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Cider Digest #1997
Subject: Cider Digest #1997, 28 October 2015
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1997 28 October 2015
Cider and Perry Discussion Forum
Contents:
Re: Cider Digest #1996, 25 October 2015 (Lou Farrell)
Sulphurous perry (Kenny Tuomi)
Kegging Cider (Josh Kellermann)
Looking for a non-corrosive sanitizer (Alan Yelvington)
Re: Cider Yeast Strains and Handling (Dick Dunn)
NOTE: Digest appears whenever there is enough material to send one.
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
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Subject: Re: Cider Digest #1996, 25 October 2015
From: Lou Farrell <lou.farrell@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2015 15:02:40 -0400
Subject: Cider Yeast Strains and Handling
Paul-
Have you considered using natural yeast? The lag phase will likely be
longer, but when it gets going, everything will ferment out well. You will
have to be absolute in your sanitation methods. Use a light hand with
sulfates. The longer/slower fermentation generally helps create deeper
flavors.
Additionally, it took me years (and a few trips to Normandy) to unlearn my
brewing past. I had to learn that cider is a fruit wine, not beer, so the
production schedule will be less certain and not completely under my
control.
Lou Farrell
215-353-8947
lou.farrell@gmail.com
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Subject: Sulphurous perry
From: Kenny Tuomi <merimies@icloud.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2015 13:06:00 -0700
Hi, novice cider maker here hoping to learn from my mistakes. I
recently received some free asian pears and am attempting to make a
single varietal perry from them.
Pear juice Ph was high (4.4) so I added malic acid ( 4 tsp) and campden
tablets (150 ppm) to lower the ph prior to pitching yeast; I let these
amendments soak for 24 hours under airlock. SG was 1.042.
After 24 hours, ph tested between 3.6 and 4.0 (via test strips). I
added 2 lb of corn sugar (to increase alcohol content), 2.5 tsp yeast
nutrient and pitched Lallemand Nottingham ale yeast. It had a vigorous
initial fermentation in a lidded plastic pail, slowing down after a
week.
I racked into the secondary carbuoy. During racking i noticed a
sulfurous odor but it tasted fine (dry with slight sweetness).
During the next two weeks, there was no activity visible in the
fermentation lock. There was a 1/2" layer of sediment and the
cider was clear, although it did have a cloudy filmy material near the
top.
I racked into another carbuoy, leaving the sediment and film behind and
added 1.5 tsp yeast nutrient. It immediately showed activity in the
fermentation lock.
Any thoughts on whether or not more time will eliminate the sulphur
odor? Can I assume the odor came from the 150 ppm SO2? Did I kill this
batch?
Thanks for your consideration.
Ken Tuomi
merimies@icloud.com
------------------------------
Subject: Kegging Cider
From: Josh Kellermann <joshkellermann@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 12:27:02 -0400
Given the big wild apple season in the northeast (I have over 200 gallons
fermenting in my bedroom and am sore as hell from all that hand grinding
and pressing!), I'm considering kegging some cider to avoid weeks and weeks
of hand bottling. I'd like to use 5 gallon corny kegs and keep the tapped
kegs in a kegerator.
I'm wondering how long a keg of cider will last after tapping. It'll take
me a while to get through a 5-gallon keg, so I don't want to keg all the
cider and lose a large portion every time I tap it.
Other than that, any other suggestions for not spending weeks and weeks
hand-bottling?
Thanks in advance for any insight.
Josh Kellermann
Catskill Mountains, NY
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Subject: Looking for a non-corrosive sanitizer
From: Alan Yelvington <alany@semparpac.org>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 21:09:12 -0400
I use Starsan as my go-to sanitizer. It
works very well, but overspray gets onto
non-stainless surfaces (my cooler) and is
causing corrosion.
Is there a non-corrosive sanitizer that I
could use on my floors and walls? I prefer
to spray it using a common garden sprayer
since that has worked well until now. My
floor is epoxy coated, so I'm only dealing
with the underside and sides of the cooler.
Thanks,
Al Yelvington
Happy Dog Farm
Russell PA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cider Yeast Strains and Handling
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2015 19:39:18 -0600
Paul Baker asked about several aspects of yeast for cider, coming from a
brewer's perspective.
> There seems to be many schools of thought on what stains to use ie.
> English or Scottish Ale Yeast vs. English Cider Yeast vs. Champagne Yeast.
If you get a bit out of the brewing (especially homebrewing) world, I think
you'll find that most yeasts used for cider are white-wine types (including
"champagne" types): 71B, D-47, DV-10, 1116, 1118, etc. AWRI350 has become
a favorite of numerous cidermakers recently.
The choice of yeast should go along with the apples you're using...one
particular somewhat-unusual example is using 71B where you've got
excessively acidic fruit.
Personally, I don't get the fascination with beer/ale yeasts, but perhaps
the folks using those are trying to build character in ciders when working
with table fruit...that may be their yeast/apple matching.
You mention English Cider Yeast (all caps) - that's a brand of a mid-scale
yeast supplier. And, well...it IS apparently from England originally, and
it IS a yeast and it works well for cider. But there's no magic in it, in
spite of the marketing, because (necessarily) it has been cleaned up in the
lab. It's a strain of S. cerevisiae which does well with cider.
Actual yeasts used in small and medium size craft English cideries are
often wild-yeast progressions. The yeast characteristic of a particular
cidery comes from its particular strains (in the equipment and building)
which operate in succession and die off. This can't be cultured and
packaged-up.
> As far as pitching and harvesting, from what I've read it seems to be
> glossed over or referred to in the small scale. My question would be if the
> fermentation vessel was a ~10 BBL IBC container, would the yeast be pitched
> prior to filling with juice, or after?...
OK, pitching means you're not trying to use wild yeast, so in that case
you'd definitely pitch after filling, because you'll sulfite first. You
fill the container, sulfite and mix, wait a day, then pitch.
>...And at the end of fermentation does
> anyone have a clever way to harvest yeast from an IBC?...
I don't have a clever answer there because I'm not sure why you'd want to
do it. Background to my thinking is that better ciders tend to be
fermented "low and slow" (low temperature and deliberately slow ferment),
which implies you don't need a huge inoculum, as you would want with an ale
where you want a boisterous, rowdy fermentation within a day.
Also, just my own view, but I'd rather not deal with trying to clean up
the harvested yeast from the lees with all the other settled solids. And
as I think about it, at the end of a slow fermentation you've got the yeast
just starting to autolyze; you might not want to carry this over into a new
batch either.
>...In brewing we
> introduce a "cold crash" after terminal gravity to settle out the yeast. Is
> this also a practice in cider?
I've not heard of it being done by regular cidermakers. Just MHO. I did
hear of a brewer trying to make the leap to cider, and using cold-crashing
to try to get a cider finished ahead of its time. (By "cold crashing" I
think you and I are both referring to taking it quickly down to near
freezing, right?)
Overall I think my suggestions to you would be to study some larger
cidermakers who have been at it for a while, AND to leave the brewing
behind you as quickly as you can. Use winemaking, not brewing, as your
background model for practices.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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End of Cider Digest #1997
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