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Cider Digest #1333
Subject: Cider Digest #1333, 24 August 2006
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1333 24 August 2006
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
UV or pasteurisation (Andrew Lea)
Ground cover (Andrew Lea)
Major Cider Apples (Jason MacArthur)
cider character and off-tastes (or not) (Dick Dunn)
FitzMill ("shawn carney")
Pomace Piston Pump ("shawn carney")
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Subject: UV or pasteurisation
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 11:42:48 +0100
Mike Beck said
>
> In a somewhat related matter. Juice makers in New York have been
> given a 1 yr. extension before all juice makers are required to
> pasteurize. There is a few juice makers that are trying to get the
> law repealed in NY.
As a UK "outcider" this doesn't concern me directly (there is no
traditional market here for farmgate unpasteurised juice and never has
been). However, when I was at the Franklin County Event last fall I
noticed a couple of people using flow-through UV treatment processes
which apparently achieve the required "5-log" reduction in microbial
count. Is UV treatment regarded as equivalent to pasteurisation by the
NY State authorities, or must it be heat?
Incidentally re pricing for juicing other people's fruit, the going rate
around here in the south of England seems to be about 10 pence per litre
(40 pence or roughly 80 cents per US gallon). That's when they bring
their own washed fruit and take away the juice in their own containers.
But, as remarked above, that juice would normally go on for cider-making
or possibly for addition of Vit C followed by in-bottle pasteurisation,
but not for direct consumption.
Andrew Lea
nr Oxford, UK.
------------------------------
Subject: Ground cover
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 11:43:45 +0100
Seth wrote:
> My question is about groundcover. There seem to be a lot of different
> philosophies and I would like to hear recommendations from the
> members since I am really starting from bare soil.
Here in the UK grass cover is always recommended. It helps to keep tree
growth moderated and absorbs excess nutrients, also providing a good
surface when harvest time comes around (since cider fruit is generally
allowed to fall on the floor rather than being picked). Various mixtures
of bents, fescues and perennial ryegrass are available for orchards
here. When I planted my small orchard nearly 20 years ago I planted a
'sheep mix' which also contained white clover but that has mostly died
out in the tree shade now and only survives in the more open areas.
People here who plant new standard orchards (M111 is semi-standard) are
now tending to incorporate woodland wildflower seed mixes too. This
improves biodiversity and attracts pollinating insects, apart from just
looking very nice around blossom time! However the species have to be
true woodland species i.e. those which complete their flowering and
seeding cycle before the tree canopy closes over in mid-summer, and
before you need to mow your first cut. In this country (generally damp
summers!), mowing the sward is typically required once or twice a
season. Generally the mowings are left in situ to recycle.
There would be no point in giving detailed recommendations from here
since species and climate are so different but those are the general
principles.
Andrew Lea,
nr Oxford UK
- --
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Major Cider Apples
From: Jason MacArthur <rotread@localnet.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 06:47:44 -0400
My little orchard is starting to come into production, and I have a
nice crop of Majors this year. However, a number of the fruits (5% +/
- -) seem to be rotting on the tree. The fruits appear bruised, not
uniformly but in erratic patterns around the apple. When cut into,
these "bruises" contain rotten flesh, with a very sticky, almost mucus
like sap. I have not seen this on any other of my fruit varieties, so
I am curious if this is something that Majors are prone to. I don't
think it is insect damage(no worms are evident), although I could be
wrong on this account. I suppose it could be spray damage- I have been
spraying calcium and some Spinosads for apple maggot- but I would
expect spray damage to appear on the foliage more than on the fruit and
this is not the case.
Has anyone else encountered this with Majors, or any other variety for
that matter?
Happy Pressing!
Jason MacArthur
Whetstone Cider Works
Marlboro, VT
------------------------------
Subject: cider character and off-tastes (or not)
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2006 23:49:47 -0600
Tim Rose <ROSET@si.edu> wrote, a few digests back,
> Subject: off cider from France and England
>
> A few years ago I bought a bottle of Etienne duPont (around alc. 4% and
> likely made by keeving) cider to try as my first French cider. A couple
> of us opened it and were first impressed by the roiling effervescence
> and then by the awful smoky bacon band-aid barnyard bad socks smell and
> taste. As we were trying to decide whether to drink the stuff or not, I
> did a quick web search and found an old digest entry by Dick Dunn that
> said the strong effervescence was a clear indication the stuff had gone
> bad, never mind the horrific smell and yes, we did taste it...
all in the name of science, I guess. The incredible effervescence (I call
it "self-decanting":-) is surely a bad sign because it wasn't meant to be
in that condition when opened. But there's a bit of caution on the other
tasting notes; read on.
>...Just this
> past winter I found another Etienne duPont from a more recent year. It
> had an ugly looking kinda stringy sediment but I bought it and we opened
> it up. It didn't have the impressive effervescence as the previous but
> it had the same off smell and taste...
The "stringy sediment" could be either the cider fault called "ropiness"
(which also gives a viscous character and a sharp taste) or a vinegar
bacterium.
>...Recently an English friend
> hand-carried some ciders back for me from her homeland. One was a
> Weston's strong Organic cider (alc. 6.5%, contains sulfites). This one
> had an initial oak taste that quickly resolved itself into the same off
> flavors, although not as pronounced, as the duPont. We were greatly
> relieved when our English friend assured us she had never tasted English
> cider like that and that it was indeed off. I am curious to know what
> happened to these ciders to spoil them?...
Here's the real problem: You've described two separate matters--ciders
which have clearly gone off, and ciders which present unusual tastes to
which you are not at all accustomed.
The gushing-out-of-bottle, sour, ropy, character is cider that's gone off.
Most good cider texts can explain what these various faults are and how
they happen.
The band-aid and bad socks sound like faults, although I'm having to guess
your tastes against mine. Band-aid -can- be a characterization of tannin,
although more often not, more often a fault.
The smoky-bacon is an intended, desirable trait. If the details matter, it
comes out of particular apples (Kingston Black seems to encourage it) and
more to the point out of a malo-lactic fermentation.
The "barnyard" note can occur at a level from subtle to overwhelming, and
can come from more than one source. At a low level it is an intended,
even desirable, note, in certain styles. At a higher level it comes from
a different source, and is clearly a fault. The higher level comes from
Brettanomyces--it's a beasty that winemakers fight even more than cider-
makers. At a low level there's another process (I forget - sorry - Help!
Andrew!) that creates a small amount of the same flavor component in cider.
Overall you've run into an unpleasant mix of intended flavors you're not
accustomed to finding, and some nasty faults. The trouble in sorting it out
is that some of the positive, intended flavors are those which you don't
associate with apples, in the same sense that if you were just starting to
drink wine, some of the flavors you wouldn't associate with grapes.
I don't know how to help untangle this in any simple, practical way. You
could spend a few weeks in England visiting every cidermaker you can find
and tasting as much as possible...that would work but it's a fanatic's
exercise.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: FitzMill
From: "shawn carney" <scarney88@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 10:29:07 -0600
Thanks for the input Andrew, the Fitzmills look like a nice piece of
equipment (and have a big price to go along with it). On Fitzpatrick's
website they list fruit milling as one of their applications. However they
have quite a few different models of mills as well as different
configurations of each model. Andrew is correct about the expense making it
nearly imposable to play around with one of these unless you work at a place
that uses one. I wish I better understood why a grader mill is preferred
over a hammer mill? Goodnature sells a mill that is similar to a hammer
mill but instead of hammers it has knives and dices the fruit into small
enough pieces to fall through the screen. I used a hammer mill last season
for our cider. I liked the job it did but have not used anything else so it
is hard for me to evaluate it. I recently bought a new press and it came
with a grader mill, it isn't large enough for me to use for my cider
production but I will play around with it and compare to my old hammer mill.
There is an organic juice business in the area (big B's fabulous juice)
that uses the Goodnature mill hopefully I can stop by some time when they
are juicing and see it in use. Goodnature claims the clean cuts from the
knives aid in juice extraction, I am not sure why?
Shawn Carney
Cedaredge, Colorado
------------------------------
Subject: Pomace Piston Pump
From: "shawn carney" <scarney88@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2006 13:16:51 -0600
Earlier this week I was visiting Big B's a local fresh juice business.
After looking at his grinder and pomace feed system he began to tell me
about his old system.
It was a homemade piston pump built from a 4" PVC "sanitary T" fitting.
They used it to process quite a bit of juice I think about 1000 gal. on the
days they press. So the pump must have been able to put out a fair bit of
pomace. We went out back and took a look at it, it was not totally together
anymore but I still got the general idea of how it worked. The T sat upside
down with a piston in one side and the pomace output was on the opposite
side. The pomace input came in from the bottom of the T (which is on top
because it's upside down). By looking at it I would think a person could
construct one for under $200 including the motor. I wasn't surprised to
hear it's not as smooth as his new Goodnature system but for people on a
budget it may be an option. Has anyone else seen a pump like this? I
didn't have my camera handy at the time but I'll try and swing back by in
the next few days to snap some pictures in time for the next digest (I know
its confusing to understand without a picture). Maybe I can get Dick to put
them up on his website since mine isn't up yet.
Shawn Carney
Cedaredge, Colorado
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1333
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