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Cider Digest #1834
Subject: Cider Digest #1834, 23 December 2013
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1834 23 December 2013
Cider and Perry Discussion Forum
Contents:
Re: Cider Digest #1832, 18 December 2013 (Miguel Pereda)
Sweating different varieties (Leif)
Re: Conical fermenter (Dick Dunn)
oak - surface area, aging, etc. (Dick Dunn)
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
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Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1832, 18 December 2013
From: Miguel Pereda <mapr54@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2013 21:22:11 +0100
The chestnut wood is even better than the oak one for the cider.
Greetings from Asturias. Spain
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Subject: Sweating different varieties
From: Leif <leif.sundstrom@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2013 11:48:45 -0500
I've learned that sweating apples is the best way to boost sugars and
enhance flavor characteristics of apples before milling and pressing them.
It makes sense, and I trust most everyone on this forum has a basic
understanding of this. However, when recently reviewing my copy of Ben
Watson's *Cider, Hard and Sweet* I note that he makes a brief comment about
how some varieties are NOT good to sweat, such as Newtown Pippin and
Jonathan (which I would assume means Jonagold are also not good to sweat).
My question is why? All apples have starch that can turn to sugar, all
apples stand to have pectin breakdown through sweating, and all apples will
lose some water through sweating. So, what could be lost in some varieties
and not in others through the sweating process? Perhaps this is simply
something that has not been tested with these apples. Can anyone tell me
the benefit vs sacrifice in regards to sweating or not sweating Newtwon
Pippins, Jonagolds, etc.?
I know many will respond telling stories of how they've made successful
cider without sweating at all, regardless of variety. I know this is
possible; however, for the purposes of this query that is not of interest.
Thanks,
Leif Sundstrom
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Subject: Re: Conical fermenter
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2013 14:23:42 -0700
Bud DeSmul asked:
> Can anyone please comment on the pros and cons of using beer style conical
> fermenters for a small commercial cidery? I will be using pressed and rough
> filtered fruit from our orchard, not filtered juice or concentrate.
They'll work, but the conical part isn't as helpful with cider as you might
hope. With beer the idea is that the lees (trub) will settle to the bottom
where it can be drawn off through the bottom port. Cider lees compact too
much, too soon. You can draw off some of the lees from the very center,
but the rest tend to adhere to the sloped sides as a sort of sludge. If
you have a racking arm on a port just above the bottom, that will work out.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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Subject: oak - surface area, aging, etc.
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2013 18:27:53 -0700
A few replies to questions in the last digest...
Darrel Martin asked a really to-the-point question:
> First, have you actually succeeded, do you like your oaked cider?
Yes! But that's with -some- ciders, and moderate level of oak.
I actually came around to this from meadmaking--I make a damson +
blackcurrant melomel which is very red-wine-like. I had access to barrel
staves, so I tried oak on that melomel and liked it. I decided to try some
experiments with sub-batches of some of my cider and I've been mostly happy
with the results. But it's not for every cider.
> Second, when you refer to the contact area of the oak strips are you
> talking about adding up all sides of the oak strip or just one face of
> the strip?
All sides. The idea was to figure what the inside surface area of a barrel
would be, and from that figure the surface:volume ratio for a full-size
barrel, then try to match that. Since the slats are immersed in the
fermenter, they're exposed on all sides.
Clay Spence wrote:
> 100 sq in for 5 gallons sounds like a lot to me, compared to what I've
> seen recommended,
It seems like a lot to me too! So I've used short time periods. BUT, from
what I said above, I was trying to match the surface:volume of a regular
oak barrel. Consider (sanity check!): 100 sq in is roughly the surface
area of one side of a sheet of notebook paper.
I also did a cross-check against oak cubes (the only other form that's
halfway easy to measure). I got a -very- rough number of 40 sq in per
oz wt, and the recommended dosage I saw was 2 oz (hence 80 sq in) for
5 gallons.
==>All that said!<===it is far better to UNDERoak at the outset. If the
cider is good to start with, a bit of oak may make it nicer but a lot of
oak will definitely make you wish you hadn't. Try using the barrel
equivalent surface area, but for a short period. Also soak the new slats
before using them.
Ol' Joe asked:
> Please tell us how long these freshly cut and toasted oak strips should
> remain in the cider under normal conditions.
When they're new like that, maybe a couple weeks. I do suggest that you
soak them, just in hot water will do, for a little while, to gentle them
down. After they've been used a time or two, give a few weeks to a month.
A lot of it is down to experimenting with what you like, and tastes vary a
LOT on oaking. Some folks don't like it at all; other folks like the
equivalent of a "breakfast Chardonnay" (toast and butter character:-).
Personally, I like a -little- bit, with -some- ciders.
As to when to add: I've done it fairly early on, after the initial
boisterous fermentation settles down, and also later on where it amounts
to "oak aging" rather than "fermented on oak". If you like oak, give it
a try. The oak character will gentle down after a month or so past when
you remove the oak.
Dan Daugherty asked:
> Are the LD Carlson oak chips (or others along these lines) any good? These
> are generally 4 oz or 16 oz bags of rather finely pulverized oak with
> either a light or medium toast...
Sure, they work; the trouble is in figuring out how much oak surface area
you really get from them. Seems like a fair amount of variation from one
bag to the next.
>...Seems convenient, but I have no idea what the origin of the oak in
> question is...
In that case I'd be cautious. Oak cubes, by contrast, almost always seem
to be labeled as to type as well as toast level.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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End of Cider Digest #1834
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