be caused by the very long
> fermentation and, if so, if I would be better moving the cider into
> another vessel after a week or two to remove some of the sediment?
One month is *not* long for a cider fermentation! Many of us will expect
it to take 3 months or more. The yeasty taste may be due to lack of
maturation time. Rack it into a clean vessel kept tightly closed with
one Campden tablet per gallon and come back to it in 3 months time. If
you are starting from a kit using apple concentrate you may have some
slightly odd flavours anyway.
> The second question I have is about the sugar for brewing. The first
> time around I used Dextrose, but in talking to a friend I had
> recommended the use of normal white cane sugar.
Why either? Apple juice on its own should ferment out to give a cider
of 6% alcohol or more - it doesn't need extra sugar. This is only
necessary if you're going for an apple wine or a fortified New England
style winter-warmer cider with raisins and all the trimmings! But
perhaps it's part of the kit recipe because a cider made just from
regular concentrate can be a pretty strange beast and may need
sugar-water to knock the odd flavours back a bit.
> The recommendation, basically, was that the flavours that the white
> sugar encouraged might be bad for beer, but they enhanced the cider.
>
> My reading suggests that the side effects of the normal sugar tend to
> give a "green apple" flavour to the brew which I can well imagine
> working well for apple cider. :)
I can't think of any science which supports that. Commercial cider
makers use vast quantities of glucose (dextrose) syrup for their
(inaccurately described) "chaptalisation" which substitutes for part of
the apple juice. Regular white sugar (sucrose) "inverts" to glucose and
fructose once it gets into the acidic environment of cider, and both
sugars are handled by most yeasts along pretty much the same lines on
the trip to alcohol. Dextrose is generally used by brewers because it's
much cheaper than sugar, coming from hydrolysed corn starch (in North
America) or wheat starch (in Europe). Most people on this Digest would
not be using either.
A good simple procedure for making cider from apple juice is given in
the Ag Canada booklet (details on my website or from this link to Bill
in Canada http://mars.ark.com/~squeeze/7D-cider.html). You can use
store-bought pasteurised juice or cloudy sweet cider to start - just be
sure from the label that it doesn't contain any preservatives (sorbate
or benzoate) that will stop the yeast from working.
Andrew Lea, nr Oxford, UK
- -----------------------------
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Proulx and Nichols
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 11:55:10 +0000
Dick wrote:
> I don't know that either Proulx or Nichols are aware of the Cider Digest.
> I wish they were.
Do we know that either of them are actively involved in cider-making
now? - Google seems silent on the matter. I met them both and had some
later correspondence with them when they visited the UK and France on
their research trip in the late 70's - Lew Nichols was really the
cidermaker and Annie was more of the scribe (a very high quality scribe
as it turned out!). At that time before her fame as a novelist she made
her living as a free-lance journalist, I understand. The first edition
of the book had several pictures taken at our Long Ashton facility - the
current edition has only one, of a rather sad stone edge-runner mill
which has now long since been replaced by housing. [Sorry just a
personal reminiscence!]
Andrew
- --
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Microbial instability
From: Jason MacArthur <rotread@localnet.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 07:20:58 -0500
Andrew Lea wrote:
> But since we were working at the time
> on fruit coming from the then new and relatively heavily fertilised bush
> orchards, we were often seeing numbers of 300 mg/L. These were regarded
> as fast fermenters and moreover as producing ciders which were likely to
> give microbial instability problems (eg renewed fermentation) in storage.
I am wondering if Andrew would be willing to elaborate on the
connection between fast fermentation and microbial instability. What
is the correlation between these two qualities of a juice, and what
types of "microbial instability" result?
Jason MacArthur
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1299, 11 February 2006
From: Jason MacArthur <rotread@localnet.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 07:34:14 -0500
Dick Dunn wrote:
> The reason I'm not crazy about Proulx and Nichols is that it's got some
> really archaic boners, like sucking on a siphon hose to start racking.
> Isn't that pretty much inoculating your cider with a culture of your
> mouth
> bacteria?!? And even the homebrewing community mostly got rid of that
> one
> twenty years ago or more. (Their racking technique also has you put a
> stick with a brad and a rubber band into the cider, which seems
> slightly
> chancy, but pales in comparison to the mouth-suction part.) It
> wouldn't
> take much other than a careful reading by a cider-knowledgable reviewer
> to get rid of these few "old-style" techniques and ideas.
OK, I admit, that particular "archaic boner" is still a regular part of
my cider making- how do I start a siphon without it?
Jason MacArthur (hiding my head in shame)
------------------------------
Subject: Kit cider, normal sugar, and yeasty flavours.
From: Roy Bailey <sales@lambournvalleycider.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 17:25:47 +0000
In message <20060211184235.943338B755@raven.talisman.com>,
cider-request@talisman.com writes
>
>Subject: Kit cider, normal sugar, and yeasty flavours.
>From: Daniel Pittman <daniel@rimspace.net>
>Date: Wed, 08 Feb 2006 15:48:02 +1100
>
>A couple of questions here, from a novice brewer:
>
>I am a fair fan of cider, and getting started brewing using commercial
>cider kits (basically, Apple concentrate).
>
>I hope to get better at cider making before I try to work with more
>expensive juice purchased from the relatively few cider fruit growers in
>the area. (I have no scope to grow my own, sadly.)
>
Don't worry about 'cider fruit'. Good cider can be made from almost any
variety of apple. Parts of England use only cookers and eaters such as
Bramleys and Coxes.
>My first batch turned out fairly bad, to my taste. It was extremely dry
>and has a yeasty aftertaste.
>
If, as I suspect, you are in the good old US of A, my friend Martin
Stokes in Bangor, Maine, makes cider from unpasteurised apple juice that
he buys from farmers. It is impossible to work out what was in the kit
juice.
>The dryness didn't surprise me, as it took almost a month to fully
>ferment, and it stayed in the same fermentation vessel the whole time.
>
That is quick, but perhaps you kept it in a warm place. That would
produce a fast fermentation and could also affect the taste. My cider,
which started in October/November/December, is still only at about 1030
degrees, but it has been out in the open and we have had a pretty cold
winter here. I am very happy with this!
>I wondered if the yeasty taste could be caused by the very long
>fermentation and, if so, if I would be better moving the cider into
>another vessel after a week or two to remove some of the sediment?
>
What yeast did you use? In the UK, big commercial cider makers kill the
natural yeast and use saccharomyces byanus (I bet I have the spelling
wrong!), which is a champagne-type yeast. We craft cider makers use the
natural yeast in the apples. There is no way of knowing what the kit
yeast is. I suspect, certainly in the case of beer, that some kit
manufacturers use a yeast that just produces a good head so that novices
can be reassured that it is fermenting, and ignore the effect on taste.
>The second question I have is about the sugar for brewing. The first
>time around I used Dextrose, but in talking to a friend I had
>recommended the use of normal white cane sugar.
>
>The recommendation, basically, was that the flavours that the white
>sugar encouraged might be bad for beer, but they enhanced the cider.
>
>My reading suggests that the side effects of the normal sugar tend to
>give a "green apple" flavour to the brew which I can well imagine
>working well for apple cider. :)
>
I use white cane sugar, which should give a neutral taste, but I only
use it to get the original gravity of the juice up to a level that will
result in 7% alcohol by volume after fermentation. Some years I don't
use any. What are you using it for?
Roy.
- --
Roy Bailey - Proprietor
The Lambourn Valley Cider Company
(Real cider from the Royal County)
<www.lambournvalleycider.co.uk>
------------------------------
Subject: Butte County, Cider Apples ?
From: casey jennings <rcjennings@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 08:00:25 -0500
Howdy:
I've been lurking here for awhile but now I need advice and counsel
I'm planning a very small (approx 1 acre) cider orchard in Butte County, CA
USDA Hardiness zones 8A-9A but serious heat in the summer, over 90
degrees (F) consistently in June-Sept however at least well irrigation
is very available.
and I'm also getting to the age where climbing about in tall trees will
not be interesting in the future ... so I'm considering using dwarf
rootstock, and perhaps a trellis system.
Any advice on:
1) Cider varieties that can take the heat , and limited cooling,
approximately 800-1100 chilling units (1 hour below 45F) per season.
2) Rootstock
3) General advice on changing my plans to walnuts instead ...
Thanks
Casey Jennings
v 781 259 3102
f 781 259 3306
rcjennings@earthlink.net
------------------------------
Subject: Northern Cider Apples
From: Rob Stiles <rman_55976@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 21:50:45 -0800 (PST)
I live in Minnesota (zone 4) and I am interested in planting some
bittersweet or bittersharp cultivars. Does anyone have any information on
cider apples that would be cold hardy enough for the area? Another thing
to take into consideration is that we often get a first frost near the
end of November.
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1300
*************************
