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Cider Digest #1422
Subject: Cider Digest #1422, 21 November 2007
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1422 21 November 2007
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
corrected URL for Harpoon; mailer follies (Cider Digest Admin)
Re: Cider Digest #1421, 17 November 2007 (John Ross)
Re: Cider Digest #1421, 17 November 2007 (Bill Rhyne)
Re: Cider Digest #1421, 17 November 2007 (Mike Faul)
re:Cider Digest #1421 Subject: Rodent control in the orchard ("John C. Cam...)
Re: Harpoon Cider (Benjamin Watson)
Re: Gravenstein juice (Bill)
Rodent control in the orchard (Shawn Carney)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: corrected URL for Harpoon; mailer follies
From: cider-request@talisman.com (Cider Digest Admin)
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 13:43:27 -0700 (MST)
I missed a cleanup step on Dave Catherman's postscript to his main article,
in which he gave the URL for Harpoon Brewery. Taken out of
quoted-printable, it should be:
http://www.harpoonbrewery.com/index.cfm?pid=104818
Sorry about that. I also missed that step on one article in CD 1417,
resulting in a few lines of screwy-looking text.
[GotD: Even if I live to see issue 3000 of the CD, I will never understand
why some mailers (a) insist on encoding perfectly normal text as QP, and
worse yet, (b) encode ordinary lower-half-plane characters.]
- -janitor
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1421, 17 November 2007
From: John Ross <johnross@halcyon.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 13:35:55 -0800
At 11/17/2007 12:03 PM, Dave Catherman wrote:
>Is this the first example of a commercial brewery (rather than a winery or
>cidery) making a cider for the masses?
They're not the first. Widmer Brothers Brewing in Portland, Oregon
made a cider, as did Bert Grant's brewery in Yakima, Washington.
Neither is still in production and neither was particularly good.
They were both made from concentrate rather than fresh fruit.
And the McMenamins chain of brewpubs in Oregon and Washington also
make a hard cider.
On the other coast, Boston Beer Company, best known for Sam Adams
ales, makes HardCore Crisp Cider.
John Ross
Seattle
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1421, 17 November 2007
From: Bill Rhyne <bill_rhyne@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 15:29:32 -0800 (PST)
RE: Derek Terrell's question about Gravenstein juice
We live in Sebastopol, CA which is Gravenstein country, as well as many
other varieties. When we were making Rhyne Cyder, we used Gravenstein as
our base juice since it was available and had the characteristics that
Terrell mention--good acidity, sugar levels, tannin, and flavor. Manzana
Products in Graton, CA worked with us during that time and they prepared
a lot of juice for the store market brands as well as their own brand. I
think that their brand is called Apple Time. We bought the juice just
as they were crushing and pressing it so it was fresh. We filled up our
tanks in the back of our pickup truck and headed back to our facility to
commence fermentation. Fermented to dryness, Gravenstein cider has a sort
of delicate sauvignon blanc flavor to it. We would blend in the cider
of stronger flavored cultivars to our preference, then dosage, bottle,
and let the second fermentation occur in the bottle. Mighty tasty!
If the bottle at Whole Foods says that it was bottled at Graton, then it
is a Manzana product and from this area so it should be the real stuff.
Good luck!
Bill
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1421, 17 November 2007
From: Mike Faul <mfaul@faul.net>
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:15:13 -0800
Not to toot my own horn or anything but I have been making commercially
available cider for years in addition to my ales and meads.
The common theme is that they all have honey of varying amounts. So
technically cyser, meads and braggots.
M<ike
>Subject: Harpoon Cider?
>From: "drcath@tiac.net" <drcath@tiac.net>
>Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:57:32 -0500
>
>Is this the first example of a commercial brewery (rather than a winery or
>cidery) making a cider for the masses (aka the LCD)? My guess is that their
>choice of apples is based on the requirement for a consistent blend at the
>volume required for mass production. They probably can't get enough real
>cider apples to keep filling six packs. But beer yeast? Again, probably
>because they are used to selling beer to beer geeks and they believe that
>they won't care.
------------------------------
Subject: re:Cider Digest #1421 Subject: Rodent control in the orchard
From: "John C. Campbell III" <jccampb@tseassoc.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 20:20:25 -0500
> Subject: Rodent control in the orchard
> From: chris horn < agent_strangelove@hotmail.com
> <mailto:agent_strangelove@hotmail.com>>
> Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:27:57 -0800
> Several months ago I posted a question as to what other folks do about
> burrowing rodent control in the orchard (and garden). I was met with
> silence.
If I hadn't missed the question you wouldn't have been met with silence.
We've been cursed with them for 5 years, tried smoke bombs castor oil
pellets, a device that pumps car exhaust down the burrow, etc. All have
been met with limited success. They breeding cycles are also cyclic in
nature. I have a standard Esopus Spitzenberg (completely fireblight
free ... a rarity in the mid-Atlantic region) that is 20 years old and
is 25' tall and is held up with guy wires because there is no root
structure. The same with several of my Kingston Blacks and Ellis
Bitters. They went through my semi-dwarf, Medaille d'Or's like Sherman
went through Georgia. For the past several years, when I plant a new
apple, I trench out a 5' circle where the tree is going in the center
of, (down 24") and put rat wire in and back fill. then and only then do
I dig the planting hole in the middle. Dr. Cummins has spoken to me in
recent years of a new rootstock that voles are supposed to find
distasteful but I have yet to experiment with any species grafted to it.
> The area I live in is famous for the number of moles and gophers (and then
> the voles that move into the tunnels of the other two).
I guarantee they (Pine Voles) don't need any help with their mining
efforts ... We have no moles or gophers, only Pine Voles. I can speak
with surety that the most popular (and promoted) rootstocks are also
the most favoured main course for Pine Voles. As we know, Moles are
typically after grubs and only gnaw on roots because they are in the
way. Voles are specifically after rootstock.
> Trapping (spring
> type, I wont use 12 gauge traps for safety reasons) only sort of kept
> them at bay.
>
> A guy at work suggested (and loaned me) a little toy he uses on his
> daughters? softball fields. The rodenator (http://www.rodenator.com/) is
> a slick little toy that floods the burrows with propane and oxygen and
> then you set it off.
We looked at the promotion by the company, who principally designed it
for 'off-ing' Prairie Dogs and contacted them to get some assurance that
since our 'vermin' were in fact undermining our 50 + apple trees,
specifically to get directly at the roots and hence were creating
channels for the concussion to 'flow' through right up to the bases of
the trees (and in and amongst the surface feeder roots ... that we would
not be doing more harm than good in the effort (as much pleasure as we
would have derived from imagining them getting an instant case of the
'bends' I got nothing but vagaries from the manufacturer.
Needless to say we did not try the experiment. So I will await with
interest if you discover any concussion damage in the spring.
jccampb
> (snip)
>
> Chris Horn Scappoose Oregon USA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Harpoon Cider
From: Benjamin Watson <bwatson@worldpath.net>
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 21:57:38 -0500
Dave Catherman asked if anyone had sampled the new Harpoon Cider.
Yes, I have -- it was rolled out at Cider Day a couple of weeks ago --
not in the Cider Salon, but in one or more of the taste workshops as a
poured sample.
My old friend and fellow cider author Paul Correnty (The Art of
Cidermaking) consulted with the folks at Harpoon many (like 15) years
ago when they were first starting to think about doing a cider.
There was some back and forth among the organizers as to whether to let
them into the Cider Salon. In the end they were excluded not for any
reason other than we flat out ran out of space, and 18 producers was
all we could accommodate in the venue. Last year I nicely but
unambiguously told Woodchuck's regional rep that we would not let them
into the Salon, because their product wasn't made out of real cider,
but concentrate. But Harpoon Cider, I am told (and believe), is made
out of actual pressed fruit.
With all due respect to Paul, I found their product really lacking in
taste -- it was incredibly thin, flabby, and uninteresting. Woodchuck,
Cider Jack, Hornsby, et al., while repellent to my tastebuds, at least
taste like alcopop. The Harpoon was completely character-less, very
much like apple-flavored water. I was told it was 100% McIntosh, but it
may well have had Red Delicious and other forgettable apples in it too.
With these aromatics, the only thing that probably would have saved it
would have been a good amount of carbonation, to get some of the
aromatics in the nose, even if the taste remained lacking.
At Cider Day, much was made of the fact that the Harpoon guys are
really committed to doing a regional, seasonal cider that uses real
local fruit and supports orchardists. Which, as a member of Slow Food,
I applaud. But they clearly aren't ready for prime time here.
Nonetheless, they appear to be rolling this product out and are pouring
it at a lot of fall festivals. My personal opinion is that they would
be better off pouring this one on the compost pile and starting again
- -- using good cider apples next time around.
I sampled the test batches that Alan Tringham made for Boston Beer Co.
a few years ago, when they were thinking of doing a cider (and winning
UK cider competitions, under dubious colors). But the fact is that
their cider was far and away the best "draft" cider I've ever had --
not only was it fermented from actual juice, but it was made with a mix
of genuine European and American cider varieties. (I know, because they
got the fruit from Steve Wood at Poverty Lane Orchards in N.H.).
So, while Harpoon should be encouraged, they're missing the mark here,
IMHO. It's great to support local orchards -- but don't support them in
growing Red Delicious and Macs. We need more people to start planting
(or better yet topworking) to superior cider and dual-use apples, not
perpetuating the bland monocultures of the past, or the present.
Climbing off my high horse, I remain . . .
Ben Watson
Francestown, NH
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Gravenstein juice
From: Bill <squeeze@mars.ark.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 18:59:36 -0800
Gravenstein is one of the more common old varieties in my area, and I
ferment it regularly. No adjustments required in my opinion, especially
acids, as they are generally fairly high acid, although there are half a
dozen or more cultivars, and the later ripening ones are lower acid. I
use fresh juice, but I don't think the pasteurizing would affect much
other than the pectin - your mileage may vary.
Bill <http://mars.ark.com/~squeeze/>
------------------------------
Subject: Rodent control in the orchard
From: Shawn Carney <shawn@blossomwoodcidery.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:23:37 -0500
>The rodenator (http://www.rodenator.com/) is
>a slick little toy that floods the burrows with propane and oxygen and then
>you set it off.
Hank Hill (http://www.fox.com/Kingofthehill/bios/) would love this propane
accessory (wonder how it would work with acetylene?).
Shawn
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1422
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