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Cider Digest #1430
Subject: Cider Digest #1430, 4 January 2008
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1430 4 January 2008
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: High FG in French-Style cider (Claude Jolicoeur)
Entries accepted starting Jan 1st for 2008 Upper Mississippi Mash-Out ("Cr...)
Re: Cider Digest #1429, 31 December 2007 (Bill Rhyne)
Fermentation speed (con.traas@theapplefarm.com)
More Historical Downloads (Andrew Lea)
Poor colour in rose cider (Andrew Lea)
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Subject: Re: High FG in French-Style cider
From: Claude Jolicoeur <cjoli@gmc.ulaval.ca>
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:49:55 -0500
In Cider Digest #1429, 31 December 2007
>Subject: High FG in French-Style cider
>From: Donald Davenport <djdavenport@earthlink.net>
>Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:33:26 -0700
>It would seem that to end with 4% ABV and a FG of 1.043, you'd have
>to have a OG of somewhere around 1.070+. On a really great year,
>with lots of sun, we may approach 1.060, but in the 1.070s seems
>astronomically high. Is it reasonable to expect that the cider-maker
>is able to get that much sugar naturally?
Donald, yes it is possible. This year, I have pressed some small scabby
McIntosh at a gravity of 1.080 and a mixture of Ashmead Kernel and Golden
Russet at a gravity of 1.074. Honeygold, Belle de Boskoop and some cider
apples also often reach 1.070. It is a question of variety, cultural
practice, soil, sun, age of tree, etc...
Now, on the question of if it is reasonable, I can't say. My experience is
that when the gravity is high, the productivity is low, so the cost for a
commercial producer increases, making it unreasonable maybe.
Claude Jolicoeur
------------------------------
Subject: Entries accepted starting Jan 1st for 2008 Upper Mississippi Mash-Out
From: "Crist, Jonathan" <Jonathan.Crist@bsci.com>
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:59:28 -0600
Finally, a homebrew contest with a best-of-show award for cider makers.
A coveted, custom-carved wooden chalice will be presented for the BOS
cider, mead and beer at the 2008 Upper Mississippi Mash-Out, Jan. 25-26
in St. Paul, Minnesota. One of the larger homebrew contests in the
country, the Mash-Out provides prizes along with every medal. Check out
the infamous "Eis-Anything" category, and NEW this year there are two
categories for first time entrants (1060+ OG and 1060- OG). Entries are
accepted Jan. 1 - 12. The contest is sponsored by the St. Paul
Homebrewers Club and the Minnesota Home Brewers Assn. Check out all the
details on the Website at: http://www.mnbrewers.com/mashout
Jonathan Crist
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1429, 31 December 2007
From: Bill Rhyne <bill_rhyne@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:00:40 -0800 (PST)
Re: Eric Bordelet ciders and Don Davenport's questions
Eric Bordelet is French and he is from the cider making region of
France. From the articles that I have read about him, he is serious about
preserving traditional French cider making techniques. The terms "Cidre Sec"
is for dry cider (all sugars have been fermented) and "Cidre Doux" is for
sweet cider. From reading the cider texts, these ciders have had the yeast
racked off to arrest fermentation and to retain sweetness. In Warcollier's
cidermaking text, he describes many ways of making cider and racking off
the yeast to arrest fermentation to achieve a sweet cider is one on them.
As for the sugar levels of the original juice, maybe it was a hot summer
in Normandy. Global warming may be expressing itself in France. The sugar
levels vary based on the amount of sun exposure and ripeness level at the
time of picking. In California, we have had apples that were very high
in sugar levels and fermented to 7-8% alcohol level naturally. At a local
apple growers meeting years ago, the apple researchers said that an extra
two weeks on the tree can serve to convert the remaining starches in the
apple to sugar, resulting in less starch haze, higher sugars which result
in more sugar.
Regarding the question of fermentation times, cool temperatures slow the
fermentation and warm temperatures can speed the fermentation time. I think
that if the farmer fertilizes the orchards with nitrogen, the presence of
high levels of nitrogen might cause the fermentation to go faster. So,
if one desires a nice long stable fermentation to preserve the natural
apple flavors during fermentation, try to find apples or apple juice from
orchards that have not been fertilized, or very little, and then find a
stable cool room to ferment (45-50 degrees).
Unfortunately, we never had climate controlled locations and the Gravenstein
which are harvested the heat of August in California would ferment in 8 days
because our location was warm. The late harvest apples in November would
take 3 months to ferment because it was cool by that time in our location.
Bill Rhyne
------------------------------
Subject: Fermentation speed
From: con.traas@theapplefarm.com
Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 05:03:02 -0800 (PST)
Hello Claude; you said:
"I have a question for those who have more knowledge on fermentation
chemistry.
I have noticed a strong correlation between the date of pressing and the
fermentation speed.
Taking the same variety, and even from the same tree, if I make a pressing
soon after harvest, the resulting cider will have tendency do ferment
relatively quickly. But if I wait until the apples become very ripe or
slightly overripe, the resulting cider will be much slowlier."
You then suggested that changing N levels in the fruit might be a factor.
While I am reluctant to ascribe any change in fermentation speed to
factors other than temperature and yeast load, I can at least confirm that
in tests that I conducted over 36 weeks storage of apples, that the
Nitrogen levels in fruits changed only as a result of water loss from the
fruit, and therefore increased marginally over the period. I am afraid
that you need to look elsewhere for an explanation.
Con Traas
The Apple Farm,
Cahir,
Co. Tipperary,
Ireland.
------------------------------
Subject: More Historical Downloads
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:20:27 +0000
I recently discovered a number of public domain scanned books of
interest to orchardists and cidermakers on the Google Books website.
Most significant of these is Knight's "Treatise on the Culture of the
Apple and Pear and On the Manufacture of Cider and Perry" (2nd edition
1801). This is an idiosyncratic classic - now, with the benefit of
hindsight, some of it is just plain wrong but somebody had to set the
ball rolling for the 19th century and Knight did it!
You will find this at
http://books.google.com/books?id=n5MBAAAAYAAJ
You can read it online or download it as a PDF. Unfortunately the
scanning is not perfect and at least 3 pages are missing and others are
hard to read. But it's much cheaper than buying one on the antiquarian
book market which would otherwise set you back several hundred pounds or
dollars!
Using 'cider' or 'cyder' as a search term in Google Books reveals quite
a number of 18th / 19th century treatises and manuals which contain
details (usually buried deep within much other stuff) of how cider was
being made on both sides of the Atlantic (also in France and Spain) a
couple of centuries ago. In those days there was a fair bit of copying
and plagiarism from one volume to another but quite often the original
sources are honestly attributed. Well worth a winter evening's browsing
for those with a broadband connection.
(My website also gives links to other historical cider downloads which
were previously almost impossible to come by).
Andrew Lea, nr Oxford, UK.
- --
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Poor colour in rose cider
From: Andrew Lea <andrew_lea@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:04:38 +0000
Just to give a chemist's perspective on this, the problem is that the
anthocyanin pigment in red fleshed apple or apple skin (cyanidin
3-galactoside) is in very low concentration and is not stable anyway. It
is decolorised by sulphite, attacked by ascorbate, and combines during
fermentation with acetaldehyde and epicatechin to form new complexes,
some of which will tend to fall out of solution with the yeast. Hence
the colour diminishes.
Although to some extent the same is of course true in red wines, the
concentration of anthocyanins there is much higher to begin with so the
fixed losses do not have the same marked effect. And at least some grape
anthocyanins (the acylated ones) are inherently more stable than those
in apple in any case.
All this is just to say that making a rose cider from regular weakly
flushed apples is inherently an uphill task. Well done to those who can
achieve it! Commercially, by far the easiest way is to make a regular
cider and colour it with a red fruit extract afterwards. Many years ago
at Long Ashton I made a 'teinturier' cider from a deep red-fleshed crab
(Cowichan, I think) and used this at a 10 or 20% blend into a regular
pale cider to make it pink. There are ciders here in the UK now coloured
with red berry concentrates which is the easy commercial fix to achieve
the same thing.
Andrew Lea
- --
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1430
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