Cider Digest #1749

eZine lover (@eZine)

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Cider Digest

 · 7 months ago

Subject: Cider Digest #1749, 3 December 2012 
From: cider-request@talisman.com 

 
Cider Digest #1749                                         3 December 2012 

                 Cider and Perry Discussion Forum 

Contents: 
  Re: Small Cidery Start-up (Nat West) 
  Keeving (Andrew Lea) 
  CAMRA Pomona award (Andrew Lea) 
  Sharp, sweet, bitter? (Richard Reeves) 
  Sharp Apple ("Rich Anderson") 

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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn 
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Subject: Re: Small Cidery Start-up 
From: Nat West <natjwest@gmail.com> 
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012 11:04:31 -0800 

Hi Corey - 

Good timing... I will be presenting on this very topic at the upcoming 
CiderCon in Chicago in Feb: http://ciderconference.com/ 

Specifically, my talk will focus on low-capital input cidermaking. It's not 
too hard to start up a small cidery if you have a lot of money. I'll cover 
equipment, processes, some business considerations, marketing, etc. Hope to 
see you there. 

Nat West 
Reverend Nat's Hard Cider, Portland Oregon 

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Subject: Keeving 
From: Andrew Lea <andrew@harphill.co.uk> 
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:29:49 +0000 

On 28/11/2012 18:12, derek bisset wrote: 
> 
> Questions:     what role does a 24 hour maceration play in helping create 
> chapeau brun? 

It plays a serious role in allowing pectin from the spaces between the 
cell walls (the middle lamellae) to be enzmyically liberated and to 
diffuse into the juice. Anyone who has keeved, like Derek, will know 
that a high concentration of pectin is needed to form a good firm 
chapeau. Maceration overnight helps to provide this. Maceration also 
allows lipoxygenase enzymes to act on fatty acids in the fruit (eg 
linoleic acid) to develop aldehydes (eg hexenal) which then enter the 
aroma production process during yeast fermentation. 

>      does the percentage of tannic apples play a role? 

In itself I don't believe that the tannin has much of a role, except 
that oxidised tannin is responsible for colour development. Maceration 
can even reduce the intense astringency of some cider apples by tanning 
polyphenols onto the pulp. This may be desirable in some cases. 

But along with the high tannin go other things. For instance, many of 
the high tannin varieties (the bittersweets) are of high pH. This can be 
a problem in keeping the fermentation clean, but it also allows natural 
PME (pectin methylesterase) activity to proceed faster than in more acid 
apples. This is crucial to the formation of the chapeau. In the days 
before PME was commercially available (only about 15 years ago) it was 
the principal limiting factor in achieving a successful keeve (the 
calcium could easily be added and had been for around 100 years). 

There is also a good deal of evidence that true cider apples, which may 
or may not be tannic, also contain many flavour precursors bound up in 
glycosidic form, and probably more than in dessert apples. These are 
liberated by natural enzyme systems in the macerated pulp, hence 
maceration increases their concentration and eventually contributes to 
enhanced flavour profile after fermentation. I am thinking particularly 
of octane diol and its flavour transformations which are described here 
http://www.cider.org.uk/aroma.html and in the cited references but 
that's not the only one. 

All in all, maceration of cider apple pulp before keeving can have many 
benefits. 

Andrew Lea 
nr Oxford UK 
www.cider.org.uk 

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Subject: CAMRA Pomona award 
From: Andrew Lea <andrew@harphill.co.uk> 
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:30:26 +0000 

Warwick Billings wrote: 

> Just a quick note to echo Dick Dunn and CAMRA, and say thank you to 
> Andrew Lea for the generous giving of his time over the years. 

Thanks Warwick and Dick for your kind remarks. But as I have already 
said elsewhere, the information is mostly out there and it's just a 
matter of collating it and passing it on. I'm just a conduit. Mailing 
lists like this make it so much easier to disseminate and exchange 
information than in the past. 

Andrew Lea 
nr Oxford UK 
www.cider.org.uk 

------------------------------ 

Subject: Sharp, sweet, bitter? 
From: Richard Reeves <richardr1959@gmail.com> 
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2012 16:14:08 -0800 

Hi all. Does anyone have experience with the American cider varieties 
Harrison, Virginia Crab and Wickson Crab, vis-a-vis where they lie on the 
bitter/sweet/sharp scale? I've 5 tress of each arriving in spring and can't 
find much info of use on the interwebs. Thanks! 

Richard Reeves  Lake county, California 

------------------------------ 

Subject: Sharp Apple 
From: "Rich Anderson" <rhanderson@centurytel.net> 
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 11:24:12 -0800 

I am looking for a bittersharp or sharp apple. Currently I have a number of 
Kingston Black's, Brown's and Porters. The Brown's are very biennial(80%) 
but do not think a very interesting apple. The Kingston are fine but have 
irregular cropping(50%) and find the Porter's a good and consistent cropper. 
I would be interested if anyone has tried Crimson King and perhaps some bud 
wood to that I might purchase? 

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End of Cider Digest #1749 
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