Question about 'dosage'?

[Andrew Lea]

This is a question directed at those few people who make sparkling cider
by the 'champagne' method i.e. by in-bottle fermentation and disgorging
of the yeast after 'remuage'.

When this is done for grape wines, it is often the practice to add a
little more sugar syrup to top up the volume lost when disgorging and
also for sweetening purposes. This is known as the 'dosage' (from
French). The added sugar doesn't re-ferment because (a) there are very
few viable yeast cells left and (b) the combination of high alcohol and
6 bar CO2 pressure inhibits further yeast growth.

However, I'm not clear if a 'dosage' is added when doing this for cider.
I had always been under the impression that it wasn't because the lower
alcohol concentration made it untrustworthy - in other words,
re-fermentation might occur.

Can anyone who makes this style of cider tell me what their experience
is, and indeed what is general practice? Is a sugar syrup 'dosage' used
or not?

Andrew

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

[nfcider]

Andrew,
I was always worked from advice given to me by James Lane at Gospel Green,he always made up a dosage syrup by dissolving cane icing sugar in the first few bottles of disgorged cider ,the ratio was 1 kg to 1litre of cider,this was then used as a base syrup which he added with a dosing gun bought for that purpose,(it's one of the sheep worming guns which you can adjust the dose on),from memory he added 1.5 units and then topped up with more cider to the correct bottle level.
Possibly you recall the post about added sugar leaving a residue in the bottle when held up to the light James showed me this on some freshly disgorged cider telling me it generally takes 3/4weeks to fully dissolve in the bottle.
Barry

[Andrew Lea]

Thanks Barry,

I should have checked the archives first myself shouldn't I? I can see
we discussed this about 4 years ago now ;-)

Andrew

[Jason Mitchell (Ashridge Cider)]

Hi Andrew.
During the secondary fermentation the "aggressive" champagne yeast will convert all the sugars to Co2 and alcohol leaving a (very) dry cider.
Most people would find this dryness too much for their palate and hence the use of a dosage to take the edge off the tart/dryness.
Without any dosage the French use a term Extra-Brut. This means no dosage at all. They will all have their own special recipe for this. Some use a spot of brandy, some use grape juice, or combinations of, etc.
It is quite true, that if you do not disgorge cleanly, and leave some yeast behind, the pesky wee things can start all over again, and you end up with a "tertiary" fermentation and all the hassle that comes from that, i.e. sediment in the bottle, that is supposed to be crystal clear.
It is definitely the case that the more sugar you add, the more likely you are to have the problem.
We use about 15 ml of a saturated soln of sugar per 75cl bottle to give a "Brut" finish.
In my experience, the clarity of the cider at disgorging time is important, as this will leave very little potential yeast cells to get going again.
I think in wine circles, the degree of clarity is generally higher than in ciders. With ciders, there is more stuff to clear, and that is why I find hand riddling, over a longer period than the giro-pallets normally are set up for, does a better job. They do it too quickly.

Hope this helps.
Cheers, Jason

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[Andrew Lea]

On 26/10/2014 00:26, Jason Mitchell (Ashridge Cider) wrote:
>
> It is quite true, that if you do not
> disgorge cleanly, and leave some yeast behind, the pesky wee things
> can start all over again, and you end up with a "tertiary"
> fermentation and all the hassle that comes from that, i.e. sediment
> in the bottle, that is supposed to be crystal clear.

Thank you Jason, that is what I had heard. I wonder now if that is why
we've had some rather lively and cloudy ciders submitted to the Bath and
West 'Bottle Fermented' class sometimes? Yours excepted, of course!!

I wonder have you tried any of the encapsulated yeasts which are
supposed to get around this problem? Also I believe some people add
alginate or bentonite to get a cleaner disgorgement?

> In my experience, the
> clarity of the cider at disgorging time is important, as this will
> leave very little potential yeast cells to get going again. I think
> in wine circles, the degree of clarity is generally higher than in
> ciders. With ciders, there is more stuff to clear, and that is why I
> find hand riddling, over a longer period than the giro-pallets
> normally are set up for, does a better job. They do it too quickly.

Very interesting observations, thank you.

Just to explain, it's not that I intend to do any of this myself! Simply
that I was explaining the (theoretical) details to somebody else
recently and I realised that I didn't have 'chapter and verse' on
current practice. Now I do!

[JezH]

I must confess my riddling and disgorging are still a little rough and ready - though I do also use a dosage to top up. I suspect that this is exactly what has been happening... Not a clean enough job leading to a touch of additional fermentation of the dosage.

I tend to find that although the lees come out just fine it leaves a trail on the inside lip that finds its way back in. Could this be not chilling sufficiently (I use ice/salt).

All the best

Jez

Sent from my iPhone

[Jason Mitchell (Ashridge Cider)]

You definitely need to use a fining agent. Bentonite is as good as any.
I did try a fancy new concoction from the French Champagne Institute, and it was rubbish.
Ended up having to disgorge twice, and surprisingly didn't loose significant pressure.
Talking of pressure, and this is now a new topic....
Can anyone point me towards a good chart for working out the change in bar pressure against temperature.
This is for a range of sparkling soft drinks we make like apple juice, lemonade, elderflower.
Recently had a carbonator/filler serviced, and the settings were changed such that we had a horrible amount of breakages during the pasteurising process.
What I want to know is if we test the in-bottle pressure at 15 degrees C and it is 1.5 bar, what will it be at 70 degrees C?
The bottles we use are rated to cope with 4.5 bar, so working backwards, we can only carbonate at a level which will generate 4.5 bar or less, at 70 degrees C.
In anticipation!

Jason

[Claude Jolicoeur]

jason wrote:

What I want to know is if we test the in-bottle pressure at 15 degrees C and it is 1.5 bar, what will it be at 70 degrees C?
The bottles we use are rated to cope with 4.5 bar, so working backwards, we can only carbonate at a level which will generate 4.5 bar or less, at 70 degrees C.

Well, this is a nice application for Henry's Law.

You will find relevant equations in Wikipedia, or applied for cider in The New Cider Maker's Handbook...
Claude

[Andrew Lea]

On 26/10/2014 11:15, Jason Mitchell (Ashridge Cider) wrote:
>
> What I want to know is if we test the in-bottle pressure at 15 degrees C and it is 1.5 bar, what will it be at 70 degrees C?
> The bottles we use are rated to cope with 4.5 bar, so working backwards, we can only carbonate at a level which will generate 4.5 bar or less, at 70 degrees C.

This is my Henry's Law spreadsheet
http://www.cider.org.uk/carbonation_table.xls

If you enter 2.5 vol in the box at the bottom of the page you see that
1.5 bar at 15C equates to 8.44 bar at 70C. 2.5 vol carbonation is
pretty much an industry standard, in fact on the low side if anything.

However, although your bottles are presumably rated for 4.5 bar
continuous use, it is probable that they will withstand higher pressures
for short periods, especially if they are not subject to external shocks
and bumps while so pressurised. In practice, this must be the case or no
carbonated drinks could be batch pasteurised in real life. I would
double check the situation with your bottle supplier.

[Lewis Scott]

An observation and a question: I was at Vigo a year or so ago throwing away what little remains of my disposable income on sundries and machine repairs when I came across a shed in which the owner (I think) was demonstrating this technique to a potential customer. He was happy for me to stand and watch and he was unquestionably dosing with the sheep thing and had clearly become very practised. Not only was he generous with his time he was extremely tolerant. When I upturned a yet to be disgorged botlle, instead of giving me the tooth-loosener I probably deserved, he merely observed, in a strangled kind of way, that he'd had it inverted for 2 years and it was probably best if I didn't look at any more.....since then I've done a couple of hundred bottles of Perry and Cider which are now on their sides. The thing I forgot to ask him was given that the disgorge, even in the hands of a pro, looks like a reasonably uncontrolled process, how do you know you're putting back the right volume of "stuff" to arrive back at 750 ml? I didn't observe any measuring going on at the time. Jason mentions Bentonite - presumably that goes in at the laying down stage, or can it be added at the disgorge? (I know it probably can't but if you don't ask..)

[Jason Mitchell (Ashridge Cider)]

Hi Scott. After disgorging we use a gravity filler to top up any bottles that need it to 75cl. 

The bottle filler just has a couple of bottles of the sparkling cider in it. 

If you manage to lose a very small amount if cider at disgorging, and then after the addition of your dosage your level is higher than 75cl you can be very nifty and just use a stainless steel rod with a stop on it to displace fluid that is over the 75cl volume. 

You just dip it into the bottle until the cross bar stops it going any further and hey presto  if you have done your measurements right when you withdraw the rod, the level will be correct. Simple. 

An interesting historical fact about the reason for the use of foils on champagne style bottles is that they were introduced to cover up badly (incorrect level) disgorged bottles!

Well before trading standards!

The bentonite needs to be added at the stage when you lay down the bottles at the start of the secondary fermentation.

Jason 

[Aaron Schwartz]

Jason,

When do you add the bentonite? Do you add it before bottling for the secondary fermentation?

Thanks,

Aaron

[Lewis Scott]

That's really helpful Jason. I'll give it a try. Lewis

On Friday, October 24, 2014 1:40:48 PM UTC+1, Andrew Lea wrote:

[Lewis Scott]

 Thanks Jason, that's really helpful. Come the time I'll give it a go. Lewis