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Cider Digest #1326
Subject: Cider Digest #1326, 12 July 2006
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1326 12 July 2006
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
A pressing question (Donald Davenport)
Intensified must clarification ("Charles McGonegal")
Re: ice cider from juice (Benjamin Watson)
Rose Hip "Cider" (Dan Whitehead)
Cultured non-Sacchromyces yeasts? ("McGonegal, Charles")
Bottling advice, please ("Christian Layke")
Long Ashton Cider? ("chris horn")
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: A pressing question
From: Donald Davenport <djdavenport@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 18:13:23 -0600
I'm building a pack press based on those drawings that I think were
originally Canadian but have been anthologized various places,
including Andrew's site.
As it turns out, given the physical dimension of the bottle jack I'm
using, I have room for an additional couple of cheeses (7 rather than
the 5 the plans call for.)
Is there any diminished result with stacking more cheese? Any
instability? Does it affect the juice output?
Or was there any other reason why 5 was the magic number?
I can always put some cribbing in to make it work with five, but since
I have the room, I figured the more cheese the merrier.
Did I miss something?
Thanks.
Donald Davenport
Santa Fe, NM
------------------------------
Subject: Intensified must clarification
From: "Charles McGonegal" <cpm@appletrue.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 19:23:47 -0500 (CDT)
Sorry if I confused you Tim, by my earlier notes.
I was speaking very specifically about cider from intensified _juice_.
That is, concentrated _before_ fermentation. There is a fair amount of
interest as of late in intensification by freezing the _apples_, or even
freezing the _juice_, either of which would make variations of 'ice
cider'. Ice cider is not particularly more alcoholic than standard cider,
but sweeter, more acidic and more aromatic.
Whether cryo-concentration yields a better intensified juice than reverse
osmosis, or simply adding concentrate remains to be tested in competition
:-)
Fractional crystallization _after_ fermentation, in order to increase
alcohol, is the illegal and probably unhealthy practice.
Charles
AEppelTreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Re: ice cider from juice
From: Benjamin Watson <bwatson@worldpath.net>
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:39:21 -0400
Tim Boger wrote:
> Secondly my understanding is drinking "intensified" cider that under
> went crystal fractionalization is NOT unhealthy because he engages in
> the practice.
Tim asked for a complete article on the subject -- not really of "ice
cider" but of "applejack" or "cider oil," which is what he's really
talking about.
Ice cider (whether or not one freezes the apples on the trees or in
storage, or uses frozen concentrated fresh cider -- which technically
cannot be called ice cider, at least in Quebec, I gather) is not at all
the same thing as applejack, which is made not by fractional
crystallization of fresh (unfermented) juice but by fractional
crystallization of fermented (alcoholic) cider. Therein lies the
difference, and the reason that one (ice cider) is considered safe to
drink and legal, and the other (applejack) is not.
The difference in alcohol between the two is significant, but not
enormous. Ice cider probably weighs in between 10-12% alcohol by volume
(around the strength of a chaptalized "apple wine"), whereas applejack
- -- in a good, cold winter, can reach the strength of a good fortified
wine (around 17-18% abv.) is what I've achieved. For this it is
necessary for nighttime temperatures -- if you're doing this outside --
to dip to around -5 to -10 deg. F. (-21 to -23 deg. C), In other words,
pretty cold for these times of climate change. If the temps where you
are dip to only around 0-5 deg. F., then you're back at 10-12% abv.
The point is, the colder the temps, the greater the separation between
the pure water (ice) and the concentrated applejack, and the stronger
the hooch. For a table that shows this, I refer again to pg. 102 of
Sanborn C. Brown's excellent little book, Wines & Beers of Old New
England (UPNE, 1978).
The health problem -- which was once called "cider palsy," but has
nothing to do with "cerebral palsy" -- is because by concentrating hard
(already fermented) cider you are throwing away the pure water in it
and making a slightly "oily" spirit that has all of the compounds that
are considered undesirable by distillers who concentrate fermented
grain or fruit using heat. All of these distillers discard the "heads"
and the "tails" and keep only the middle of the run. But concentration
by freezing retain all of the headache-inducing qualities of this
"holistic" alcohol. Hence the hangovers, and the twitchiness that
ensues if one imbibes too much.
In my two attempts at making applejack for research purposes, I also
found that, if unfiltered, it tends to "throw" a lot of sediment some
time after bottling, and that it must be racked off and rebottled once
or twice to ensure a clean, attractive product. It does mellow a bit
over time, and perhaps would be improved by oak conditioning --
assuming you keep enough reserved in bottles to top up the barrel after
evaporation. But the results of all this care and feeding do not yield
a particularly delightful sippin' spirit, in the best of circumstances,
certainly nothing that would hold a candle to even an indifferent
Calvados. So unless you are flouting the revenuers, or simply frugal,
I don't find applejack superior in any way to legally purchased apple
brandy.
Hope that gives a bit of perspective from a novice 'jack maker.
On another, completely unrelated topic, I will try to gear up and start
contributing more, since we are moving into the time when I begin to
nag people about Cider Day. This year's festival in western
Massachusetts promises to be better than ever, and my friend, the
knowledgeable and entertaining Tom Burford, will be up from Virginia to
hold a Southern and Mid-Atlantic heirloom apple tasting and hold forth
on grafting and heritage apples in general. We'll also have a cider
panel this year showcasing typical British, French, and Spanish
ciders/cidres/sidras, which should be very educational.
Ben Watson
Francestown, NH
------------------------------
Subject: Rose Hip "Cider"
From: Dan Whitehead <dantheman50_98@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:50:15 -0700 (PDT)
I have just tasted, for the first time since making it
three years ago, something that tastes like a cross
between a traditional English West Country cider, with
its' hard tannins and an Eastern Counties cider with
the fresh appliness, though a little stronger than
most.
The colour was perfect - a deep orange, with an nice
haze to it. But can you gues what is was?
Rose Hip Wine!
I could not quite believe this, but I double checked
the label and everything. In fact, the home wine
making legend Jack Keller
(http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/)regards this fruit
as second only to the grape in quality in terms of
wine making. He ain't kidding, folks - this is good
stuff.
So, if anybody here would like to get a very good idea
of what a traditional cider tastes like, but with no
access to the fruit, nor the cider, then can I
recommend that you make Rose Hip Wine. Sure, it takes
at least 2 years to mature, but it's worth it, I can
assure you.
You may be thinking that this is slightly off topic,
but rose hips are of course very closely related to
the apple - they are both members of the Rosaceae
family afterall. So really, perhaps this is more of a
cider than a wine!
------------------------------
Subject: Cultured non-Sacchromyces yeasts?
From: "McGonegal, Charles" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 07:29:32 -0500
I was looking through the latest Wine Lab (now Gusmer) catalog I got,
and apart from shuddering at the suggestion to "add lots of nutrients!"
to ciders and meads, I did find someing that interested me (in a
positive sense :-).
They are offering cultured, dormant, dry yeast in 500g foil bags (like
almost everyone) of _non-Sacchromyces_ yeasts. They are produced by the
Danish company CHR Hansen, and are blends of Kluyveromyces
thermotolerans and Torulaspora delbrukii, with a base of one of their
low SO2 producing Sacchromyces strains. The idea is to be able to do a
controlled (and strain-selected) ferment with elements of spontaneous
ferments.
http://www.thewinelab.com/HansenYeast.htm#
They (need I say 'obviously'?) aren't suggesting them for cider, and the
underlying Sacc. Strains seem to be aimed more for minerally, tannic
styles - but this seems like a good potential match for ciders aiming to
make a strong 'I am not Woodchuck' statement.
Anyone tried them out?
Charles McGonegal
AEppelTreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Bottling advice, please
From: "Christian Layke" <clayke@wri.org>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:20:16 -0400
I've needed to ask a question but hesitated because it seems too basic
for the digest (we are getting ready to move and all my books are packed
away). Since things are slow on the digest, here goes. (Thanks by the
way to the folks who answered my earlier question about having added too
much tannin. I took away from those answers to just bide my time, which
seems to have worked well).
I had resigned myself to moving my 6.5 gallon carboy of cloudy cider
from last fall to our new house without bottling. But suddenly, it fell
clear (malo-lactic fermentation finished up, I guess). Now I'd like to
bottle, but I don't know how much metabisulfate or priming sugar to add.
I've had a couple of problems recently with infected beer, so I want to
use metabisulfate for bottling. How much should I add, and can I add
yeast at the same time and still expect carbonation? I added one
campden tablet per gallon before pitching an english ale yeast last
fall, but didn't add any when racking (racked twice). The cider is
quite dry. How much sugar (sucrose) should I prime with for a high level
of carbonation?
Thanks in advance,
Christian Layke
------------------------------
Subject: Long Ashton Cider?
From: "chris horn" <agent_strangelove@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:33:14 -0700
I ran across a bottle of 'Long Ashton Cider'... I had never seen this
before... I have no clue what vintage this bottle is...
http://cgi.ebay.com/BOTTLE-OF-LONG-ASHTON-CIDER-UNOPENED-BUT-FOR-DISPLAY_W0QQite
mZ300004745780QQihZ020QQcategoryZ69614QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Andrew, was this something you guys whipped up in the backroom when funding
got low? :)
Chris
'It is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is
disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by
sobriety.'
~Thomas de Quincy
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End of Cider Digest #1326
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