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Cider Digest #1698
Subject: Cider Digest #1698, 9 March 2012
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1698 9 March 2012
Cider and Perry Discussion Forum
Contents:
Re: Capper (Dick Dunn)
Original gravity of the Pine Hill blends from this past year's Cider (John...)
Re: Cider Conference (TTB rules) (Dick Dunn)
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
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Subject: Re: Capper
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2012 23:15:05 -0700
Rich Anderson replied to my troubles with the Super Agata:
> It may be an adjustment problem, that causes the bottle to hang. I know from
> experience with our equipment and it gets to be a micro adjustment to get
> it just right on the pneumatic capper I have...
It's not an automatic or pneumatic capper, just a manual slot-machine type
(pull the handle down) which is supposed to be easier and quicker than
older designs, and especially moreso than twin-lever designs. But the
tendency for bottles to stick in the bell and have to be pulled loose says
it won't do the job.
The goal was to have a capper that might make it practical to do a couple
hundred bottles in a session without feeling injured afterward. A twin-
lever capper won't do because of the motions of holding both your arms
up and out. A really good slot-machine type would fill the bill, but it
would have to work with simple motions and have a positive stop at the
end of the proper crimping height, or else give robust feedback to let
you know you've reached that point.
This capper was ballpark $40. I would be willing/able to spend hundreds,
but not thousands, for a capper that would make life easy at my scale of
production.
Maybe I should add this to my list of desiderata for small-scale producers?
(The first on that list was a good pump in the 3-figure $ range. See CD
1637.)
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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Subject: Original gravity of the Pine Hill blends from this past year's Cider
From: John Simmons <32bituser@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2012 14:54:14 -0500
I have 4 carboys going from the Pine Hill blends from Cider Day weekend
this past year (2 each from the 600 and 800 gallon tanks).
They are fermenting just fine, but I realized that my notes don't include
the original gravity of either blend.
Can anyone help me out ?
Here are the blends from those two tanks, for anyone who did not write them
down..
600 Gallon tank -
25% Rome
25% Jonathon
12% Fuji
12% Pound Sweet
8% Roxbury Russett
6% Hudson Golden Gem
800 Gallon tank -
32% Redfield
18% Baldwin
18% Golden Delicious
12% Gala
12% Roxbury Russett
6% Black Gilliflower
Thanks!
John Simmons
32bituser
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Conference (TTB rules)
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 16:05:26 -0700
Rich Anderson asked sorta "What happened?" at the Cider Conference last
month re TTB rules...
> Not having attended the recent Cider Conference, was there any
> direction/consensus for changing existing TTB rules? Is this a legislative
> matter or a rules issue?...
That second question may not be clear to some folks so let me motivate it
a bit: The TTB operates within legislation passed by Congress, but it
makes rules to achieve what the legislation intends. So it's a question
of where changes can be made: Do they require new legislation to be
passed, or can the changes happen administratively within TTB?
Rich (and everybody else) please understand I can't speak with any
authority on this in what follows; I'll only try to relate what I've
heard.
A lot of the first day of the conference was taken up with discussion of
issues, first in a large group and then in small groups formed arbitrarily,
for the purpose of brainstorming. After that, the main meeting was
reconvened to give each small group a minute or so to present what they'd
come up with. We also heard from someone with experience in DC about what
could or realistically could not be changed.
Unfortunately we didn't get an actual overall-group consensus on what to
do. But the issues seemed to be fairly clear to everyone, and they came
down to two which Steve and Beck presented in their proposal--see CD 1688:
* The "bubble tax" in which the tax rate rises dramatically at a CO2
level over 3.92 g/l (two volumes) is unreasonably low for how most
cider in the US is made, and is damaging the growth of the cider
industry.
* The alcohol level of 7% abv where a tax rate shift occurs is too low.
A working group was formed to go off and haggle out the details of
proposals for change. I don't know where that stands but I know they've
been busy on it; I hope they'll be able to tell us their proposals before
too much longer.
The question of legislative vs rules is tricky. The danger in attempting
legislative changes is that there are all sorts of other groups that could
pop up and do various things--oppose the changes in order to protect their
own interests, try to tack on changes they want (that might kill a bill),
even make anti-alcohol changes. And as we know the cider industry in the
US is -not- big and powerful.
BUT can the changes be made in rules only? I honestly don't understand
this nearly well enough to say.
One eminently sensible idea I heard floating around was to push for changes
in CO2 and %abv boundaries in the name of harmonization with EU and UK
rules. Those numbers are 3 volumes of CO2 (which is either 6.4 or 6.9 g/l;
I've heard both) and 8.5% abv. In addition to harmonizing with practice
elsewhere (which can be argued on the basis of fair trade), they are
comfortably far enough above what most cidermakers are doing that there's
small worry about "bumping into them" inadvertently.
>...Is there a consensus on definitions and issues
> among producers?...
I'd say there was casual consensus that the two issues above are by far
the biggest ones. What did you have in mind on definitions?
>...Organization and communication is a major issue since most
> craft producers are small, spread out and busy.
Absolutely!
They're particularly important right now because cider is growing so fast
in the US. Everybody needs to keep up on what's happening, and as much as
possible not be at cross purposes with one another.
Please remember that's just why the Cider Digest is here! If you wanna
know somethin', try asking here. If you wanna tell people somethin',
tell 'em here.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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End of Cider Digest #1698
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