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Cider Digest #1308
Subject: Cider Digest #1308, 18 March 2006
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1308 18 March 2006
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Classes for new cider makers? ("patrick j farell")
Re: Cider Digest #1307, 14 March 2006 (Bill Rhyne)
Cider competitions (Dick Dunn)
New polls at Craft Cider Network ("McGonegal, Charles")
competition discussions (Cider Digest Admin)
Bladder press versus the rest? (Nick Gunn)
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Subject: Classes for new cider makers?
From: "patrick j farell" <sibleyorchards@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:33:35 -0600
I had heard that the Universities of Cornell and Washington State were going
to hold classes for us new hard cider makers? Any news on that? Also do we
have a list of competitions for hard cider? Pat
Patrick J. Farrell
Sibley Orchards and Cider Mill
4121 California Ave.
Sibley, Missouri 64088
816-650-5535
816-589-0674 c
www.sibleyorchards.com
sibleyorchards@hotmail.com
------------------------------
Subject: Re: in bottle pasteurization
From: Bill Rhyne <bill_rhyne@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 09:59:53 -0800 (PST)
Charles asked in a previous posting "I have one question that comes to
mind when this topic is bandied about - if you're willing to heat the final
product, why aren't you willing to heat the starting juice? (Or are you?)"
In reply to his question, why do you want to heat the starting juice?
What is the purpose or the goal? Is it necessary? It depends on your
situation.
One reason to heat the starting juice to kill the yeasts is that you want
to hold the juice until fermenting at a later time. In that case, you may
want to pasteurize the juice and then innoculate with your own yeast. We
have done that also. But that is not why we pasteurized as the last step
when the cider was sparkling and ready for consumption. We did for reasons
already stated in previous postings.
Also, I was thinking about the "cooked apple taste" of other apple juices
and trying to understand why we don't experience that with our cider. Here
is one theory beyond the temperature discussion. Perhaps the cooked flavor
is related to the carmelization of the sugars in the juice. In cider,
the sugar has gone from 12% to about 1-2% so there is less sugar present
anyway. So if there is any carmelizaton, it would be less noticeable.
Just an idea.
Re: Drew's experience with pasteurization and equipment
I grew up in a large family of nine kids and one of my first tasks when
I would hang out in the kitchen with my mom was to help dry the milk
bottles that were used to feed the younger siblings. She had a big kettle
with a metal basket to hold the bottles and to retrieve the bottles after
the milk had been pasteurized. So, it was ironic for me to find myself
resorting to the practice 40 years later for a different purpose. Our first
pasteurization attempts started out on the stove in the kitchen. Later
though, we were trying to pasteurize 360 champagne bottles per batch to
insure even product performance at the time of serving. Consequently, we
needed to come up with our own equipment. As Drew mentioned, cider folks
fall between the cracks of the beer and wine industry in that we share some
commonality but differ on others. This was one of the areas where we were
on our own. Necessity is the mother of invention or something like that.
Anyway, we didn't break the bank and we figured out a solution that
conserved water and energy, as well as gave an uniform heating result.
Take care!
Bill Rhyne
------------------------------
Subject: Cider competitions
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 22:52:15 -0700
"McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com> wrote in the last digest:
> Cider competitions:
...
> <soapbox/>
>
> I think that what we (as a community) would like to see are
> _cider_ competitions that respect and reward the complexity and
> diversity of our products in a way that we, as a community, have built
> some consensus about how to go about the process...
I'd qualify that to say that -if- we're going to have competitions, we
would like to see cider competitions as such, not cider as the ugly
stepchild of beer, wine, or mead. Just pointing out that there are some
really good cidermakers who aren't much interested in competitions. Not
everybody in the community likes competing.
>...If we could come up
> with a set of guidelines, I would hope that we could go to organizations
> like the BCJP and the various wine competitions and say 'This is how we
> think our products are best considered. Please respect our industries
> wishes.'...
But that is more-or-less what happened! The BJCP went out looking for help
to update their cider category descriptions. They knew they needed major
re-work, so they got cider folks involved and went ahead. There were a
couple bumps in the road early on, to be sure.
The current BJCP cider categories, descriptions, etc., were almost entirely
the work of three people: myself, Gary Awdey, and Drew Zimmerman. All of
those names should be familiar here on the Cider Digest. I did most of the
wordsmithing, and will gladly accept flames about the content of the BJCP
styles, since Gary and Drew tried to keep me on the One True Path but
didn't always succeed.
I believe Drew used a set of style descriptions for the last NWCS
competition that was very close to the penultimate draft of the BJCP.
> Given that interest in cider seems to overlap more with brewers
> than with wine snobs, it looks like helping the BJCP improve its process
> will be easier than influencing wine organizations, or coming up with
> our own, independently.
I think brewers are the more compatible connection simply because they've
got a much larger and more credible "home-producer" organization, which
tends to build small-scale pros from its ranks. (That's the American
Homebrewer's Association, and I'll admit that I'm biased because I
graduated from homebrew to cider [via mead], plus I'm just up the road
from AHA HQ.)
> An observation from the polls I have running on the Cider Net
> site - we seem to prefer (unamimously so far) Gold/Silver/Bronze
> multiple-awards (like wine comps) over 1st/2nd/3rd single-awards (like
> beer comps). This may be a more fundamental conflict than defining
> sytles or setting productions rules for certain categories.
Real-world caution on that: the serious folks, and the producers, like
merit-based awards. But the unwashed masses seem to like winner-takes-all
competitions. Ask them who won the Stupor Bowl or the Stanley Cup; then
ask who came in third! They want somebody to tell them who's the very
best. Although that's ultimately counterproductive in the sense that it
promotes a sort of pandering and enthusiastic mediocrity, it's reality!
I'm not entirely sure why wine comps can do multiple awards, although it
might be that they've got more class (snob appeal even), so can control
the situation better. Do they still have BoS awards?
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: New polls at Craft Cider Network
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:04:57 -0600
I've posted two new polls at http://cider.appletrue.com in the interest
of collecting cidermaker community feedback for competition organizers.
Those interesting in this topic are welcome to chatter on the Cider Net
site, rather than clutter up the Digest.
1) Does flavored cooperage make a Specialty Cider?
2) A draft >85% apple certification for Standard Cider entries.
You may have to scroll down the poll section to find them - I'm working
on fixing the 'put at the top of the list' option.
Charles
Aeppeltreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: competition discussions
From: cider-request@talisman.com (Cider Digest Admin)
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 10:23:37 -0700 (MST)
Charles McGonegal wrote:
> I've posted two new polls at http://cider.appletrue.com in the interest
> of collecting cidermaker community feedback for competition organizers.
> Those interesting in this topic are welcome to chatter on the Cider Net
> site, rather than clutter up the Digest.
Wearing my "janitor" hat, I'll raise one eyebrow just a bit at that--not
about the two specific new polls but about competition in general.
Discussions of competition are welcome here; it's been one of the more
lively topics in recent months. In particular, the BJCP styles are
primarily used by amateur competitions, so there's plenty of room for
discussion outside the craft/small-scale commercial context, and I don't
want anybody to feel that competition topics are "clutter" here.
That said, the Craft Cider Network does offer various ways of exchanging
information well beyond the strict limitations of one-way email of the
Cider Digest: polls, wiki pages, blogs, chats, etc. It also has a
better-defined focus and audience.
Dick
------------------------------
Subject: Bladder press versus the rest?
From: Nick Gunn <nnugkcin@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 11:03:31 -0800 (PST)
We are trying to increse our production to around
7-10,000 gallons of cider per year and and are sick
and tired of our puny 18" rack and cloth press. We did
about 3,000 gallons on it last fall which took nearly
three weeks of back-breaking labor for three people.
We have been looking at a used Goodnature Squeezebox
press that can do 200-400 gallons per hour (probably
more than we need). And a new Bucher x-pro8 membrane
press fitted with Special "juice channels" designed
specifically for apple pomace. The Bucher can do
120-140 gallons per hour. Both are priced about the
same even though the squeezebox is about 15 years old.
I've heard many good things about these sqeezebox
"accordian style" presses, but I have yet to find
anyone who has used a bladder type press or maybe one
made specially for apples. According to Bucher, the
x-pro series fruit presses were made originally for
grapes and retrofitted for apples, and provide the
bucher quality and efficiency of their larger
horizontal piston presses at a much lower price.
Anyone out there in ciderspace have any input? You can
reply on or off digest.
Pertaining to Drew's comments on in-bottle
pasteurization. We use the same technique taught to us
by the same guy - Peter Mitchell, at Mt. Vernon. This
method provides the least amount of calculated risk
for sweet ciders and as long as you calculate
Pasteurization Units correctly, your cider flavor
isn't noticeably effected. A bit time consuming but
piece of mind is worth a lot in this fickle industry.
Nick Gunn
Wandering Aengus Ciderworks
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End of Cider Digest #1308
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