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Cider Digest #1410
Subject: Cider Digest #1410, 19 September 2007
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1410 19 September 2007
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: scaling up - awkward intermediate step (John Simmons)
challenge (Dick Dunn)
Re: Scaling up ("Kevin Morgan")
Re: scaling up (Terry Bradshaw)
Sweetness in Cider ("McGonegal, Charles P")
Tasting Room ("Drew Zimmerman")
Scaling Up ("Drew Zimmerman")
Re: What's with the apple pie? (Dick Dunn)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: scaling up - awkward intermediate step
From: John Simmons <32bituser@cox.net>
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 20:13:37 -0400
Dick,
I am in the same pickle as you.. but to a slightly smaller scale.. I
did 20 gallons last year (my first year, amusingly enough..), and I
am looking to hit the 50 - 60 gallon mark this year.
My choice is to go to 15 gallon food safe plastic containers. A
popular place to fined these on the used market is at companies that
bottle sodas and juices. These companies often get soda and juice
concentrates in these containers, and often are willing to sell the
empties for the price of the deposit (usually $5 to $15, in my VERY
limited experience, and, sometimes even for free). Hope this helps!
Regards,
John Simmons
>Subject: scaling up - awkward intermediate step
>From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
>Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 01:33:33 -0600
>
>How do you scale up the quantity of cider you make? If you're making it at
>home, likely you use a 5-gallon glass carboy or two (or three or...that's
>where the problem starts:-)
>
>If you're making it commercially, you get SS tanks according to the scale
>of your production; you can get variable-capacity tanks to bridge a fair
>range of quantities. But those start rather large; also you need a way
>to rack the cider.
>
>"For example"...we probably need about 100 gallons a year of cider for our
>home and party use. There's only one cycle per year, so that means 100
>gallons of capacity (plus temporary variables!). I don't want to string
>out carboys from here to the state line, and besides, every additional
>container and batch is a bunch of extra work plus additional opportunities
>for contamination.
>
>The puzzle I'm posing is how to step up in capacity. (I have some peculiar
>solutions of my own, but they're awkward. I'm seeking something more
>generally useful, as I expect other folks may have hit the same puzzle.)
>
>Larger home-scale equipment is available, but expensive. Consider: A
>5-gallon carboy is around $20, or $4/gallon of capacity,US. A 27-gallon
>SS "Fermenator" is about $750, or $28/gallon. (I'm not knocking the
>Fermenators!! They're clever and well-designed; they've got many
>characteristics you want. They're just expensive.)
>
>Barrels are an alternative, but can you get the barrels you want? Not
>easy, I've found. You can get new barrels for a king's ransom, -and- then
>you have to condition them to tone down the oak so that your cider doesn't
>taste like a piece of furniture. You can get used wine barrels, but you're
>at the mercy of how the barrel was used. You can get whiskey barrels, but
>then you've got to spend effort to be sure your cider doesn't end up like
>low-proof whiskey (although you can make a pleasant variation that way!).
>
>Back to the topic: How do you make (say) a hundred gallons of cider per
>year? How do you step up from 10-20 gallons or so, and actually scale up
>rather than just replicating?
>- --
>Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: challenge
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:16:30 -0600
Muddling through my first small pressing of the season...a couple early
varieties and test pressings with some carefully gathered drops...going
through what I assume is common for a lot of folks...
"Where is the <xyzzy>?"
"$#!+!!!"
"Oh, yeah, I was going to fix that at the end of last season."
"Hmmm, OK, that's why I did it this way."
All this was accompanied by weather just a bit too warm for what cider
pressing should really be like, and as a consequence, way more insects
than one would hope for.
To the point: with high-school reunion approaching, a very old song started
going through my head. Now the challenge:
Can anybody compose a song (lyrics, that is) to the tune of "Lipstick
on your collar" with the lead "Fruit flies in my cider"?
Hey, if SW England has the Wurzels, why shouldn't we have as much fun?
We could use some cider songs, poems, sayings. Not that I'd mind adopting/
adapting the Wurzels' "Drink up thy cider", but we need some of our own in
the various places other than Britain represented here.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Scaling up
From: "Kevin Morgan" <kmorgan1@localnet.com>
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 20:38:16 -0400
In CD #1409 Dick said:
>How do you scale up the quantity of cider you make? If you're making it at
>home, likely you use a 5-gallon glass carboy or two (or three or...that's
>where the problem starts:-)
>Back to the topic: How do you make (say) a hundred gallons of cider per
>|year? How do you step up from 10-20 gallons or so, and actually scale up
>rather than just replicating?
I've never tried this with Cider, however, I've used it for Mead.
I purchased a MDPE (ie plastic) tank from US Plastics.(no conection, just
a satisfied customer) It is a cylindroconical tank with a tubular steel
stand. Mine is 15 Gal. capacity, but, they carry many different sizes.
I only used it for the primary fermentation, however I believe that Medium
density poly that is about 1/4 in. thick might be oxygen impermeable
(or sufficiently so) for longer storage.
Here are some reasonably priced tanks, if you have some friends in the area
that are also interested you can save a lot on the quantity discounts.
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=USPlastic&catego
ry%5Fname=20726&product%5Fid=3863
------------------------------
Subject: Re: scaling up
From: Terry Bradshaw <terryb@lostmeadowvt.com>
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 20:45:56 -0400
>How do you scale up the quantity of cider you make? If you're making it at
>home, likely you use a 5-gallon glass carboy or two (or three or...that's
>where the problem starts:-)
I make about that much in a good year and have tried everything. Here's
My list of fermenters:
1. Carboys: Great, fairly cheap, nice for small batches, blends, and
aging. I have 13 or so of them, sixes 5-7.5 gallons.
2. Corny kegs: Great aging tanks, indestructible, can be used as
primary fermenters with a little tinkering on the plumbing. I have
thirteen of these, too. Used to work at a bar and the owner would kick
me one from the soda company every so often, on top of the ones I've bought.
3. HDPE #2 juice concentrate barrels, 30 and 60 gallon. There's a guy
near me who brings these up by the truckload and sells them for $15. A
little tough to clean (they have the two screw bungs on one end) but
they really are nice to work with. Gotta watch what last came in
them...I've seen various pickled things, liquid smoke, and some brined
mushroom barrels that will never get the smell out (trust me on that
last one.) These really only work for primary, temporary storage,
keeving (hard to see), and cider mill storage as they will leak air over
time.
4. Oak. I have used fresh whiskey casks before, and have a supplier for
them at $75 apiece. They have their problems though, many that they are.
5. My Cadillac, a 28 gallon variable volume tank from
morewinemaking.com. When I bought it it was about $270 shipped, or $10
per gallon. The price has since gone to $360 or so as I recall, wish I
had gotten another one. I use this as my bottling tank in my (sweet)
cider mill and as a fermenter at the end of the season. The gasket on
the floating lid can leak, so I attach a line from my CO2 tank and feed
it about 5 lbs of pressure to keep it inflated.
A typical season will consist of this: several small batches that are
always in carboys, sizing down with each racking or combining as
needed. The juice barrels are set up as keeve and primary tanks behind
the house in November. When ready those are siphoned/pumped through the
cellar window to carboys (usually for the keeved stuff), the stainless
tank, or occasionally an oak barrel. As the carboys come ready I keg
them to make room for the oak or stainless barrels around April or so.
And I'm never afraid to toss a bad batch or any extra in the vinegar barrel.
It's been an investment, no doubt, but over ten+ years, a lot of fun,
and while finding some good deals. My next step is to find a stash of
clean sanke kegs to work with.
TB
================
Terence Bradshaw
Calais, VT
1450 feet, zone 4
http://www.lostmeadowvt.com
------------------------------
Subject: Sweetness in Cider
From: "McGonegal, Charles P" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:55:04 -0500
After yet another enjoyable cider competition judging (Schooner, Racine
WI) I've yet again encountered a minor issue that seems common to
non-commercial ciders. It's not a fault, per se, but ends up with
ciders being marked down because they are mis-described. The thing is,
I'm not positive that I'm not the one who's off kilter.
Here's the question: What's the appropriate range of residual sugar for
semi-sweet to sweet? Dry is easy - zippo. I use (I believe) a typical
commercial wine scale of 0 to ~6% residual sugar when I think of dry to
sweet. Sure, fortified dessert wines may be >10% - but they are a
different beast. That range 0-6 is based partly on the notes I see in
commercial wine competition entry forms, and partly on my own tasting
room experience.
But I keep getting non-commercial ciders listed as semi-sweet that are
just plain dry.
I've had a hunch for a while now that non-commercial ciders, having
limited options to stabilize a sweet cider, just get used to ciders with
0 to ~0.7% residual sugar. And come to think that's the full range of
sweetness.
Whereas I call 2.5-3% semi-sweet - and very few customers disagree with
me. Usually, it's the opposite reaction - 'Oh, that's not sweet at
all.'
So who's off base - me or the entrants?
Charles McGonegal
AEppelTreow
------------------------------
Subject: Tasting Room
From: "Drew Zimmerman" <drewzimmer@comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:56:19 -0700
Some thoughts on Dick's questions on sweet ciders in tasting rooms. I've
been tasting and selling out of the barrel room in our barn for the past two
and a half years. This last year we completed our tasting room and have it
staffed Fri ? Sun and all week during festivals. We now have 5 cider
products and two wines. Here's what I've learned.
Better than half of our customers have never tasted cider (hard cider)
before and are curious about what it tastes like. Here in lies a really big
challenge for the die-hard dry cider lover/maker ? these curious cider
newbies have preconceived expectations of what cider should be. Even though
they have never tried hard cider, they think it should be sweet and taste
like a fresh apple. The expectation is "Martinelli's with a kick". Us
cider heads know this is totally not what cider is, but it is what most
people expect cider to be. The reason for this is that we have no cider
drinking culture. We have a wine drinking culture and a beer drinking
culture. Almost everyone, even those who have never tasted Merlot, know
without a shadow of a doubt, that it is not sweet and does not taste like
Welch's grape juice. They probably even know that it goes well with steak!
What happens when that newbie customer, expecting sweet and appley, gets a
mouthful of sour astringency? You lose a small battle in the fight to carve
out a cider drinking culture. Us artisan cider makers, home or commercial,
hobbyists or businessfolk are all pioneers. All of us digesters ?
contributors or lurkers are all cultural pioneers ? we are the creators of
cider culture. Our job, whether we like it or not, is to re-introduce cider
to America. The macro cider and pop cider makers haven't done us any
favors, it's where some of the misconception originates ? but never the
less, it is absolutely crucial that that customer have a good experience
when tasting artisan cider for the first time.
So for the "I've never had cider before" newbie, we have a common cider made
from dessert apples and backsweetened with juice ? all hand produced by us.
It's not really, really sweet, but it meets the expectation part way and
goes really well with grilled salmon.
The second thing I've learned is really important to having a successful
business ? although I don't think we're quite out of the red yet. As a
bittersweet cider lover this is also a very hard concept to accept. Do not
make cider that you like or are passionate about and try to sell it. That
is unless you plan to buy and drink it all yourself! You must find out what
your customers want. Commercial brewers and winemakers all know this ? we
are all so far out of the bell curve of common taste that the slice of the
populace pie that has our same tastes and passions is thin enough to see
through. A tasting room is a great place to survey customers ? just
remember to give them only one or two simple choices so as not to burden or
confuse them.
The third thing I've learned is by all means have a broad spectrum of
products. Two is way, way better than just one and more is better yet, but
they need to be significantly different from each other. Black and white so
to speak, or slightly sweet dessert apple cider and barrel aged bittersweet
cider with just a hint of sweetness. Make their choice easy ? "I like the
appley one. The other is too strong for me, but my husband drinks
microbrews and would probably like it ? I'll take them both".
We've since added a really sweet cider (much to my chagrin), a non-oaked
bittersweet and crab apple cider and a full up straight from the barrel
scrumpy with no fizz and unfiltered. These last two are limited release
ciders due to availability of apples, but are near and dear to my heart.
The last thing is that the cider has to taste good. This may sound rather
obvious and silly, but regardless of type or style, it's important that it
taste really, really good. When sweetening to balance acid and/or tannin,
there is a point, sometimes broad, sometimes narrow where the flavor really
pops ? your taste buds go "man that really tastes like some more". Even if
you don't sweeten, getting the acid and tannin just right makes the cider go
down real easy and you want more. I call it "yum factor". If the yum
factor is high, folks will buy the cider. They will tell their friends and
come back and buy more and their friends will come and buy even more, and
they will know what cider really is - and perhaps a small battle in the
fight to build a cider drinking culture will be won.
DrewZimmerman
Red Barn Cider
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
------------------------------
Subject: Scaling Up
From: "Drew Zimmerman" <drewzimmer@comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:40:39 -0700
At some point every serious cider maker has to face the scaling up
challenge. The hardest part is not being able to see what's going on in the
container - 100 gallon glass carboys are pretty scarce.
Poly barrels work very well - I still use them for small batch ciders at the
barn. Make sure they are HDPE (high density polyethylene). HDPE is food
grade. Also, make sure that they smell good. They should smell neutral or
mildly fruity, depending on what was in them. New ones are best, but could
run around $70 for a 55 gallon drum. I have some that had apple juice
concentrate in them and the dregs went to vinegar. They cleaned up fine.
Use something like "Straight A" or "Glosan", or "Proxy Clean" - a good
strong alkaline cleaner. If they have mild odors, a good long soaking in
these products will work. I fill the drums one third full and lay them on
their sides and mark the liquid level on the outside (a flashlight
illuminating the inside helps. Then I rotate the drums one third turn every
few days so that the whole inside gets a good soaking.
A good source is homebrew shops. Lately the malt syrups come in really nice
poly drums with two bungs and a removable lid. They clean up easily and the
faint malt aroma should have minimal effect, especially if you are
fermenting. They come in 55 and 30 gallon sizes, I think.
Warning. Don't use drums that have had chemicals in them, or barbeque
sauce, soy sauce, olives, pickles, onions or jalapenos in them. You cannot
get that stuff out of the plastic! (I'm speaking from experience here).
Cider is amazingly transparent to other flavors. I had some cider made in
an orange juice concentrate drum once. You didn't even have to ask what was
previously in the drum - it tasted like orange juice.
I did my first big batches on the back porch where I could get one drum up
on the porch and an empty below on the ground to rack into. Worked great
with a homemade racking cane. I then bottled out of the one on the ground
by racking into a 5 gallon bottling bucket until the drum was empty enough
to lift back up on the porch (get a friend to help). You will need to have
a lot of bottles ready.
Another source of HDPE tanks is Ag supply stores on line. Google on Ag
tanks. The ones for potable water are HDPE and you can get various sizes
and shapes for somewhere around a dollar or two a gallon.
Plastic drums, barrels and Ag tanks are rather thin walled and do transpire
some oxygen. This is not necessarily a bad thing since during fermentation
CO2 is out-gassed and during the settling and clearing stages, a slight bit
of micro oxygenation in desirable. Not recommended for long term storage,
but up to a year hasn't been a problem for me especially if there is good
tannin content.
One thing you will notice is that there is a dramatic improvement in the
quality of the cider when going from 5 gallon batches to 50 gallon batches.
I think the yeast like more room and the maturation chemistry works better
as well.
Drew
------------------------------
Subject: Re: What's with the apple pie?
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:49:39 -0600
Leftover from digests 1407-1408: If anybody was concerned or upset about
what I said about Gary's spiced cider winner, please understand that I
wasn't attacking Gary...quite the contrary. I knew part of the story but
wanted to draw him out on it. Since the _Zymurgy_ article was so lacking,
I thought it needed to be told here.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1410
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