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Cider Digest #1543
Subject: Cider Digest #1543, 10 December 2009
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1543 10 December 2009
Cider and Perry Discussion Forum
Contents:
Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition (Frank Stevens)
Professor John Hudson (Andrew Lea)
Re: Cider Digest #1542, 5 December 2009 (John Mott)
Cider story on NPR ("T. J. Higgins ")
HEPA filter (Andrew Lea)
Sweet Mead Yeast (Andrew Lea)
NOTE: Digest appears whenever there is enough material to send one.
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition
From: Frank Stevens <moose49017@comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 20:01:08 +0000 (UTC)
The Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition is this coming
Saturday December 12th in Grand Rapids Michigan, USA
I'll be attending both the Friday night Training seminar and the competition
Saturday.
I hope to meet and talk with as many cider enthusiast's as possible while
I'm there. If your on the digest and going to be there please look me up.
http://www.mlive.com/kalamabrew/index.ssf/2009/11/entry_and_competition_dates_fo
.html
Hope to see you there,
Frank Stevens
Battle Creek, MI
------------------------------
Subject: Professor John Hudson
From: Andrew Lea <andrew@HarpHill.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:34:42 +0000
Chris Horn wrote:
> It details John Hudson's work to develop methods of dealing with
> booby trapped fuses and his own bravery in the field.
> 'After the war Hudson resumed his horticultural career, becoming and
> expert on fruit production and a teacher, and mentioning his war time
> exploits to his students or colleagues only, one recalled, on those
> rare occations when he had had a few glasses of the potent pear cider
> produced at the experiment station he directed.'
>
> A quick check of the web shows he was director of Long Ashton from
> 1967-75. A detailed obit can be found at:
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-john-hudson-wartime-bom
b-disposal-officer-and-founding-professor-of-horticulture-at-nottingham-universi
ty-768820.html
>
Can I add a personal take?
I was privileged to join the Long Ashton Research Station in 1972 when
John Hudson was its director. He was personally very kind to me and
'bent the rules' to allow me to enter the Research Station as a
self-funded postgraduate student. Although most such Directors are far
too busy to come down to talk to the laboratory staff, John wasn't and
he would frequently enter the labs unannounced to chat to the staff
about what they were up to. We always appreciated that, not least
because he was one of those bright and quick-witted people who would
always come up with some novel idea or suggestion to follow up.
His own research ideas were often of that ilk - it was John who devised
the idea of the "meadow orchard" which would grow up, produce apples
after 2 years with growth hormone treatment, be mechanically harvested,
cut down and then the cycle repeated. The idea was to cut labour and
cost inputs to keep British fruit growers competitive. No it didn't fly
commercially in the end, but you need a constant supply of daft ideas
like that to keep people on their toes. I still cherish a letter he
wrote to me (after his retirement) when I left the Research Station,
wishing me luck and success for the future. That was the kind of man he
was - both an innovative scientist and a good manager. He was the last I
think of the 'old fashioned' government research directors before they
all became professional bureaucrats concerned only with targets and KPI's.
Few if any of the staff (even those of his own generation who had
wartime service of their own) ever knew of his distinguished military
career. He never mentioned it, I never heard it talked about and it was
not until watching a UK TV programme in the 90's when John was
interviewed that I myself realised the full story.
> Thanks for running the CD, Mr. Dunn.
Here, here!!
Andrew Lea
nr Oxford, UK
www.cider.org.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1542, 5 December 2009
From: John Mott <john@wineimports.ca>
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2009 11:47:26 -0500
For used cidermaking equipment, check out the used equipment bulletin
board run by Day Equipment:
http://www.cidermillsupplies.com/used/
/John Mott
------------------------------
Subject: Cider story on NPR
From: "T. J. Higgins " <tjhiggin@hiwaay.net>
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2009 13:26:50 -0600
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this already. On Nov. 17,
National Public Radio in the USA did a story about New England
cider, specifically focusing on Farnum Hill Ciders. Text, audio,
and pictures at
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120464000>
T.J. Higgins
Huntsville, AL
------------------------------
Subject: HEPA filter
From: Andrew Lea <andrew@HarpHill.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:33:32 +0000
Alan wrote:
> I've found a very inexpensive source for medical grade HEPA filters.
> Has anyone experimented with putting a HEPA filter into the bung on a
> tapped barrel to keep out the biologicals while tapping the contents? I
> was thinking of swapping the airlock with a filter when racking to
> ensure that the contents were not contaminated during the transfer.
It's not a bad idea (and I have seen in done in laboratories) to prevent
pick-up of airborne microbes, but it doesn't and can't deal with the
'chemistry' of oxidation. Cider is certainly at risk from airborne
microbes but also from purely chemical oxidation of ethanol to
acetaldehyde especially in the presence of tannin, coupled with the loss
of dissolved CO2 by physical agitation. So my two cents (six penn'orth)
is that it might be useful but it isn't by any means a complete solution
to oxidation issues.
Andrew Lea
nr Oxford UK
www.cider.oreg.uk
------------------------------
Subject: Sweet Mead Yeast
From: Andrew Lea <andrew@HarpHill.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:41:05 +0000
Chris wrote:
> I've made quite a few ciders with Wyeast Sweet Mead yeast because I wanted
> the residual sugars. It tends to work very well
I have seen that remarked before by others. Is it a verifiable fact?
What residual SG does the fermentation stop at, and under what
conditions? And why, exactly, given that all sugars in cider (except
traces of sorbitol and xylose) are in theory fully fermentable by most
normal strains of S. cerevisiae? Does it have very low alcohol
tolerance? Or does it synthesise loads of glycerol? Or does it have
very high nitrogenous growth factor requirements that are not met in
apple juice?
Just curious!
Andrew
nr Oxford, UK
------------------------------
End of Cider Digest #1543
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