Re: Woody taste

[thomas...@frontiernet.net]

Off the top of my head, there are three things I can think of that give a musty or "wet wood" taste.

First, there's a small chance that it's acetaldehyde due to weak initial fermentation. This is a yeast byproduct produced during the initial stages of fermentation that gets scavenged up in the later phases. Yeast stress in the initial phases of fermentation could have produced a lot of acetaldehyde that didn't get scavenged up in the later phases. In cider, acetaldehyde can sometimes come across as a "rough" or "green leaf" or even "latex/emulsion paint" aroma and flavor. It can also come across like green apples or unripe apple skins.

Second, it could just be the apple blend. A few varieties that I know of can give woody or even musky aromas and flavors. I associate musky perfumy aromas with American style ciders made from dessert apple varieties, but it might be present in other dessert style apples.  I'm not familiar with Polish apple varieties, though, so I can't comment further.

Third, it's possible that you have some sort of actual mold flavor. The compounds responsible for "cork" or "moldy" notes in wine and cider are detectable at parts per billion and can easily migrate through soft plastic. If you left your cider to age for 5 month on a damp earth or concrete floor, or let water sit underneath your conditioning vessel and get moldy, mold byproducts could have easily been absorbed through the plastic imparting "off" flavors and aromas to the cider. For this reason, you should always make sure that there isn't excess humidity in the area where you condition your cider or wine (no more than about 50%) and you should make sure that your conditioning tanks don't rest directly on the floor.

As others have commented, it could also be yeast autolysis, although I think of that as being a more "brothy" or "vitamin B" (e.g., biotin, niacin) flavor and aroma. It's easy to fix that problem  - just make sure that you rack your cider off of the yeast cake periodically (every 6-8 weeks).

It could also be a combination of any of the above problems.

If the problem isn't too severe, try bottling your cider in glass bottles with corks or crown caps and letting it age further. Many of the problems I mentioned (except the mold problem) will get better - or at least get more interesting - with age.

 
 

[Dick Dunn]

On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 09:48:04PM -0700, thomas...@frontiernet.net wrote:
> Off the top of my head, there are three things I can think of that give a musty or "wet wood" taste.
>

> First, there's a small chance that it's acetaldehyde due to weak initial fermentation...

No.
Acetaldehyde is perceived as having various characters, but woody or
wet-wood is far from any of them.

>... In cider, acetaldehyde can sometimes come across as a "rough" or "green leaf" or even "latex/emulsion paint" aroma and flavor. It can also come across like green apples or unripe apple skins.

"Green apple" is the most common description of excess acetaldehyde in
cider...but we're straying.

> Second, it could just be the apple blend. A few varieties that I know of can give woody or even musky aromas and flavors...

What varieties are these? I've not encountered that. I know of one
variety that gives a rather "dark" note, but I wouldn't call it woody.
If you'll tell us what varieties you have in mind, Thomas, we could cross-
check against what was used in the problem cider.

>...I associate musky perfumy aromas with American style ciders made from dessert apple varieties...

Curious, because usually the descriptions of cider from table/dessert fruit
are that they're very simple, fruity but sharp.

> Third, it's possible that you have some sort of actual mold flavor. The compounds responsible for "cork" or "moldy" notes in wine and cider are detectable at parts per billion and can easily migrate through soft plastic...

Andrew already covered that possibility pretty well.

> As others have commented, it could also be yeast autolysis, although I think of that as being a more "brothy" or "vitamin B" (e.g., biotin, niacin) flavor and aroma. It's easy to fix that problem� - just make sure that you rack your cider off of the yeast cake periodically (every 6-8 weeks).

Yeast autolysis problems aren't common in cider. They're far less common
than in beer, or even in mead. I don't know why, but I've observed it
myself and I've heard it from a lot of other folks--so you don't go about
racking frequently. You might start the cider in the autumn and not do
the first racking until it starts to fall clear in late winter or early
spring. (The exception is when you're trying to reduce yeast population
and biomass to slow the fermentation--Claude has given good instruction on
this process.)

Racking every 6-8 weeks has problems of its own if you're doing a normal
slow fermentation. First is that with every racking you introduce the
possibility of contamination. Second is that since you'll introduce air
with a racking, you'll need to sulfite again to bring the free SO2 back
up to deal with it. Too many rackings and you push the safe (let alone
reasonable) limit on total SO2.

--
Dick Dunn rc...@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA

[Rich Anderson]

Over the years I have experienced woody, moldy flavors in my cider as well
as others, I attributed it to, perhaps mistakenly to film yeast which is not
attended too with haste. The last time this occurred I treated it with
carbon, but this is nasty stuff to work with - a fine black powder and it
took a number of trials to get a mix which strip the off flavor without
entirely striping the desired flavors.

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[Mark Shirley]

I've encountered a strong woody 'Pencil Shavings' aroma on two occasions,
both of which originated from the fruit, ie. I noticed it on milling and it
persisted through to the otherwise fine finished cider. From what I can
gather, one bad apple will lierally spoil a whole pressing if not noticed
and ditched at milling time. The smaller the fermenter, the less cider will
be spoilt but the more pronounced the problem, so possibly something
larger-scale producers never experience. The orchard where I harvest the
fruit is a very old, largely un-managed one which may have some baring on
the problem. Last season I had the same issue again, but as I now keep a
careful nose out for the aroma during milling I simply ditched a proportion
of the pomace.

Cheers, Mark
http://rockinghamforestcider.moonfruit.com/
http://rockinghamforestcider.blogspot.com/

[adam]

Thanks to everybody for their experiences and thoughts!

To wrap up: the possible causes indicated were:

1. too few rackings and consequently autolysis

2. woody aromas penetrating from wooden board stands through plastic bins to the must

3. apple varieties

4. a few rotten/spoilt apples in the pressings (that I cannot fully exclude although I did clean and examine my apples before pressing)

5. Lactic acid bacterial activity

The basement where I kept the containers is dry, and not too humid. The containers were standing on wooden boards, and the floor is made of ceramic tiles - so I think that the idea of "mold flavour" can be abandoned in this particular case.

Recently I opened the 4th container (a glass demi john) and it did not have the woody taste. 

So in the end I have two containers with the woody taste (both plastic) and 2 without (both made of glass).

The differences in the cider making process between the 2 groups were:

1. glass vs plastic containers (but I guess the sample is too small to conclude that the plastic is definitely the reason)

2. more air access to the plastic containers in the first fermenation phase when the bins were covered with just a cotton cloth (although during the racking after the fermentation the woody taste was not present yet)

3. the woody taste ciders were composed to a large extent with Antonowka cooking apple variety. The ones in glass demi johns - not. Who knows, perhaps this variety might produce a woody taste during seasoning - although it is a simple, non-compromise, very sharp, cooking apple without any sublime flavours - when tasted fresh.

I need to do more testing with the Antonowka variety. Next time I will also do a more frequent rackings with a few selected containers. Perhaps I will also place one plastic bin on a non-wooden stand to check the difference.

To respond to Andrew's question on sugar: I added sugar to the fully fermented must to protect the cider from contamination (new sugar = more fermentation, new CO2 layer over the must).

/adam