Archive for October, 2008

Cider Vinegar Making

Published at October 28, 2008 in cider vinegar. Closed

Cider Vinegar Question

A question which came up at an apple day event about cider vinegar.

Is there any easy way of measuring the acidity of our own cider
vinegar in order to be sure that it can be used for pickling etc.?

To which the answer on the forum was:

Buy an acid testing titration kit used by winemakers. Dilute the
vinegar 1:10 with distilled or de-ionised or rain water before measuring
the acid. Then multiply the result you get by 10 to bring it back to
vinegar strength. If that figure is nominal tartaric acid, multiply
again by 0.8 to express the value as acetic. 5% acetic is the minimum
required for pickling.

See also the page scanned in by Andrew Lea from the Long Ashton Research Station Annual Report for the year 1917 pages 18-20 which gives some useful information about the making of cider vinegar.

A NOTE ON CIDER VINEGAR BY Otto Grove

New Forest Cider Stall

Published at October 25, 2008 in new forest cider and video. 1 Comment

We went to the New Forest Cider stall at Borough Market on Saturday morning. It’s always good to have a drink of the wonderful dry cider and a chat with Barry if he’s there. We picked up a small container of New Forest dry cider to take home and some organic vegetables from the market.

New Forest Cider

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Great Lakes International Cider and Perry Competition

Published at October 21, 2008 in competition, international cider festival and perry. 1 Comment

The Great Lakes seem a long way away from the UK at present but the interweb serves to shrink our global cider village so here’s the announcement from Gary Awdey about the International Cider and Perry competition.

The Great Lakes Cider & Perry Association

The Great Lakes Cider & Perry Association is pleased to announce that entries are being accepted for the 4th Annual Great Lakes International Cider & Perry Competition (formerly known as the Great Lakes Old World Syder Competition). This unique, highly inclusive competition has divisions for both commercial and noncommercial producers. If you sell it, even on a small scale, you’d be considered commercial. It is open to ciders, perries, meads, beers, and commercial distillates, provided they are made with apples or pears. This competition has nineteen categories or subcategories of entry. For traditionalists this competition includes a category for Standard Cider & Perry. The Standard category has a requirement that the entry be produced from a minimum of 85% juice, not include both sugar and water (or sugar syrup and water) in the list of ingredients, and not have added flavor. The Association reserves the unrestricted right to submit commercial entries in this category to testing to verify conformity to requirements.

The entry fee will be waived for entries sent from outside of North America, though entrants will be required to pay their own shipping costs and customs/duty fees if any are applicable.

A list of entry categories and subcategories:

BEER

Fruit Beer (Restricted to beers made with either apples or pears only)
Specialty Beer (Restricted to beers made with either apples or pears only)

MEAD

Cyser (Apple Melomel). (Apple Juice and honey-no other ingredients).
Other Fruit Melomel. (Pear) Pear Juice or blend with pear juice and no other ingredients.
Open Category Mead (must contain apple or pear)

STANDARD CIDER AND PERRY

(Apple or pear only, fermented from single strength juice, with standard cellar treatments)
Common Cider (ie made with eaters and cookers commonly available in most places)
English Cider (sorry Roy, this is a broad focus on the majority and not meant to imply that East Anglian cider is not English)
French Cider (sweet, fizzy, astringent ciders do well in this subcategory)
Common Perry (not everyone has the UK’s enviable access to perry pears)
Traditional Perry

SPECIALTY CIDER AND PERRY

New England Cider (traditionally fortified with some combination of raisins, brown sugar and molasses)
Fruit Cider (cider with other fruits added, such as raspberry, cherry, elderberry, blackcurrant, etc.)
Applewine (cider with sugar added to increase alcohol content)
Other Specialty Cider/Perry (the category for anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere, such as spiced ciders)

MACRO CIDER OR PERRY

(for ciders or perries that aim to be standard in style but do not wish to be constrained by ingredient requirements; this category is exempt from testing for verification of content)

INTENSIFIED CIDER OR PERRY

Prefermentation (Ice Cider) (Open to commercial and noncommercial divisions)
Postfermentation (Pommeau) (Open to commerical division only)

DISTILLED

(Open to commercial division only)
Eau de vie
Brandy (Oak Aged)

Entries will be accepted between Tuesday, November 18, 2008 and Tuesday, December 2, 2008. Judging will take place in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Sunday, December 7.

Each entry must include a minimum of 750ml (or 24 ounces). It is suggested that at least two containers are entered (regardless of size). This gives the judges the freshest opportunity to sample your product should it be elevated to the Best of Show (BOS) judging.

To aid in maintaining fairness of blind judging commercial entries will be poured out of sight of judges by the stewards and identified by a randomly assigned identification number. Noncommercial entries will be poured at judging tables and must be sent in bottles free of permanent labels or markings.

For the full entry packet, including the entry form, please email gawdey @ att.net

Gary Awdey

Eden, New York

Perry with Organic Boxes

Published at October 2, 2008 in organic boxes. Closed

Real Perry with Abel & Cole Organic Boxes

Real perry is such a treat but notoriously difficult to find so it’s fantastic that you can get perry delivered with organic boxes. That’s right, Abel and Cole one of the larger delivery schemes for organic boxes can also supply cases of Dunkertons Perry, in quantities of six times 500ml bottles to customers of their organic vegetable boxes. I’ve tried this arrangement and it works very well, the perry is delicious and very convenient.

What are Organic Boxes?

Organic boxes are made up of a small selection of seasonal organic vegetables, varying week by week, delivered door to door. I like them because I’m a cook who enjoys a challenge but doesn’t like shopping much. The vegetables should be fresher than those in the shops and easily last through the week, but the point is to use them up as soon as possible in raw and cooked dishes. Some of the larger organic box delivery schemes also offer groceries and wine so this is where the organic perry comes in.

Dunkertons Organic Perry

This is what Abel and Cole have to say about Perry and it seems to be pretty accurate to me, apart from perpetuating the modern myth that there are only three perry counties.

Did you know that perry used to be the preferred tipple of the Victorians? This delicious cider drink is made from nothing but pears, and its wonderful pear flavour sometimes has notes of elderflower. Perry doesn’t have the tannins of apple cider, and is easy on the palate. It’s not made from the juice of just any old pears – specially astringent perry pears are used. Because the consumption of perry declined after the Victorian era, many of the orchards were cut down for their wood, but now farmers are planting trees again due to revived interest in the drink. Old pear varieties such as Gin, Brandy, Merrylegs, Stinking Bishop, Judge Amphlett and Hellen’s Early will soon flourish again in the three perry counties: Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. Dunkertons have planted over 10 different varieties of pear in their Herefordshire orchards.

But aren’t Organic Boxes expensive?

Organic produce naturally costs a little bit more than non-organic due to the increased labour that goes into the less intensive farming technique but with the basic cost of cheap food increasing the premium is actually a lot less than it used to be. There’s also much to be said for the idea that having a fixed cost for one box of healthy food delivered in the way of organic boxes will actually decrease the weekly food bill by reducing the opportunities to buy unnecessary extras at the supermarkets, as explained here:

Organic Boxes beat the crunch

For Perry lovers its always possible to order organic boxes on an occasional basis if a weekly commitment is not your thing.