This is a cracking website, i will be sharing pages of it to help inspire you all to giving making cider a go.
THE SCIENCE OF CIDERMAKING
Part 1 - Introduction
There has been a tremendous resurgence of interest in cidermaking over
the last few years. There are probably well over 100
small
commercial cidermakers in addition to the bigger names of Bulmers,
Gaymers and Magners - and a general interest in all things 'green'
has fostered the growth of small-scale cidermaking. Bulmers are
now owned by Heineken, and Gaymers by Constellation Brands Inc of the USA.
Magners is part of the Irish C&C group. Thatchers, Westons, Aspall and Aston Manor
are other larger independent UK cidermakers.
Anyone wanting to make cider on a small scale is often presented with
misleading dogma and half-truth which is confusing and misleading
to the novice, and seems to result from an almost wilful ignorance of
the
scientific principles of cidermaking. In part, this stems from a
general
lack of accessible information about the subject. Since the Long Ashton
Research Station closed its Cider Section in 1986 there has been no
'official'
source of advice for cidermakers, and there have been few reliable
books on the topic. This series of articles tries to fill the gap and to put the
science
of cidermaking into its proper perspective, so that potential
small-scale
cidermakers can make their own choices from the options available.
There
are, after all, as many different ways of making cider as there are
people
who make it.
Definition and History
First of all, what is cider? In the UK it is understood (and legally
defined)
to be a beverage made "wholly or partly from the fermented juice of
apples".
Similar words (cidre, sidra) are also used in France and Spain. In
Germany
and Switzerland, although cider is made there, there is no specific
word
and the term 'Apfelwein' is used instead. In the USA and Canada,
'cider'
commonly refers to a cloudy but unfermented 'farmgate' apple juice,
unless
qualified by the term 'hard cider' to denote that it has been
fermented.
The word 'cider' itself is supposed to be derived from Greek or even
Hebrew
sources and simply means 'strong drink', although a millenium of usage
now ties it in with apples.
Presently, most commercial cider is made in the UK (
ca 100
million
gallons
annually) followed by France, Ireland, Spain, Germany and Switzerland.
Production
in other countries is vanishingly small. Although it seems to have been
made in the Mediterranean basin around the time of Pliny (1st century
AD),
it became well-established in Normandy and Brittany in early medieval
times
(from 800 AD onwards). Shortly afterwards it seems to have taken hold
in
Britain, and the first mention of established production in this
country
is from 1205.
Although cider was once made all over the Uk even as far north as
Yorkshire, the centre of UK cider production is now in a band
stretching
northwards from Devon, through Somerset, Gloucestershire,
Worcestershire
and Herefordshire, with sporadic local operations in Suffolk, Kent,
Sussex, Berkshire and the Midlands. In the 17th and 18th centuries it
seemed to have reached
something
of a zenith, with cider being compared to the best French wines and
exported
from the West Country to London. A number of manuals on the subject
were
published at this time, including Worlidge's famous 'Vinum Britannicum
- a treatise on Cider and Perry'. John Evelyn, the diarist, politician
and arboriculturalist, published his 'Pomona' in 1670, which discusses
fruit growing in general and cider making in particular, and includes
contributions
from authors throughout the country. This book (part of his epic
'Sylva')
went through several editions and is still available in facsimile
today.
Cider did not seem to last as a serious competitor to wine
(possibly
due to punitive taxation), and by the end of the 19th century it seems
to have been made without much care on most West Country farms. It was
often considered as part of the labourers' wages, particularly at
harvest
time when last season's cider would be consumed. The growth of rail
transport
and bottling technology, however, enabled a new market to be
established
in towns and cities throughout the 20th century, dominated by a few
large
manufacturers. From the 1990's there has been a new divergence, between the
mass-market producers on the one hand and the smaller specialist
producers
on the other.
The Fruit
It has to be said that cider of a sort can be made from almost any type
of apple. In Suffolk, Kent and Sussex, surplus dessert or cooking
apples are used with great success. In Germany and Switzerland,
little
distinction
is made between dessert, cider and juice apples and the ciders are very
acceptable locally although somewhat thin and acidic to an English
palate.
In the USA (upstate New York) 'Golden Russetts' have been used to make
high quality commercial ciders.
Despite this, much of the present mystique of cider making
lies with
the selection of 'true' cider apples - that is, those cultivars grown
for
no other purpose. In the West Country and in Northwest France, where
arguably
the finest ciders are made, these are centred on the high-tannin
'bittersweet'
and 'bittersharp' varieties (if low in tannin, these are
correspondingly
described as 'sweets' or 'sharps'). Since these are generally
unavailable
on the open market except in glut years ,
anyone planting a new cider orchard would be well-advised to go for
these
'true' cider apples. Not only do they have the extra 'body' and 'bite'
due to high tannin, but they also press much more easily than dessert
apples
due to their fibrous structure. Some of these varieties, at least, also
possess the elusive character of 'vintage quality' which sets apart the
best cider from the run of the mill. But if you do not have these
apples,
do not despair - just make sure you select full flavoured dessert
varieties
like 'Cox' and 'Russett' rather than 'Bramley' and 'Golden Delicious',
with a modicum of crab apples (to supply the tannin) if you can get
any.
A word about 'tannin' is probably in order here, since it is
so
frequently
mentioned in connection with cider and yet is so frequently confused
with
acidity. This is perhaps because in most 'crab' apples (which are not a
true species, merely domestic apples which have gone wild from seed)
both
acidity and tannin are high. Acidity is easy to understand - a lemon
provides
a good example of this. Tannin is exemplified by the mouth-puckering
taste
of strong tea, or by the taste of a sloe - it can be both bitter and/or
astringent ('hard' or 'soft'), depending on its chemical structure and
molecular size. In cider making, we need both tannin and acidity in
moderate
amounts, as will appear later. The other major component we need is
sugar
to ferment into alcohol. This can of course come in a bag from Tate and
Lyle but is better for our purpose if it comes from a bittersweet cider
apple!
Milling and Pressing
Whatever kind of apples are used, they must first be milled to a pulp
before
the juice can be pressed out. This is rather different from winemaking
where the grapes need only a light crushing to break the skins before
expressing
the juice. Traditionally, apple milling was done in a circular stone
trough
by a rotating stone wheel drawn round by a horse. From the 18th century
onwards, roller mills based on two closely spaced but contra-rotating
shafts
were used, either hand or steam powered. Resourceful people have
managed
to adapt domestic mangles for this purpose, fitting the rollers with
stainless
steel screws to break up the fruit! Scratcher or grater mills, in which
a wheel bearing coarse knives or graters rotates against a fixed
surface,
are also popular and form the basis of the high speed mills used in
most
modern cider factories. Domestic versions of this mill are also
available.
At worst, a food processor or a thick lump of timber may be used to
smash
the fruit to a pulp, or a rotating blade ('Pulpmaster') may be
harnessed
to the end of an electric drill.
To extract the juice from the pulp, wooden screw 'pack'
presses were
used from medieval times onwards. The apple pulp had first to be built
into a 'cheese' using alternate thin layers of pulp and straw. Pressure
was then applied to the cheese, the straw providing drainage channels
so
that juice could flow to a receiving tray and thence to a barrel as the
compressed pulp diminished in volume. This principle is still used in
many
modern cider presses, large and small. The straw has long been replaced
by wooden slats and terylene cloths, and the pressure is provided by an
hydraulic pump, but the principle of making the cheese still remains.
Small-scale
versions of this press are readily available from specialist suppliers.
In the horizontal piston press (Bucher-Guyer) which is now
used in
large
cider factories, flexible nylon drainage channels are provided
throughout
an enclosed steel cylinder which is filled with pulp and gradually
compressed.
New types of belt press, where a thin layer of pulp is squeezed
continuously
between two endless woven steel and nylon belts, were originally
developed
for sewage sludge dewatering, but have recently become popular in
commercial
juice and cider factories!
Small-scale basket presses are relatively cheap and widely
available
for domestic use, being commonly used for grapes, but they do not
always
give good juice yields on apples because no allowance is made for
drainage
channels in the pulp and not all the juice can find a pathway out.
Problems
with 'slimy pulp' will be discussed in a later section.
The interval between milling and pressing is nowadays kept
very
short
by most cidermakers and is usually only a matter of minutes, the pulp
being
fed straight to the press. However, this was not always the case in
traditional
cidermaking, particularly in France, and various interesting and useful
enzymic changes take place if this period lasts for several hours
('cuvage').
Similarly, the way in which the juice is treated before fermentation
('keeving')
can also have important implications for cider quality. These aspects
are
considered in a later article.
Fermentation and storage
Once the juice is expressed, the 'new traditionalist' and the large
cider
maker tend to part company. The 'new traditionalist' adds
nothing,
doesn't interfere with the natural course of fermentation at all, and
is
quite at the mercy of the wild yeast and bacteria that get to his juice
first! The factory cider maker manipulates the process
completely,
adds cultured yeast and sugar syrups, and has total technical control!
The 'new traditionalist' may by good luck produce a superb
cider but
all too often it is acetic, murky, full of strange odours and really
quite
unpleasant to drink, except to the committed fanatic or to the
unsuspecting
tourist who expects no better of his 'scrumpy'. The factory maker
always
produces a consistent product, but it is bland and undistinguished,
competing
with the lager market in suburban pubs and clubs. Somewhere between
these
two extremes lies the middle ground of highest quality where the
small-scale
'craft' cider maker is aiming to operate and which these articles are intended to help.
Whether traditional or otherwise, certain features should
remain the
same. The right sort of yeast must be present, and must dominate other
less desirable organisms. There must be sufficient nutrient in addition
to sugar for the yeast to grow, it must convert much of the sugar to
alcohol,
and it must generate desirable flavour characteristics as it does so.
After
fermentation, most or all of the yeast should be removed and the cider
should be stored in the absence of air, protected from spoilage yeasts
and bacteria. Otherwise it acquires peculiar off-flavours and
eventually
turns to vinegar.
Exactly how we achieve these objectives is the subject of the
following
articles. To conclude this introduction, we list an outline flow chart
for cider making, with options which any individual cider maker may
choose
to exercise as he wishes. These options are discussed in detail as the
series proceeds.
Flow Chart for Cidermaking
|
MAIN PROCESS
|
OPTIONS
|
| APPLES |
Varietal selection
Nutrient levels |
| HARVEST |
. |
| STORAGE |
Fruit blending |
| WASHING |
. |
| MILLING |
'Cuvage' of pulp
Pectinase addition |
| PRESSING |
Keeving
Pectinase addition
pH (acidity) adjustment
SO2 addition
Yeast addition
Nutrient addition |
| FERMENTATION |
Use of concentrate
Addition of sugar |
| RACKING |
Malo-lactic fermentation
SO2 addition
Natural (arrested) sweetening. |
| STORAGE IN BOTTLE OR CASK |
Fining
Filtration
Added sweetener and preservative
SO2 addition
Pasteurisation |
© Andrew Lea 1997. Lightly revised 2009
http://www.cider.org.uk/frameset.htm
Refer to the 