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Cider Digest #1695
Subject: Cider Digest #1695, 25 February 2012
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1695 25 February 2012
Cider and Perry Discussion Forum
Contents:
flash pasteurization ("Sarah Showalter")
Does "Dry" on a label mean anything? (Dick Dunn)
Regarding perry pears ("Charles McGonegal")
CiderCon 2012 ("Charles McGonegal")
Cider Digest list privacy (Cider Digest Admin)
NOTE: Digest appears whenever there is enough material to send one.
Send ONLY articles for the digest to cider@talisman.com.
Use cider-request@talisman.com for subscribe/unsubscribe/admin requests.
Archives of the Digest are available at www.talisman.com/cider#Archives
Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
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Subject: flash pasteurization
From: "Sarah Showalter" <sarah@showaltersorchardandgreenhouse.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:57:15 -0500
Hello,
In order to further stabilize our cider , we're considering passing it
through our flash pasteurizer (165 degrees for 15 seconds) after it has
been filtered but before it goes to a pressure tank for carbonation. Has
anyone tried this? What are your thoughts about this method?
We already have this piece of equipment that we use for our commercial
apple juice (fresh, sweet cider). It would be wonderful to utilize it in
this way too.
Thanks for your input!
Warm Regards,
Sarah Showalter
Showalter's Orchard and Greenhouse, LLC
540-896-7582
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Subject: Does "Dry" on a label mean anything?
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:01:18 -0700
Background: It has been observed many times, with wines and ciders, that
nowadays people want to -think- they're drinking a "dry" beverage even if
what they actually want to -drink- is not especially dry. There are
reasons behind both the thinking and the drinking.
People want to think they're drinking dry because it seems to be held that
a sweet beverage is less for adults, or at the least, less sophisticated.
You know--sugar is for kids; sweet drinks are simple. The booze you drank
as a young adult was sweet, so now it's un-cool.
BUT people actually want to drink somewhat sweet because the sugar smooths
out the taste...if they're not ready for the "challenge" of a completely
dry wine or cider, a touch of sugar will make it much easier. Also, let's
be honest, winemakers know this and also realize that touch of sugar will
hide a myriad of small faults. Less than half a percent of residual sugar
can take the edge off a mediocre wine and make it quite enjoyable for
casual drinking.
So the labeling and the marketing inevitably gets somewhat out of touch
with the reality--not because THEY want to be slightly dishonest, but
because the customers want a slight disconnect (a bit of cognitive
dissonance, if you will).
BUT...How far can the word "dry" be pushed before it's flatly wrong and
perhaps even a problem?
I try various macro (six-pack) ciders now and then, to keep my palate
calibrated and to see what's new, how it's going. Just the other day
I tried one I hadn't had before, and noted that it seemed fairly sweet.
But it was marked "Traditional Dry" on the label. So I investigated.
It's the sweetest macro cider I've ever tasted since I've been keeping
notes! It's 25% sweeter than any of the others...yet unlike the others,
it is labeled "dry"?!?
Just for some arbitrary numbers, BJCP standards put the boundary between
dry and medium cider at 0.9% sugar, and the boundary between medium and
sweet at 4%. This "dry" cider I'm anonymously lambasting is 5.3% RS,
or 1/3 above the boundary into sweet.
This, it seems to me, is bad for cider. Quite simply, it deceives.
If someone wants to try a new cider, but the ones she's had have been
too sweet, she might reach for one labeled "dry". If that is still way-
sweet, will she just give up on cider? And what of the person who decides
he likes this sort of "dry" (not!) cider and then comes on a West Country
style with a true 0% RS? Palate shock at the outset, but then what?
Perhaps the WCS is for a diabetic to see the word "dry" on the label and
think it's OK-with-caution, when in fact it's about half the sugar level
of a standard <X>-Cola soft drink and could trigger a blood-sugar "event".
In the limited experience of the adult diabetics I know personally,
they're quite attentive to the Nutritional Info label...but these few
are definitely not typical. Standing in a liquor store, reading and
comparing Nutritional Info blocks on alcoholic beverages, is fairly well
out on the fringe. But are we (cidermakers overall) making that necessary?
Where is our craft going with the word "dry"?
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: Regarding perry pears
From: "Charles McGonegal" <cpm@appletrue.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:49:13 -0600
Jayme, I've tried the 18 cultivars of perry pears available from Corvallis,
as well as 6 poire pears I had imported through quarantine. I'm just north
of Chicago, in SE Wisconsin.
All the English perry pears are at least somewhat fireblight susceptible. I
think I've lost all my Barland. I have Huffcaps mostly because it's taken
them 6-7 years to bloom, and they missed a big fireblight event a few years
ago. I've lost at least a couple of everything. Barnet develops funny black
cracks. Winnals Longdon looses about half its leaves in the summer heat.
But the crop seems to ripen okay anyway.
The French poire pears have just started to bear, so I don't know how
susceptible they are. But to date they've been much less interesting than
the English pears. The ones I've tried have been simple sharps (in cider
jargon), rather than the complex tannic bitters that the English pears
represent.
Charles McGonegal
AeppelTreow Winery & Distillery
PerruTreow?
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Subject: CiderCon 2012
From: "Charles McGonegal" <cpm@appletrue.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:58:42 -0600
Well, Dick broke the ice. So I'll toss in a couple of words.
This was my first year at CiderCon, and I'm very glad I went. Lots of
regions and sizes were represented. Coasts and Middle. North and South.
Woodchuck and Crispin. AeppelTreow. Long timers and folks not quite started
yet. Growers and makers. Advocates and Importers.
I think the clearest thing about the legislative focus day is that it's a
topic that even people who agree can argue about. Very interesting - but
hard to describe. As noted, we divided into regions and selected
representative to continue pursuing but legal changes, and a national
association. The day ended with a blind sampling of world ciders - with the
notes collected and used for later discussion.
I stuck mostly to the production related discussions the second day.
Bottling and such. It's a relief to hear the bigger operations talk about
bottling issues. Well, okay, a bit of an ironic relief. Apparently no one
is happy with their bottling equipment. The bigger boys have both bigger
toys - and bigger problems.
I got drafted to moderate a discussion on growth hurdles. I seem to have a
lot of company - how fast to grow? How to find off-site sales/marketing
people? Yes, there are production hurdles - but I think the second question
after 'How do I make good cider' is 'How do I sell it?'
I also sat in on the session about fruit growing contracts. That was new
territory for me - and the great speaker from Tieton Cider will have to
forgive me for forgetting his name just now. That ended with a discussion
of how apple growers are viewing the cider cultivars. Economic? My take
away was 'maybe as acreage fill in' in the Pacific Northwest.
And after braving the Windy City in February to look for dinner, I came back
to the hotel for a cider sampling session that was packed and congenial.
Many thanks for the Wandering AEngus folks for all their organizational
effort.
Charles McGonegal
AEppelTreow Winery & Distillery
------------------------------
Subject: Cider Digest list privacy
From: cider-request@talisman.com (Cider Digest Admin)
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2012 22:21:47 -0700 (MST)
The subscriber list of the Cider Digest has been growing nicely in the past
few months. Because of that and because of a few off-list questions, I'd
like to reiterate (reinforce) the matter of privacy:
The list of subscribers to the Cider Digest is NOT available to anybody,
for any purpose. I use it to send out the Digest, and that's it. The
list is cloaked here so there's no way you can circumvent the digest
mechanism and send directly to the list. You cannot find out who is on
the list. And no, I won't even tell you if a particular person is on
the list, not even if you say "pretty please" or try to bribe me with
cider.
There are several reasons for this. The first is that I've promised people
when they sign up that I won't give out their addresses. Although it is
possible to harvest addresses of -submitters- from postings, the thousand
reader-only subscribers remain unknown. The second is that there are
people who would not subscribe if they knew their subscriptions were
visible--AND some of these people are the big names we most want to have
reading the digest and reacting to it within their organizations. OK, a
third is that we don't want it used for any advertising of any sort.
So there.
And thanks.
Cider Digest cider-request@talisman.com
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor Boulder County, Colorado USA
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End of Cider Digest #1695
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