Quality of tannin with apple age.

[Dougal]

A while ago we discussed the notion that 'tannin' reduced in young apples following cell division.

I have been pondering: is there any literature or anecdotal evidence about the quality of tannin changing with the age of an apple?  I am meaning quality as in the fineness of tannin and I am talking pre-milling (and maceration).

[Dick Dunn]

On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 07:22:11PM -0700, Dougal wrote:
...

> I have been pondering: is there any literature or anecdotal evidence about
> the quality of tannin changing with the age of an apple? I am meaning

> quality as in the fineness of tannin...

What do you mean by "fineness"? Tannins cover a lot of ground, but overall
various organic molecules. As we tend to narrow it down with cider, it's a
particular set of related molecules of differing lengths...so are you
thinking "fine" would be more toward the longer (astringent) molecules?
Sorry, just don't get the question! My stumbling blocks are "quality" and
"fineness".

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

[greg l.]

Fineness of tannins is a term from wine. Winemakers will discuss tannins for hours on end, coarse or fine, bitter or smooth. The idea with viticulture is to pick the red grapes when the tannins have ripened to just the right stage, but it is very subjective and impossible to measure. I think you would find the same thing with apples.

Greg

[Dougal]

Yes, as you say, Greg; I am referring to the quality of cider tannins from a mouthfeel point of view.  That said, if anyone has any insights as to whether 'tannins' develop (from a sensory point of view) with the age of an apple, I would be interested.

On Friday, July 25, 2014 4:50:23 PM UTC+12, greg l. wrote:

Fineness of tannins is a term from wine. Winemakers will discuss tannins for hours on end, coarse or fine, bitter or smooth. 

 

What do you mean by "fineness"?  

[Ray Blockley]

The only thing I can add to this is that from personal experience cider apples damaged by things such as heavy hail storms seem to have increased levels of tannin...? 

Ray

--
--
Visit our website: http://www.ciderworkshop.com
 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "Cider Workshop" Google Group.
By joining and posting to the Cider Workshop, you have agreed to abide by our rules, and principles. Please see http://www.ciderworkshop.com/resources_principles.html
 
To post to this group, send email to cider-w...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cider-worksho...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit http://groups.google.com/group/cider-workshop?hl=en

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cider Workshop" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cider-worksho...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Andrew Lea]

Professionals in the UK and French cider industries do recognise hard and soft tannins (aka bitter and astringent). As Dick says, the underlying cause of this is differing procyanidin chain length. This has been substantiated for ciders and wines by several different research groups over the last 40 years or so. 

However, I don't know anyone in the cider business who recognises a distinction between fine and coarse tannins as some people do in red wine.

There is a good article on the sensory impact of red wine tannins here  http://www.wineanorak.com/tannins.htm

But a good many things about tannin origin and conversion in red grapes and wine don't apply to apples and cider, which have a much simpler tannin chemistry. 

Andrew

Sent from my iPhone

--

[Dougal]

I'm not sure I agree, Andrew.  Yes, tannins in cider range from bitter to astringent, but also from green to stalky to powdery, and from gripping to fine.  It is another lot of dimensions I look for in ciders and one we assess our ciders on.

 

My question about aging tannins in the apple is to help with decision-making.  Acidity rounds and takes on new flavours as the apple ages.  For example, Ballarat provides good acidity.  Picked ripe, is yields a strong malic hit.  Picked late, it takes on grapefruit notes, which parallel what the acid does in the bottle.  Does tannin develop in quality as the apple ages? Sugar and flavour aside, is there an optimum time to pick and mill when tannin quantity and quality are maximised?

[Dick Dunn]

Dougal - I'm perplexed (and maybe vexed also, but never mind that): The
points Andrew makes about cider tannins have been established for a long
time...and I gather you don't disagree with the short/long procyanidin
bitter-to-astringent variation. But is there any basis for the other
distinctions you suggest?

OK, I've scarcely been tasting good cider for twenty years, which puts me
behind various folks on this group who grew up with it. And of course I'm
an American, so by definition I'm a philistine. Still, and all, your note
is absolutely the first time I've heard cider tannins described as any of
"green", "stalky", or "powdery". I've heard of green/vegetal tastes in
cider, but those have no connection to tannins. I can't imagine what
"powdery" would mean. And none of these, nor anything close save an analogy
of "vegetal" to the first two, are in the argot of our cider evaluation or
judging at all, let alone wrt tannins.

"Gripping to fine" suggests a variation on the perception of the
procyanidin chain length, and perhaps the proportions. I can well imagine
a (true) Tremlett's Bitter being described as "gripping".

Could we have some references to literature?

...

[Dougal]

Dear Dick

 

Maybe I have been hanging around with winemakers too long!

 

I had a five minute google and these might help (though not authoritative):

 

http://rebelwinecollective.com/2014/04/17/the-scoop-on-tannins-and-how-to-describe-them/

 

https://www.erobertparker.com/info/glossary.asp

 

Sorry, I cannot give the science behind the sensory side of things beyond what I have gleaned from Andrew Lea.  I do not know if this is relevant:

 

"There are different types of tannins.  Some are rough, coarse, scabrous and unpleasant, while others - the noble tannins - are soft, fine grained, and powdery.  The rough edges of tannins become polished as wine matures, but this takes time; if the tannins are too uneven and scabrous at their inception, time will not be sufficient to convert them to the suppler variety." (Fischer, J.R., The Evaluation of Wine: A Comprehensive Guide to the Art of Wine Tasting, p.74).

 

Okay, so all the above is about grape wine and, as Andrew says, apples and cider have a much simpler tannin chemistry.  Nevertheless, some ciders have pronounced 'grippy' tannins, whilst others are fine or powdery.  I have found that cider made from local Red Delicious have a definite 'stalkiness' - a green/woody taste like that when chewing on an apple stalk.  It can be tidied up with certain fining agents but is better avoided to begin with.  Cider from NZ Rose often has powdery (i.e. not hard) tannins but they have a bitterness to them.  Maybe I am confusing taste profiles with textural perceptions but the two often seem to go hand in hand.

 

 

[Andrew Lea]

On 25/07/2014 22:50, Dougal wrote:
> I'm not sure I agree, Andrew. Yes, tannins in cider range from
> bitter to astringent, but also from green to stalky to powdery, and
> from gripping to fine. It is another lot of dimensions I look for in
> ciders and one we assess our ciders on. My question about aging
> tannins in the apple is to help with decision-making. Acidity rounds
> and takes on new flavours as the apple ages. For example, Ballarat
> provides good acidity. Picked ripe, is yields a strong malic hit.
> Picked late, it takes on grapefruit notes, which parallel what the
> acid does in the bottle. Does tannin develop in quality as the apple
> ages?

All I can say is that you must be a very sensitive lot out there in the
Antipodes. I don't recognise any of the things you talk about and I'd be
surprised if any UK cidermaker did. How can malic acid
develop grapefruit notes for instance? That makes no sense in
biochemical terms, and I don't ever recall a cider with grapefruit-like
aroma in this country. Except those that are added for the fruit cider /
alcopop type of drink, of course.

The apples you talk about (Ballarat, Red Delicious and NZ Rose) are very
low in tannin AFAIK compared to cider apples or to red wine grapes so it
seems odd to me to make so much of their tannin character when they
simply don't have any.

> cider made from local Red Delicious have a definite 'stalkiness' - a
> green/woody taste like that when chewing on an apple stalk.

Green stalkiness is most likely ascribed to unsaturated aldehydes which
are the product of lipoxygenase oxidation of fatty acids when the cells
are disrupted. Nothing to do with tannins.

> Maybe I am confusing
>> taste profiles with textural perceptions but the two often seem to go
>> hand in hand.

I honestly do think you are picking up normal flavour notes perceived by
the retronasal route and ascribing them to tannins (and acids).

> Sugar and flavour aside, is there an optimum time to pick and
>> mill when tannin quantity and quality are maximised?

Nobody here in the UK thinks a jot about that AFAIK. Tannin 'quality' is
very secondary to other more important considerations like overall
off-tree maturation for sugar and ester development at the climacteric.
Here we would anticipate all the best cider to be made not from
fresh-picked fruit but from fruit which has had some maturation lying on
the ground or in barn store.

The tannin does not sensibly change over that period as far as I am
aware. There are certainly differences in procyanidin amount and chain
length but they are varietally determined and are characteristic of the
apple itself. So Tremlett's Bitter is always harder and more bitter than
Dabinett for instance, which is softer and astringent. That's one reason
that good cidermakers blend their fruit, to balance the tannins amongst
many other things.

I think we are not just on opposite sides of the world but we are also
looking at cider in totally different ways ;-)

Andrew

--
near Oxford, UK
Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Dougal]

Thanks, Andrew.  Yet more to chalk up to cider education.

 

 

[greg l.]

I can see where Dougal is coming from, I think it is good to have more discussion and sensory analysis of different aspects of cider such as tannins. It certainly doesn't hurt in the wine world. I see more difference in the fruit than the final cider, my Tremlett's trees yielded their first fruit last season, biting into the fruit was certainly a tannic experience. The tannin from my crabs is more bitter than cider fruit, so it gives a different flavour profile compared to English style cider, a bit more "cough syrup" though still very pleasant.

In terms of timing the harvest, I think most people want as much maturation time for the fruit as possible before it starts to deteriorate, tannin ripeness doesn't really come into it.

Greg