Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Cider Digest #1478
Subject: Cider Digest #1478, 30 November 2008
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1478 30 November 2008
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Andrew' s New Book (Andrew Lea)
Crispin Cider (Andrew Lea)
Disaster? (Jason MacArthur)
Royal Society podcast on sparkling cider (Alistair Bell)
Re: Response About Crispin Cider ("Gary Awdey")
MLF cultures (Jason MacArthur)
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: Andrew' s New Book
From: Andrew Lea <andrew@HarpHill.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:19:25 +0000
Katie wrote:
> Thanks for the notice about Andrew Lea's new book on cider making!
> After viewing the Amazon UK page in the CD notice, I went to the
> American version of Amazon, where I would place an order, and noticed
> that the book offered there has a different cover and quite a different
> product description.
I am afraid that some of the 'blurb' circulated to the trade by my
publisher long before the book was finished was wildly speculative. The
cover was a 'mock-up' and the contents description was nowhere near what
we had agreed. There is nothing about sales and marketing in the book,
and no recipes - nor did I ever intend that there should be. That's not
my field.
Sorry to disappoint. The best link into finding it (and a detailed list
of contents so that nobody is misled) is at
http://www.cider.org.uk/book.html
The best Amazon (US) link is at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/1904871976/ref=dp_proddesc_
0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books
I am trying to get the inaccurate stuff removed.
Also, before you all start to moan, the book lacks an index (due to a
misunderstanding between myself and the publisher - don't even ask!).
And while I'm writing about it I'd also like to acknowledge Dick Dunn's
help with reading and making helpful criticism of much of the text
during preparation. It was good to have a 'second opinion'!
Andrew Lea
www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Crispin Cider
From: Andrew Lea <andrew@HarpHill.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:32:50 +0000
Lesley Heron wrote:
>
> Why is Crispin Super-Premium? Crispin is made in a classical
> "Normandy" style,
The Normandy style is generally understood to involve "keeving", and the
retention of much natural sugar by very slow fermentation and racking.
The alcohol level is correspondingly low. Is this what yours is? If not,
the term "Normandy" is inappropriate.
> highest quality apple wine. Crispin uses naturally fermented apple
> wine from apple juice and not from concentrate as per some other
> manufacturers.
Yes but is it "chaptalised"? In other words is it fortified to high SG
with glucose syrup, fermented to high alcohol eg 12% and then diluted
back with water? What is your final apple juice content?
Here in the UK nearly all mainstream ciders are made that way with final
juice contents in the region 30 - 60%. Although sadly they fulfill the
UK legal definition of cider, they are really 'glucose wines'. I'd guess
most people on this list are interested in genuine ciders with a juice
content 85% minimum.
Andrew Lea
www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Disaster?
From: Jason MacArthur <rotread@localnet.com>
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:11:50 -0500
This year I decided that I was ready to try fermenting cider in
something larger than 5 gallon carboys, so I purchased some 30 and 40
gallon stainless steel barrels from a maple syrup equipment supply
operation. The 40 gallon barrels were brand new, while the 30 gallon
barrels were old Dr. Pepper barrels. We were lucky enough to be able
to purchase enough Kingston Black and Dabinett apples to fill the
barrels, and we merrily started pressing our fruit. We did notice
that the threaded metal bung plugs which allowed access to the 40
gallon barrels appeared to made from aluminum , but the fruit was
there, the press was ready, and we thought to ourselves that a small
amount of aluminum contact for a relatively short period of time
would probably be harmless.
The barrels fermented to dryness very quickly, in approximately 1
month. Then, as if possessed, yesterday morning the cider started
working it's way out around one of the bung plugs. Luckily we were
around and noticed this leak relatively quickly, so we racked the
cider out as quickly as possible, losing perhaps 5 gallons onto the
floor. Hmmm, we thought to ourselves, what would make a barrel start
leaking so quickly after sitting there for 5 weeks quite obediently,
so we investigated the condition of the plug. To our horror, we
discovered that the plug, it appeared, had started to dissolve in the
must. The surface of the plug had become a film, perhaps 1/8" (.3
centimeters) thick which stuck and smeared onto one's hand exactly
like a fine automotive grease.
Our working theory is that the must literally was eating the plug.
Why it leaked around a apparently sound rubber gasket I don't know,
but more worrisome is the concern over what residue will the
dissolved plug leave in the cider? Is there a test for the presence
of aluminum in cider? What else might have been on the inside of
this plug, in a food grade barrel, which would become such a
disgusting film?
We have a plan for modifying the barrels for future use, but any
insights as to what we might have in our cider and ways to test it
would be greatly appreciated.
Jason MacArthur
------------------------------
Subject: Royal Society podcast on sparkling cider
From: Alistair Bell <alistair@seacider.ca>
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:33:54 -0800
Just a heads up on a lecture hosted by the Royal Society, description
form the website:
"Sparkling Cider and the Evolution of Methode Champenoise
James Crowden will talk about cider-making in the mid 17th century
and the experiments which led to the evolution of the bottle-
fermented sparkling process, otherwise known as the methode
champenoise. Papers read to the Royal Society in 1662-63 show that
the research work paid dividends many years before certain French
champagne houses claim that Dom Perignon 'invented' the process.
James Crowden, author of Ciderland"
Podcast link can be found on this page here (scroll down a bit)
http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=3966
Alistair Bell
Cellar Manager
www.seacider.ca
alistair@seacider.ca
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Response About Crispin Cider
From: "Gary Awdey" <gawdey@att.net>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:59:34 -0500
In Cider Digest #1477, 23 November 2008, Lesley Heron wrote:
>
> Hard Cider in the US has perhaps been inhibited from entering the
> mainstream consumer's beverage portfolio through an insular, perhaps
> traditional approach to marketing and positioning.
I've never heard our post-Prohibition legacy of confusing, cumbersome
and inconsistent distribution laws dismissed so casually. Each state is
different and faces its own unique challenges. I went into a wine store
in New York recently and inquired about hard cider (there was one spiced
apple wine on the shelf and I hoped to find a better assortment). I was
told I couldn't get hard cider there because it was a malt beverage and had
to be sold with wine coolers and beer in the supermarket. I assured the
person (a distributor, it turns out, visiting the store) that it wasn't
made from malt but I didn't get a sense that it mattered much to him.
Sixteen years ago Barry Blake, past vice president of marketing for
Woodchuck, was quoted in an article:
<quote>
Our problem is not coming up with ideas. The problem is distribution.
We're in the single most regulated business in the United States for a
consumer product. We're constantly being watched, we must do things in a
certain way and we must get involved in a distribution system that in my
point of view is antiquated.
<end quote>
There have been some changes since then, some favorable to cider producers,
others not. Overall it looks like there's still some rough road ahead.
If you're marketing a cider in 12-ounce bottles that fail to make them
stand out from malternatives and confuse even the distributors, and you
are working through distributors and beverage brokers (there goes your
margin) then there is significant pressure to lower wholesale price to
be competitive with the other beverages being sold in 12-ounce bottles.
Otherwise the product won't move from the shelves and you won't get
more orders. If you want to compete against a beverage that is made for
a fraction of the cost that goes into making cider then you'd better be
prepared to work on a large scale and keep cost of ingredients to a bare
minimum. If you're selling in a 12-ounce bottle good luck positioning
the product differently, no matter how pretty the bottle is. From what I
can see that usually leads to producing something that may be generously
described as a commodity-grade product (just make the stuff and slap a
label on it for whoever wants to be an entrepreneur and market a brand).
Working on a sufficiently large scale also means either absorbing significant
capital costs (e.g. tankage) or else contracting the actual cidermaking
out to someone else (oof, there goes more of the margin). Contracting is
probably the better course if the goal is to develop market recognition
rapidly and sell the brand once a larger company can be interested in
acquiring it (depending on expected turnover time). After all, when you're
talking about a consumer's beverage portfolio you're taking a wider view
and cider is only a part of it. There may be more money to be made in the
short term selling a recognized brand than a particular product. Then you
reinvest proceeds in the next beverage project, perhaps marketing the juice
of wheat grass genetically modified to be rich in omega 6 fatty acids.
Those of us who make cider for the love and challenge of it just don't
grasp the importance of these entrepreneurial things.
>Crispin is made in a classical
> "Normandy" style, and as per all hard cider, quality begins with the
> highest quality apple wine.
Here it sounds like Lesley is talking about the beverage itself, not
technique by which it is made, unless "'Normandy' style" refers to something
like "boisson fermente d'une base de pommes" (fermented drink based on
apples) rather than cidre. If it's the beverage itself to which she refers
then this is still a surprising characterization that brings out the skeptic
in me. Cider of Normandy has a phenolic signature that is achieved through
use a blend of apples that includes some with appreciable levels of
"tannins." Although it is certainly possible to make some very nice
ciders with apples commonly found in the US, the lack of tannin would be
obvious and result in a cider that is distinctly different. Perhaps Crispin
Cider has sourced some tannic apples? A few words of clarification might
help make this characterization more understandable..
Lesley continues:
>Crispin uses naturally fermented apple
> wine from apple juice and not from concentrate as per some other
> manufacturers.
This is an area very ripe for misunderstanding. Apple wine is generally
understood to be above 7% alcohol by volume. It could be 8%, or 9%, or
even in excess of 12%, depending on factors such as brix of the juice and
alcohol tolerance of the yeast.
Most people don't think about the difference between concentrate and
juice. If by concentrate we mean the syrupy 65-70 brix stuff produced in
evaporators in China, Argentina, Chile and elsewhere then it's absurd to
talk about making cider from concentrate (the yeast would go into osmotic
shock at that level of sugar). It's generally understood that when one
talks of cider made from concentrate it is through a diluted form of
concentrate. That could be single strength (about 12 degrees brix) or
somewhat higher. Many would refer to a 22 brix dilution of concentrate
(capable of producing a beverage with slightly over 12% alcohol by volume)
as concentrate. However, if I have interpreted what I've read in 27CFR24.180
correctly then this is legally considered juice in the US for purposes of
producing cider. Consequently I tend not to be immediately impressed by
carefully worded assertions that a cider is fermented from 100% juice.
It could be, and yet still be legally diluted back with an equal volume
of water (most likely carbonated water in the US market) to produce a
beverage with an alcohol content of 6% by volume.
The composition of apple juice is another area of potential confusion.
Our local market sells an apple juice that is touted as being 100% juice
but includes concentrate in the list of ingredients. Other brands I've
seen sold as apple juice list water, sugar, apple juice concentrate and
malic acid among the ingredients (with or without apple juice listed as a
separate ingredient). With this the apparent legal definition of apple juice
in the US, then it is up to the cidermaker to specify if the cider is made
from freshly pressed juice not-from-concentrate or made from something else.
One disturbing marketing ploy I've observed in the past is a cidermaker
saying that the cider is made from 100% juice and also saying in a separate
statement that a particular fresh-pressed juice blend is used in the cider.
One might conclude that the cider is made entirely of that fresh-pressed juice,
and the producer doesn't appear to do much to dispel that assumption.
However, in that particular case only a portion of the juice used is freshly
pressed.
It's a treat when a commercial producer like Lesley Heron comes forward and
is willing to engage in dialogue. What I hope to see from Crispin Cider is
a statement that no concentrate (or sugar from a source other than apple)
is used in making the fermented portion of the cider...unless of course
it is. When you get into legal niceties, the claim of "no added sugar"
visible on the Crispin Cider website could apply strictly to the finishing
end of production, regardless of how much could be added at the beginning,
because if the applewine is fermented to dryness before backsweetening any
sugar added at the beginning would be converted into alcohol. If this
is the interpretation being used, then perhaps Lesley will let us know.
Lesley has the opportunity to set the record straight with an unequivocal
statement of what goes into Crispin Cider from start to finish.
> We also believe that our classic smoothing (sweetening) with apple
> juice concentrate versus sugar (which is cheaper) gives a longer,
> fuller apple bouquet and a longer smoother taste finish on the palate.
One way to make something sound good is to frame it in a comparison with
something not as good. This is absolutely the first time I've heard the
technique of backsweetening with apple juice concentrate described as
"classic." I just looked the word up to find that it is defined by
Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary as "Being of the highest
class or rank." That's not exactly the word I'd use.
Backsweetening with juice is not a bad thing, though I've been under the
impression from the literature that in Normandy cider backsweetened with
juice (even freshly pressed juice) is regarded as the cheap imitation for
traditional cider. If my understanding of this regional perspective is
faulty I hope someone will set me straight.
Backsweetening with juice or sugar are techniques that a cidermaker may
choose to use...or not use. There are other alternatives. Fermentation may
be halted before the fruit's sugar is entirely consumed. This may be done
through a variety of ways (sterile filtration, pasteurization and keeving
are a few of them). The cider may also be fermented to dryness (prior to
two decades ago the most common method of production in the US) and consumed
that way. These are all valid options. I find it somewhat annoying when
a cidermaker sets one method above all others, or even fails to acknowledge
the others. For example, consider this from the Fox Barrel website:
<quote>
What is Hard Cider?
Hard Cider is apple juice that has gone through fermentation, the process
of turning the natural sugars into alcohol. Once the fermentation is
complete, the "must" is then filtered and blended with juice, thus
increasing the fruitiness and decreasing the alcohol content (with a whole
lot in between.)
<end quote>
This would not be annoying (aside from the inaccuracy of describing the
post-fermentation product as must) if the processes of filtering and blending
with juice were not added as a part of the definition rather than as a
description of what optional method of production Fox Barrel chooses to use.
Given Fox Barrel's limited definition of hard cider, what do you call the
beverage if it is not filtered or back blended with unfermented juice?
But I digress. Back to Lesley:
>We do add natural apple flavor to help maintain a
> consistent flavor over seasons and the geographic manufacturing
> dispersion (we would look to multiple bottling locations to help
> minimize freight costs).
At Cider Days this year in Franklin County, Massachusetts, the 11 AM Saturday
morning session was essentially a "build-a-macro-cider" demonstration.
A succession of samples demonstrated the stages of one type of generic
cider manufacturing process that employs high brix fermentation. Once the
high-alcohol cider (12% abv) was diluted with water back to normal strength
it was profoundly uninteresting. This was deliberate. The subsequent
addition of apple juice concentrate and so-called natural flavor (and
forced carbonation) made it much like some of the well-known ciders sold
in 12-ounce bottles. I hope others saw this as a demonstration of how
little craft, skill or insight is involved in taking an inferior cider and
turning it into something marketable (at least to a society conditioned
by a lifetime of consuming food and beverage that has been artificially
flavored). Someone at the workshop asked if I thought it was a good cider.
Who am I to tell someone what is good and what is not? My answer was to
hold up a box of Froot Loops and ask what would you expect a nine-year-old
child to say if you asked if it was a good breakfast cereal. So it is with
so-called naturally flavored cider when the flavor does not come from apple
but rather an assortment of chemicals derived from plants and animals (the
short definition of "natural flavor"). Some will think it's wonderful and
others won't. What natural flavors were used to produce a clear raspberry
flavored cider for Woodchuck? To me it's appalling. To some it's sort
of interesting that you can get the flavor without the color. When you
can take a negative aspect and turn it into a positive that's not craft,
it's marketing.
One final note from Lesley:
> Oh yes - we called it Crispin because we thought it was cool, and
> sounded just like a great cider. Saint Crispin's Day is on the 25
> October. The new patron saint of ciders (and cobblers).
I'm not Catholic and don't have the Vatican on speed dial so had to check
around to learn that Saint Crispin is not the patron saint of ciders
(though is patron saint of shoemaker, saddlemakers, and people in several
other crafts that involve making things from leather). Presumably this was
meant as a bit of humorous marketing spin. For anyone who may not know,
Crispin was a name chosen by marketers for the Mutsu apple in the US because
they felt that the Japanese name would not appeal to consumers. Somehow the
name of an apple invented for marketing purposes seems perfectly appropriate
for the market-driven invention of saintly patronage. Instead of printed
tasting glasses, tee-shirts or tap handles, for promotional purposes
perhaps it would be possible to get a discount on a large order of St.
Crispin car statuettes from the Lucky Mojo Curio Company. I'd gladly put
one on my dash next to the statuette of Dr. José Gregorio Hernández (a
gift and wonderful conversation piece presented by cidermaker Peter Hoover).
Gary Awdey
Eden, New York
------------------------------
Subject: MLF cultures
From: Jason MacArthur <rotread@localnet.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:19:23 -0500
I have a Corny Keg which has been sitting for over a year now full of
an interesting yet disturbingly acidic cider. This seems like the
perfect batch with which to experiment using a commercial malolactic
culture. In my internet searches I have come across 2 different
products available for the small scale user, from Lalvin and Wyeast,
and am wondering if anyone else has experimented with and can
recommend a particular culture. Both of these commercial cultures
seem to be based on Oenococcus oeni bacteria, which presumably would
not be present to perform a spontaneous MLF in cider. Any comments
or suggestions would be appreciated,
Jason MacArthur
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1478
*************************
