Bittersweet SO2 / Ph levels

[Ian Mayer]

Dear All,
 
[NB: Please accept my apologies if you find this email a re-written duplicate of an earlier message from me - i am having trouble with my server....].
 
I seem to have found myself in a similar situation to an earlier thread-author. I have managed to find apples this year but they are bittersweets only - no sharps. Even though i have not yet pressed or measured Ph (so cannot provide figures), I am predicting that I will be in a similar predicament of high Ph levels and low acid.
 
Whilst I have malic acid at hand, and will certainly make the recommended adjustments for one batch at least, I had the good fortune to catch a quick chat with an experienced cider maker who also had the following advice. That whilst the cider will not be balanced in a traditional sense, it will certainly have its own taste merits - indeed pure bittersweet was a favourite of his - and can still be safely produced using wild yeasts and without added malic. His recommendation though was to add 100ppm SO2 to protect the cider; the increase apparently does not affect a wild ferment as the SO2 is less effective without the presence of the higher acid apples (which makes sense).
 
In the interests of balanced opinion, I thought i'd throw this one out to the masses, as it were, to find out if anyone had any thoughts on the process and whether they had attempted the above and to what effect. For info: the apples are 3/4 Dabinett and 1/4 Michelin.
 
Fortunately i am making this batch purely for fun and experience, so can experiment to my heart's content..... but i'm still hoping to make a reasonably quaffable beverage though!
 
All the best
 
Ian 
 
 

[Cheshire Matt]

Suspect the pH will be around 4.2 for that mix.  While that's "outside" the usually accepted SO2 tables (ie Dr Andrew Lea, CAMRA Pomona Award winner 2012) I'd be inclined to dose with 100ppm and make damn sure everything is spotless - including getting out any bits of floating pulp, SO2 solution in the airlocks - the lot.  100ppm, because that allows you a couple of 50ppm "hits" later in the process (eg at bottling). 

Adding malic?  Difficult - malic is malic.  It doesn't have the additional flavours of sharp apples, so I'd be worried about the sourness it would bring.  On a large batch, I think I'd have to if I didn't have any sharps - couldn't risk "bad taint" in such a large volume, and the trade off would be a compromise on taste (but only so much as I'd know) but still better then possibly "off".  But on a small scale for yourself, the default position I think should be "don't add".  Or add it to a minority of the fermenters as a fallback.

"Safely produced" - presume this means "without going off"?  I've always assumed a lower pH makes the cider more resilient to film yeasts and taints such as mouse etc - but safe to drink whatever (waits to be corrected by the Good Doctor... :)

As for taste merits etc - there are many SV ciders that will be at that pH.  Dabinett, HMJ etc etc - so clearly the "add some acid" approach is a "err on the side of caution to avoid off-tastes" rather than "if you don't add acid the cider will be undrinkable".

I wouldn't worry about trying to make any particular blend of cider with a particular level of sharpness.  If it's clean, it will taste good whatever, and that's the point about the huge range of variety in real ciders. 

Ian Mayer wrote:

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[Lewis]

Ian I suspect I'm the earlier novice and thread-author (there's a new one for the CV!). I've now made 1000l of my blend and the ph has varied from 4.2 to 4.7 ("blend" is perhaps a little too exact a description as there's reasonable variability even in this lot and I ran out of tremletts early on.) I've got a couple of IBC's and have agonised about chucking the lot in together but decided instead to follow a modified version of Matt's suggestion. I've kept it in 220's and added Malic in varying quantities from none (the gambler's barrel) through to Andrew's recommended addition (can't remember at this mo what he suggested, but its here somewhere) and similarly have adjusted the SO2 slightly. I use champagne yeast and at the moment I'd love to add SO2 to the airlocks but they're firing off like New York fire hydrants on a hot day......

[Lewis]

And I forgot to say that from a mate of mine who's been making cider and perry for 35 years came the comment "some of the best ciders I've ever made have been full bittersweets and people have loved them. Keep your stuff clean and your fingers crossed".

On Tuesday, 13 November 2012 09:32:07 UTC, Ian wrote:

[Ian Mayer]

Thanks Matt/Lewis, those comments are very welcome indeed. I think I shall proceed with caution but also with a small sense of hope!

Matt, you asked about 'produced safely' and yes it did refer to 'not going off' - or at least I hope so! ...I don't think I'm about to embark upon the creation of a potentially fatal brew! *fingers crossed*

Cheers all - fantastic resource this site, genuinely wonderful. NB: has the group ever thought about organising an annual conference, to meet and taste the ciders as well as talk about them?! I'd certainly attend/get involved.

Ian

Sent from my iPhone

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[Cheshire Matt]

A few of us sort of end up meeting at Putley/Big Apple Blossomtime, first May Bank Holiday.  Almost got rained off this year tho.  Or Powerstock, but that's not quite as central. 

[Andrew Lea]

On 13/11/2012 10:29, Cheshire Matt wrote:
> Suspect the pH will be around 4.2 for that mix. While that's "outside"
> the usually accepted SO2 tables (ie Dr Andrew Lea, CAMRA Pomona Award
> winner 2012) I'd be inclined to dose with 100ppm and make damn sure
> everything is spotless

Just to cloak that in some science, 100 ppm total SO2 in apple juice at
pH 4.2 will give you around 0.2 ppm of 'molecular SO2'. That may not
sound like very much, but it has been shown in wines that spoilage
yeasts like Brettanomyces can be severely inhibited by values in that
range. So it will probably do some good, even though it's much lower
than the normal target value of around 1 ppm molecular SO2 which is
needed to inhibit wild Saccharomyces strains.

>
> Adding malic? Difficult - malic is malic. It doesn't have the
> additional flavours of sharp apples, so I'd be worried about the
> sourness it would bring.

I have made good cider from Dabinett juice simply with malic acid to
drop the pH. I'd rather have used acidic apples, though, but I didn't
have any that year.

>
> "Safely produced" - presume this means "without going off"? I've always
> assumed a lower pH makes the cider more resilient to film yeasts and
> taints such as mouse etc - but safe to drink whatever (waits to be
> corrected by the Good Doctor... :)

Yes, the benefit of low pH is that it makes life difficult for many
spoilage organisms especially bacteria. But we are not talking about
pathogens here. Cider is safe to drink pretty much whatever the pH. The
alcohol sees to that, by knocking out the coliforms and salmonella. Even
an undrinkably mousy and acetic cider is not regarded as a threat to
human health.

>
> As for taste merits etc - there are many SV ciders that will be at that
> pH. Dabinett, HMJ etc etc - so clearly the "add some acid" approach is
> a "err on the side of caution to avoid off-tastes" rather than "if you
> don't add acid the cider will be undrinkable".

My only caveat there is that a lot of so-called SV bittersweet ciders,
especially the more commercial ones, are quietly ameliorated with acid
to give them a better taste balance. I don't personally much enjoy low
acid ciders eg from pure Dabinett or Tremletts or HMJ. That's not just
because they are likely to spoil more easily, but because I find them
insipid in final taste profile due to inadequate acid even if they are
otherwise 'clean'. But that's a matter of personal preference. I am a
'blend' man myself and don't generally go for all this SV nonsense! It
works in wines, but not in ciders, so far as I'm concerned. I don't
think there are any wine grapes which typically have pH > 4, but plenty
of cider apples do.

Andrew

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[Martha Teal from Colorado]

My, how timely and incredibly interesting. I'm just done adding my
malic acid, according to Andrew's teachings, to this year's batches.
No hesitation. Never been one for experimenting but find I am an
excellent recipe follower! I also finally tested the pH of 4
different apples (all of which are a mystery) from our old,
"recordless" orchard. Just trying to figure what we have on our hands
and was so delighted that we have 1 single tree of sharps. The
majority are sweets. Then just a handful of bittersharps. My juice
is religiously over the 4.0 mark in pH and S.G.'s are high. I'm
becoming comfortable enough to now venture out to neighboring orchards
looking for those low pH apples as I think I'd much rather blend, than
add acid, myself in the future. Thanks for the interesting fodder.
Martha