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Cider Digest #1752
Subject: Cider Digest #1752, 21 December 2012
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1752 21 December 2012
Cider and Perry Discussion Forum
Contents:
Re: Sharp, sweet, bitter? (Tim Bray)
All I want for Christmas is... (Cider Digest Admin)
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
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Subject: Re: Sharp, sweet, bitter?
From: Tim Bray <tbray@wildblue.net>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2012 08:44:40 -0800
Hi Richard and all,
Out here on the Mendocino coast, where the climate is rather English but
colder in summer (!), I tried Wickson and Hewes Virginia Crab. Wickson I
would definitely call a sharp, as it has a lot of acidity to go with a
lot of sugar, but not much tannin (even here). HVC is a little harder
to classify, but I suppose I would call it a mild bittersharp. Neither
keeps well, HVC rapidly loses acidity in storage and Wickson goes soft
and quickly rots - the downside of all that sugar.
I've given up on both of them and am reworking my trees. Everybody but
me loves Wickson around here, so I suspect my difficulty with it is a
local climate/soil problem, but it has never produced well enough to be
useful, especially as it is such a poor keeper. I have had an excellent
cider someone made from trees grown a few miles inland, where the
climate is much warmer and drier, so I suspect it wants that summer
warmth. You also have to be ready to press it soon after picking.
Hewes is an excellent cider apple and if you had enough of it, you could
make wonderful early-season ciders; I managed a small batch one year.
But my four trees on standard rootstock never produce enough fruit, even
in "on" years (they have definitely gone biennial), and it ripens so
early that I am never ready for pressing. Someone better organized than
me (wouldn't be hard) could do well with this fruit.
Not sure that will do you much good, Richard, as you are in a totally
different kind of climate over there in Lake County. Good luck with
those trees; I suspect you will have much better luck with Wickson than
I did.
Cheers,
Tim Bray
Albion, California
On 12/3/2012 6:14 PM, cider-request@talisman.com wrote:
> 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
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Subject: All I want for Christmas is...
From: cider-request@talisman.com (Cider Digest Admin)
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2012 14:37:29 -0700 (MST)
Gentle Readers: May I ask of you a small gift for your long-suffering
janitor? If you could find it in your hearts to do this, it would do
you good as well:
Virus-scan your computers!
(if you're running any sort of Windows machine)
Each time a Digest goes out, I can see a flood of bot-generated spam
start up shortly afterward. Almost all of it directed here gets caught
and dumped. Nevertheless, I know it means a few of you have infected
machines, and this is really antisocial toward anyone with whom you
have email contact. Keep a clean machine and you'll be a better
neighbor.
Thanks, and with that said, I'll wish you all Happy Holidays and Healthy
Fermentations.
- ---
Cider Digest cider-request@talisman.com
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor Boulder County, Colorado USA
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End of Cider Digest #1752
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