? Acetic acid in Spanish cider

[Duncan Galletly]

Hi. I recently drank a bottle of Spanish cider that had made it's way
ove to the antipodes. The aftertaste was obviously acetic but rafher
than being unpleasant the effect added a really positive dimension to
the flavour. A google search suggested it had something to do with
malolactic fermentation ... Is that corrrect? Or is it just ordinary
old acetification?
Thanks
Duncan

Sent from my iPhone

[Andrew Lea]

No it isn't plain old acetification.

Wisdom from modern studies is that the acetic acid in traditional
Spanish cider is produced not by acetobacter but by lactic acid bacteria
along one of their many other biochemical pathways which is not actually
the MLF one. I have not studied it personally but I understand that the
LAB activity and the (wild) yeast fermentation continue at one and the
same time. This does not typically happen in the UK or France and this
is ascribed to the much higher autumn temperatures in northern Spain
than we have here.

Andrew

--
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk

[from Heather]

Just finished up my class with Peter today. They managed to find some Spanish cider to show us acetic acid. My husband loved it! Mind you, he also loves and brews sour beer. I have a feeling he is going to try making some in his sour beer fermenter now, probably with lactobacillius (sp?). Or at least it better be in his fermenter and not mine!
 
On a simular note, he didn't care for any of the French cider there today.
 
Heather
 

 
> Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2010 11:36:38 +0100
> From: y...@cider.org.uk
> To: cider-w...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Cider Workshop] ? Acetic acid in Spanish cider

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[Duncan Galletly]

Andrew Lee wrote:

"No it isn't plain old acetification. Wisdom from modern studies is that the acetic acid in traditional 
 Spanish cider is produced not by acetobacter but by lactic acid bacteria "

Thanks Andrew, I guess its interesting that while some might think a little acetic content was a fault (via the natural process of aerobic acetification), to others it seems to be a positive quality (via another natural process - MLF). This seems illogical, as if there are rules for how things must be done. Yet clearly, in the past, in the UK some acetification was considered to be part and parcel of traditional cider and one that was possibly enjoyed by a past generation of cider drinkers. Having enjoyed spanish cider so much, I tried an experiment on friends who (in New Zealand) have no idea of what constitutes a traditional UK cider. I serially diluted cider vinegar into two local commercial ciders, at 4 increasing concentrations, 3 of these were, I thought, subliminal and the highest had an obvious acetic flavour. What surprised me was that their ranking of the ciders placed the unadulterated ciders as being the least interesting and in one case the most obviously acetic was ranked first. Acetic acid clearly has a flavour as well as an acidity, could it be that a too meticulous sanitation process really has taken away an important flavour component? With some trepidation and fear of derision I would at least put forward a hypothesis that taking a small batch of ones pressing and allowing it to continue through aerobic acetification, pasteurising this, and then titrating a very small quantity back into the bulk of the cider might improve (at certain concentrations and for some ciders) the flavour  and I would argue this should still be called "craft cider" indeed it possibly would require more craftsmanship...... or is this heresy? Duncan

[Andrew Lea]

On 09/07/2010 00:35, Duncan Galletly wrote:

> Acetic acid clearly has a
> flavour as well as an acidity,

It does but when generated by natural processes it is always accompanied
by other components eg ethyl acetate and other esters and aldehydes
which are much more flavour active. It is most likely that it is they
which are really responsible for any enhancement of cider flavour at low
levels, rather than acetic acid. The word 'acetification' refers
implicitly to both volatile and non-volatile components in the mix, not
just to acetic acid.

Speaking of the UK, it is almost certainly true that acetified ciders
(from whatever cause) did appeal to an older and generally rural
generation of cider drinkers because that is what they had got used to.
I know of one now well respected UK cidermaker who had been producing
such an article for many years which had a small devoted band of local
followers. But because of the flavour defects (as we saw it) he could
not break into a wider market. About 25 years ago I helped him to get up
to speed with a more modern approach and we eliminated the overt
acetification. Unfortunately he lost his local market (only a few
hundred cases a year) because they said the cider had lost its
character! On the other hand he gained national distribution and acclaim
(now thousands of cases per week) because the cider was more drinkable
and became acceptable to a much wider constituency.

You can take from that story what you will. If it makes me a meddlesome
scientist or a commercial stooge, so be it!

Andrew

--
Wittenham Hill Cider Pages
www.cider.org.uk