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Cider Digest #1711
Subject: Cider Digest #1711, 11 May 2012
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1711 11 May 2012
Cider and Perry Discussion Forum
Contents:
Revisiting fruit thinning (Andrew Lea)
tips for tastings (Dick Dunn)
Help with UPS Shipping (Bill Barton)
Kingston, Sweet Coppin and Bulmer's Norman (Rob & Mike Miller)
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
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Subject: Revisiting fruit thinning
From: Andrew Lea <andrew@harphill.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 08 May 2012 14:04:33 +0100
On 07/05/2012 22:53, Donald Davenport wrote:
>
> I had been following the "One fruit per cluster, six inches apart" rule
> favored by a lot of table fruit hobbyist growers, but then I see on the
> internet these videos of English cider makers and their trees (some of
> the same varieties as mine) are absolutely loaded, with multiple fruit
> per cluster, carrying probably 5X the fruit I would ever consider
> letting the tree carry.
You are right that is a typical scenario for cider growers here on the
eastern side of the pond. Of course such heavy cropping can be a trigger
for biennialism (alternate bearing), but the idea here is that cider
fruit bulk is more important than individual fruit size. It's all going
to get squashed anyway. Why go to the enormous trouble and expense of
thinning to get large table-quality fruits when the cost doesn't justify
it (rarely more than £100 per tonne here)?
There is also a belief that a large number of smaller apples is actually
better for cider quality, because (so the theory runs) the flavour
components are concentrated in the skin and with smaller apples the
surface area / volume ratio is larger. Seems intuitively sensible, but
the truth of the proposition has never been formally demonstrated AFAIK.
Andrew Lea
nr Oxford, UK
www.cider.org.uk
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Subject: tips for tastings
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Wed, 9 May 2012 22:33:50 -0600
I've been to a fair number of tasting-type events in recent years, ranging
from informal parties with a few ciders on offer, up to all-day, formal,
serious judgings. There have been some surprising lapses which have made
some tastings less pleasant, less informative, more chaotic than they
should have been. Some of the lapses were just last-minute "OOPS!" from
people who knew better; others were "HUH?" from people who were over their
heads for how serious they were trying to be. So I thought I'd set out
my notes in the name of happier cider-tasting. I'm not trying to make this
stuffy or formal, not trying to give directives. This is just a bunch of
stuff you might want to think about.
I'm sticking my neck out here--I KNOW I'll forget things myself!! So take
this as a starting point, criticize and challenge. Maybe this will result
in a quick guide/checklist for cider tastings. (AND since a lot of you know
I judged at the recent GLINTCAP, a disclaimer: This is NOT intended as any
sort of backhanded criticism of them. To the contrary, they got damned near
everything right, and as a result it was a pleasure to be there.)
So, first a couple checklists, then explanation.
EQUIPMENT/SUPPLIES
tasting cups/glasses, at least 2 per person
water
bread or crackers
openers
dump buckets
decanters
spit cups
baking soda
scoresheets and pencils
PROCEDURES
serving temperature
decant as needed
taste dry-to-sweet
identify ciders
Explanation of EQUIPMENT/SUPPLIES
tasting cups/glasses: You need at least two per person, because even in an
informal setting people will want to A/B compare. If it's a party setting,
make a +25% allowance for glasses set down and forgotten/confused. At the
more serious end, you might need as many as one glass/cup per person per
cider. Don't count on washing up and re-distributing glasses mid-stream;
your services will be needed elsewhere.
water: Have -plenty- of -good- water. People need water to rinse glasses,
to rinse their mouths, and to drink to avoid dehydration. If your water
is high in chlorine or mineral content, get some better water for the
event, so that it doesn't skew the tasting results.
bread/crackers: Have bread or crackers available for people to neutralize
tastes and re-set their palates. Use -neutral- tastes! Sourdough bread
is OK if it's mild. But nothing with garlic, herbs, cheese, etc. while
tasting, although they can go well afterward while comparing and chatting.
openers: Are you SURE you've got both crown-cap opener and corkscrew?
dump buckets: containers to discard unused/unwanted cider. Don't leave
guests/tasters feeling they need to drink what was poured for them even
if (a) it's not good and/or (b) they don't want to drink so much. Dump
buckets should be fair-sized and should be OBVIOUSLY different from water
pitchers! (Yeah, there's a story on that one:-)
decanters: containers to decant a cider with sediment before serving it.
See below under procedures.
spit cups: mainly for formal tasting or judging, where people take sips
and swallow very little. Spit cups are one per person(!) and it's nice
if they're opaque (for the obvious reason). A paper cup is fine.
baking soda solution: for formal tasting or judging, where it may be
necessary to check for a "mousy" cider. Some folks whose mouths are
overtly acidic (like mine:-) can't taste mouse. A quick rinse with this
solution pushes the pH in the mouth up to allow detecting mouse.
scoresheets: If you want people to try to evaluate and score ciders, get
a decent scoresheet. Don't just make one up on the spur of the moment;
you'll forget things for sure. Writing implements too, not everybody
carries a pen[cil].
Explanation of PROCEDURES
serving temperature: Serve the ciders at temperatures appropriate to
style. This is too complex to spell out in detail here, but a rough
rule is that drier and nearly-still ciders want higher serving temps.
Overall, don't go outside the range you'd use for white wine to red wine.
decant as needed: If a cider might have sediment, store and cool it
carefully, upright. Open carefully and pour into a decanter; serve from
the decanter. Don't go around pouring samples and bringing the bottle back
upright after each one, or the poor sod who gets the last sample will get
mud.
taste dry-to-sweet: Always serve the dry (low sugar) ciders first. If
you taste a sweet cider, a drier one following will always seem harsh.
(This is a classic wine-tasting rule as well.)
identify ciders: Be sure people know what they're tasting! Even if it's a
blind tasting, they need to have the correct code for it. If you're
pouring quickly, people can fall behind or get confused.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: Help with UPS Shipping
From: Bill Barton <info@cidery.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2012 15:08:42 -0400
Help with UPS Shipping
Bill Barton, Bellwether Hard Cider
info@cidery.com
After shipping successfully for over 5 years with UPS, we recently hit a
big snag. UPS approached us to sign a wine shipping agreement and when
we complied, they immediately terminated our ability to ship cider based
on their interpretation that cider/hard cider is NOT wine. Imagine my
surprise after having paid wine excise taxes for years! After many
fruitless conversations with junior level account managers we finally
hit a brick wall. They won't return our calls and won't put us in
contact with UPS folks that actually can make decisions.
Are any commercial producers successfully shipping ciders through UPS
after having signed their wine agreements? I would greatly appreciate
hearing your experiences (successful and unsuccessful) with UPS. You
can contact me directly at info@cidery.com or if Dick Dunn can tolerate
such boring topics, through this forum.
Bill Barton
------------------------------
Subject: Kingston, Sweet Coppin and Bulmer's Norman
From: Rob & Mike Miller <ciderguys@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2012 23:11:17 -0400
I guess I'm not the only orchardist to have continual problems with Kingston
Black. Despite thinning last year and dropping what seemed like half
of the fruit, I had limited return bloom this year and limited fruit set.
I would pull them all out were the juice not so good when I do get fruit!
I would be interested to hear if anyone has effectively dealt with the KB
biennial bearing. I believe I've solved the on year/off year problem with
most of the varieites I have that tend to be biennial, but the Kingstons
just don't want to cooperate.
My Kingston are planted next to Sweet Coppin, which had a decent bloom this
year yet almost no fruit set. My experience with SC is that they have
strong biennial tendencies, although usually I get some fruit in the off
(this) year. I have 6 or 7 additional SC trees planted in a nearby row full
of odd lots, and those trees all bloomed and have had a nice fruit set,
so go figure. Maybe it had something to do with the number of different
varieties planted in the same row.
My rows of Bulmer's Norman also are having a bad year. These trees have
consistently produced each year for the past 5 or 6 years, and despite
thinning extensively last year, they returned almost no bloom this year.
When I thinned last year, the trees dropped what looked like half of their
fruit, and then they still produced big volumes. I guess the lesson there
are some varieties (Bulmer's) that require extensive chemical thinning,
to then be followed up with hand thinning if the crop load is to high.
I was also interested to learn that Dick Dunn's Stoke Red are blooming now
(May 9), as are mine. I have nothing else in in the orchard in bloom.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a very late blooming variety that
I could plant in with the Stoke Red (MD, Zone 7A)? Thanks, Rob Miller,
Distillery Lane Ciderworks
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End of Cider Digest #1711
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