"oak"iness

[will rollason]

Used apples from Langford , just over the road from where Thatchers is
made, lovely golden juice nice and high in sugars but had a proper
"tannin" taste as well. During the ferment and still now i noticed a
pleasant "oaky" aroma unlike any juice i have come across.
I cant find "oak" in Andrews flavour types. Tastes ok actually. Anyone
come across this before?

[Andrew Lea]

Apple varieties, pH, type of yeast, use of SO2??

I must admit whenever I have had woody (pencil shavings) aromas develop
in ciders they have been associated with mould growth in failed keeves
and have not been nice. They do not age out and I have thrown them away.
I have tasted ciders which have been deliberately aged in (newish) oak
and I dislike them, even when made by respected cidermakers. My personal
opinion is that woody flavours (oak lactone) do not sit well with ciders
- keep them for Rioja!

Perhaps you are picking up the fabled 'old horse' (which to me is a
great deal more desirable than anything woody)?

Just my personal opinion of course!

Andrew

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

[will rollason]

Apples unknown but from Upper Langford which is about a mile from
Sandford where Thatchers is based. The couple we got the apples from
told us that Thatchers used to send a tractor down in years past to
take the apples for them, ph 3.6, og 1050, no yeast or S02 used in
process.
Its a pleasant smell but it is a bit weird for a cider! " old
Horse????" care to elaborate??

[Andrew Lea]

On 09/02/2012 21:12, will rollason wrote:
> Apples unknown but from Upper Langford which is about a mile from
> Sandford where Thatchers is based. The couple we got the apples from
> told us that Thatchers used to send a tractor down in years past to
> take the apples for them, ph 3.6, og 1050, no yeast or S02 used in
> process.

Well with a wild fermentation and no SO2 you will have all manner of
weird organisms in there! No knowing what they will get up to!

> Its a pleasant smell but it is a bit weird for a cider! " old
> Horse????" care to elaborate??

This from a posting of mine here in 2009:

"You are probably picking up the leathery note which goes in English by
the name of "old horse" and in French as "sous bois". It is due to the
generation of 'spicy' flavours eg ethyl phenol, ethyl catechol and
guaiacol by the action of malo-lactic bacteria on the non-volatile
polyphenols (tannins); hence it is characteristic of bittersweet ciders
and so sometimes known also as the "bittersweet aroma".

At higher levels in wines, when generated by the spoilage yeast
Brettanomyces, it is regarded as a defect, but at low levels in ciders
as a positive quality factor. "