Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Cider Digest #1464
Subject: Cider Digest #1464, 11 September 2008
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1464 11 September 2008
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Cranberries (Andrew Lea)
Re: Cider Digest #1463, 8 September 2008 (Stephen Wood)
Re: So much for categories ("Jay Hersh aka Dr. Beer(R)")
Re: Hard Cider Festivals ("Gary Awdey")
cider making in serbia ("sebastian hougham")
Send ONLY articles for the digest to cider@talisman.com.
Use cider-request@talisman.com for subscribe/unsubscribe/admin requests.
When subscribing, please include your name and a good address in the
message body unless you're sure your mailer generates them.
Archives of the Digest are available at www.talisman.com/cider
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Cranberries
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:06:47 +0100
Bill wrote:
> cranberry juice, it will keep
> almost indefinitely with no treatment at all because of it's low sugar
> and high acid nature, as well as a range of phytonutrients not found in
> other fruits, wild yeasts don't infect it,
I know this has come up on CD before, but the curious reason why
cranberries seem to be somewhat resistant to yeast is the amount of
natural benzoic acid they contain. Much of this is locked up as a
glycoside called vacciniin, but some is free and it's the free stuff
that provides the inhibition. Nearly all plants contain some benzoic
acid - it's very widespread - but cranberry and its relatives are
unusual in containing sufficiently large amounts to have a physiological
effect. And the high acid makes the benzoate even more effective.
Andrew
- --
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1463, 8 September 2008
From: Stephen Wood <swood@povertylaneorchards.com>
Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:28:09 -0400
This harvest season, we will again have several thousand bushels of
bittersweet and bittersharp cider apples available to other cidermakers from
our cider orchards in Lebanon and Plainfield, NH. 2008 has been a rainy but
vigorous growing season for cider, and the fruit appears to be in great
shape, as we approach the beginning of harvest. As ever, we will give
preference to cidermakers who have bought apples from us in the past;
thereafter, the apples will be available first come, first served. As with
all of our crops, we will only pick what we need, and what we are fairly
certain of being able to sell, so cidermakers who want some of this fruit
should contact me soon -- we will honor reservations.
The most abundant early varieties this year are Somerset Redstreak and
Ashton Bitter (early/mid-September); late are Dabinett, Yarlington Mill, and
Kingston Black (October). We'll have moderate volumes of other varieties,
(perhaps including Ellis Bitter, Major, Bulmers' Norman, Chisel Jersey,
Harry Masters Jersey and Michelin). We follow the English and French
practice of letting the fruit hang until most of it is dropping, then gently
shaking the trees and harvesting the fruit from the ground. Unlike
commercial European operations, we often harvest more than once, depending
on regularity of ripening, and we pick from the ground by hand, to try to
leave as much rot as possible behind. In my experience, this is the best
way to achieve the highest possible degree of ripeness. That said, these are
drops, and need to be milled and pressed pretty quickly after harvest; they
also sometimes need to be washed at the press, depending on the muddiness of
the harvest season.
We will consider (with sufficient volumes) custom hand-picking, custom
picking into your bins, or custom pressing the fruit for you (or having it
pressed), and sulfiting the juice according to your instructions -- in each
case, we would need your bins or tanks here in advance. We can also
accommodate or arrange tanker trucks or dump trailers for larger volumes.
Please call (603 448 1511) or email (swood@farnumhillciders.com) to reserve
cider fruit. Our prices are all F.O.B. Lebanon, NH, and assume that the
fruit leaves the farm in your containers. Our bins hold 15 bushels.
Prices: 1-3 bins $240/bin (15-45 bu)
4-6 bins $210/bin
7-10 bins $180/bin
11-30 bins $165/bin
30+ bins call for price and availability
Steve Wood
Farnum Hill Ciders
Lebanon, NH 03766
603 448 1511
swood@farnumhillciders.com
------------------------------
Subject: Re: So much for categories
From: "Jay Hersh aka Dr. Beer(R)" <jsh@doctorbeer.com>
Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:03:20 -0400
Hi Don,
I'm a BJCP Grand Master Judge and former administrator of the BJCP Exam
Program. I worked on the scoresheet committee for a time helping produce
the current beer scoresheet. I have also done sensory training sessions and
trained a lot of prospective judges. Although I have not been very active
as a BJCP judge lately, I have a lot of experience with the BJCP and make
my comments based on that history. These comments are solely my own opinions.
The BJCP has worked on it's cider guidelines for a long time. They have
engaged many persons with experience in that area. These efforts have
incuded the production of a separate scoresheet for cider from that used
for beer and resulted in change to the guidelines from those originally
used. It is hard however to capture in a description what exactly comprises
a "style". At one extreme each product produced by each company is in
itself its own style. Every producer's products are distinct in some
regard. The tough part is trying to find where there is enough commonality
among what is on the market to build a description.
There is also the historical aspect of this. Individuals try to recreate
things that might have once existed based on description, but unless you
can go back in time know one really knows what those products truly tasted
like.
Which leads to the next tough part. How do you convey in writing a sensory
experience so that the judges can rate the beverages in an absolutely
objective manner? The answer is you can't. It is virtually impossible to
eliminate all subjectivity in judging. The BJCP tries to get the judges to
focus on "as appropriate for style" based on the style descriptions to
reduce subjectivity as much as possible and thereby reduce the beauty
contest aspect of judging. How good a judge is at accomplishing this is a
matter of how they were trained, how much experience they have, how widely
they have traveled and what they tasted in doing so, and their willingness
to work at improving their skills.
As for the organizer's decision to collapse subcategories, this is
something that is left to the discretion of the organizers. Do you know how
many beers were entered in the 23 beer categories? How many were entered in
the cider categories? Typically each of the 26 beer categories awards 1st,
2nd and 3rd place prizes. Mead is a separate group of three categories. How
many of the 61 ribbons awarded went to meads? Did these categories get
collapsed too?
Depending on how many entries there were in the beer categories then
awarding 61 medals in them is not inappropriate, but by the fact that they
awarded 61 medals to beer and mead it would seem that they collapsed some
of those categories as well, otherwise they'd have given out 78 ribbons.
Without knowing how many entries in each category in the competition it is
hard for me to put forward an opinion as to whether the manner they
collapsed categories was or was not appropriate. Even then it's hard to 2nd
guess after the fact. Consider however a situation where someone entered a
beer in a category like Bock (in which the substyles are fairly well
deliniated) and there were 10 bock beers total. That beer faces up against
9 others. Now let's say there were 3 ciders entered in the Standard Cider
category. Is it fair to the person who entered the Bock category that they
don't get a ribbon for coming in 4th place in a flight of 10 beers when
everyone that entered a cider in the Standard Cider category got a ribbon?
That kind of scenario happened all the time in the many, many competitions
I organized and/or judged at. Some organizers choose to award ribbons in
this circumstance in every category as long as the entries received a
"minimum" score, for example a 30 out of 50. But what if your bock scored a
38 only to be beat out by 3 others which scored higher while the first
place cider scored only a 30? Many organizers choose to preclude this
scenario by collapsing categories so that when a ribbon is awarded in a
collapsed category then it will have gone up against some minimum number of
competitors. How organizers choose to do this is entirely at their discretion.
I have been in your shoes myself. I've had ciders which scored as high as
44 out of 50 points NOT win a ribbon (FYI scores over 40 are usually
garnered by less than 5% of the entries at a typical competition). It
definitely bites. I've been "bumped" as it were from ribbon contention when
categories have been collapsed. As an organizer I sought to minimize or
avoid collapsing categories, and when doing so use extreme care. But out of
fairness to all entrants it was sometimes necessary to do this so that
handing out an award actually meant something.
Additionally, a good judge should be skilled enough to judge an entry in
each separate category and then make a relative assessment as to whether an
entry in category A was a better example of that category than the entry in
category B was for its category. That is the basis upon which Best of Show
judging is conducted, where the 1st place entries in various categories are
judged against each other on their merits as being representative of their
repsective categories in order to choose an overall best beer.
Judging is of course highly subjective. The BJCP exists to create a minimum
standard of competence among judges and guidelines which seek to minimize
the subjectivity inherent in judging competitions. It's never going to be
possible to come up with perfect guidelines because people just don't agree
on where to draw the lines between styles and one can never truly capture
in writing all the subtleties of a style nor convey in any training to a
judge all th esensory aspects and subtleties of a style. Furthermore while
one can improve one's sensory skills to some extent, people aren't machines
and what each person is physically capable of percieving varies from person
to person. There are several other factors too complex to mention here
(like the effect the order in which entries are judged can have on
scoring), but the bottom line is it isn't a perfect system.
One last note with regard to cider categories. The styles and substyle
specifications used by the BJCP are representative of the overall level of
interest that BJCP members and the general pool of competition entrants
have expressed in this area. New England (where I live) has been a pretty
active area for cider making for a while but even here cider entries make
up only a small part of any competition. I'm not sure to what degree it
still holds true, but in the past many (though by no means all) of the
individuals most knowledgeable about cider styles showed little or no
interest in developing cider style guidelines in cooperation with the BJCP.
Many with an interest only in cider have long showed no interest in being
certified in beer, preferring to to cider. The BJCP has not had the
resources to create a separate cider certification nor that for mead, which
require a separate focus from that of beer, which is its principal purpose.
No other body has stepped forward to do so, which seems to reflect the
current level of interest in such a certification. For the most part any
efforts the BJCP has made to address these areas has come from the activity
and enthusiasm of those within the BJCP who have an interest in these areas
*in addition* to their interest in beer. So the cider categories listed by
the BJCP, and the fact that they combine Cider and Perry into two broad
categories (Standard and Specialty), directly reflects the volume of
entries that homebrewing competitions get for these beverages and the level
of interest within the BJCP community and co-operation between the cider
and/or mead community and the larger core group of beer brewers active in
competitions.
Lastly, in answer to your last comment "Seem to me if you aren't prepared
to judge a given category, don't open it for competition."
If homebrew competitions such as the one you entered didn't offer a cider
category (and many don't) there would be far fewer opportunities for cider
makers to compete. I personally don't know of any cider only competitions,
but I'm sure there are some that others on this list can point them out. In
general though if homebrewing competitions gave up on including a cider
category I think the cider community would be the one that suffers most
because in my experience the largest portion of people I've known who make
cider do it in an occasional manor in addition to their homebrewing hobby
and not as their sole hobby.
I hope my comments are helpful and will be taken in the friendly spirit in
which they are meant.
Jay H
aka Dr. Beer (TM)
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Hard Cider Festivals
From: "Gary Awdey" <gawdey@att.net>
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 20:45:49 -0400
In Cider Digest #1462 (4 September 2008) Timothy wrote:
> Im looking for hard cider making festivals where I can chat with other
> makers here in the USA. Close to Ohio if possible. I find alot of sweet
> apple cider festivals most of which are family related where hard cider
> is forbidden.
Tim, it sounds like you're interested in regional events within
reasonable travel distance. Unfortunately you seem to have missed the
notice of the Great Lakes Cider & Perry Festival in CD#1460 (August 24).
The festival was last weekend in St. Johns, Michigan, and would have been
a great opportunity to meet with other cidermakers, both home producers
and commercial. There was a nice assortment of ciders and perries from
Michigan, New York, Wisconsin and Indiana (for tasting and also available
for purchase in bottles) on Saturday and a cordial BYO gathering on Sunday.
There was also a meeting of the Great Lakes Cider & Perry Association
(which is now taking membership applications). Fortunately there are also
other festivals and tasting opportunities.
If you're in southern Ohio then you might also be interested in a springtime
gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia. Date hasn't been announced yet
but you can find details for the seventh annual Cider Maker's Forum
at http://www.vintagevirginiaapples.com/cidermaking.htm as they become
available. Because it's a regional event it's still a haul (about seven
hours from Cincinnati) and it might be worthwhile to start looking a few
months in advance for others who might be interested in carpooling. This
year the Forum coincided with blossoming of the dogwoods and peach trees,
making it a pleasant trek out of the snow belt.
If you're in northeastern Ohio there's also the granddaddy event
coming up on November 1-2, the 14th annual Franklin County Ciderdays
in Massachusetts (see http://www.ciderday.org for general information
and http://www.ciderday.org/CiderDay08Flyer.pdf for the event schedule).
It's about a nine hour drive from Cleveland, and also an event in which
you can find others interested in carpooling if you look around for them.
This event has drawn people from many parts of the US, as well as from
Canada and the UK. There are also almost always people interested in
splitting lodging accomodations to keep expense down (I can point you in
the right direction of where to look if this may be of interest).
Also, on December 7 there will be a large cider and perry competition in
Michigan, the 4th Annual Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition.
As with previous years there will be a training session the evening before
(Dec. 6). Details will be announced shortly so be sure to keep an eye
out in upcoming issues of the Cider Digest. Although individual judges
do not judge every category, there are always leftovers in the bottles
at completion of judging. Volunteer judges and stewards get an enviable
opportunity to taste many ciders.
Gary Awdey
Eden, New York
gawdey@att.net
------------------------------
Subject: cider making in serbia
From: "sebastian hougham" <sebastianhougham@googlemail.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:55:47 +0100
Hi we are making cider in Serbia and are looking for an experienced
cider ,maker to come and give us a hand it is an opportunity for
someone to come and visit the beautiful city of novi sad 1 hour south
of Belgrade.
We cannot pay for the work but will pay for flights and feed and
supply beer cider and fine Serbian food.
We are looking for someone to come for a weekend at the end of
September and a weekend in November/December. We are brothers from
Scotland Aberdeen my brother Oliver now lives in serbia renting
apartments out and organising tourism trips.
I have studied wine and business at plumpton college Sussex and have
experience making wine.
Please get in touch if interested, Serbia is an amazing country with
plenty to do when not making cider! please contact me at
sebastianhougham@gmail.com mobile 07840 144 617
thanks very much Sebastian Hougham
I
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1464
*************************
