Effect of ascorbic acid on cider (not juice)

[Jeffrey Lewis]

There are discussions in the archives (as well as Andrew's book) on how the addition of ascorbic acid will preserve the colour of fresh pressed apple juice and maintain opalescence.

What effect (if any) would it have on cider?  Would it give a lighter colour to the end product?  Would it prevent the cider from clearing up?

I'm shooting for a lighter colour in my cider and wonder if ascorbic acid would do the trick.

Thanks for any insight! 

[Andrew Lea]

Yes you can try it but it may not be as effective as you expect. It is only an antioxidant so long as it lasts, and as it oxidises enzymically it generates hydrogen peroxide which is a pro-oxidant. It works in juice only because the juice is quickly pasteurised to prevent further enzyme action by polyphenoloxidase (PPO).  Unlike SO2, ascorbic acid is not a PPO inhibitor. Nor does it have any microbial action. Once it’s used up, your juice can potentially become darker not lighter, due to the peroxide. It won’t have any effect on clarification unless you are pasteurising the juice before fermentation. Nor will it reduce any existing colour except at the very early stages of juice making. 

I wonder if you have wider fruit or process issues if you find your existing cider is too brown for you? If you want a water white cider you can trickle sulphite solution over cold milled fruit before pressing, but you also lose some characteristic apple flavour that way. 

Andrew

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

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[Jeffrey Lewis]

Interesting. 

I am setting out to produce a cider-champagne of sorts to please my wife (which is important given her tolerance of this increasingly time-consuming hobby!).  So losing some characteristic apple flavour may not be a bad thing.  I will be cryo-concentrating the juice as one does for ice cider to get the SG up to 1.09 or so prior to fermentation.

What concentration of sulphite solution would you use, and in what volumes?  My press is 60 cm square and can handle about 80 kg of pomace at a time. 

As usual, thanks Andrew!

/Jeff

[Andrew Lea]

Well its over 40 years since i last did this! All i can tell you is that we milled and pressed cold Dabinett fruit with a 5% sulphite solution trickling over it, the amount calculated to yield a theoretical 250 ppm SO2 in the juice. In practice we obtained 144 ppm due to enzymic oxidative losses as we expected. However, that figure was fine for a subsequent fermentation of single strength Dabinett for experimental analytical and sensory purposes. We were trying to understand the nature of oxidation, not to make a balanced finished product. 

In your case you will need to consider both the pH of your apples, which will likely be considerably lower than Dabinett, and also the increase of SO2 by cryoconcentration. You don’t want excessive SO2 to inhibit your yeast nor give you sensory problems. You will therefore need to do your own calculations as regards the maximum SO2 you can allow. 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Jeffrey Lewis]

Unfortunately I’m dependent on MLF to get the TA down to palatable levels after the cryoconcentration. The Lalvin 71B just isn’t effective enough. So I guess using sulphites to prevent oxidation darkening is off the table, as those concentrations seem incompatible with the viability MLF bacteria.

I guess I could cheat and chapitalize the must instead of cryoconcentrate. My wife would not care. But I would.

[Andrew Lea]

What you could do is this. Calculate the maximum total SO2 your MLF will tolerate and add double that amount to the fruit pulp as you mill it, on the basis that half of it will be lost by enzymic oxidation to sulphate. Once you have the juice, add 500 ppm of ascorbic acid. Then proceed as normal thereafter. (Ascorbic and sulphite can be synergistic because sulphite will destroy the peroxide that the ascorbate breakdown generates).

I have never tried this but it seems it might help you to achieve what you want without compromising your later MLF. Maybe worth a go on a small scale at any rate, if you are really keen to get a very light colour of cider.

Andrew

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

> On 31 Aug 2018, at 16:45, Jeffrey Lewis <jeff.k...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Unfortunately I’m dependent on MLF to get the TA down to palatable levels after the cryoconcentration. The Lalvin 71B just isn’t effective enough. So I guess using sulphites to prevent oxidation darkening is off the table, as those concentrations seem incompatible with the viability MLF bacteria.
>
> I guess I could cheat and chapitalize the must instead of cryoconcentrate. My wife would not care. But I would.
>

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[Matt Moser Miller]

Jeffrey, if I could ask: why does the cider need to be lighter in the first place?

Or, maybe, this is more useful:
Where are you, and what apples are you using? I’d been assuming not in North America, but if your TA is that high...
If you are in the US, Wickson would probably be a good way to go to lighten the color; high sugars, and the juice is really pale (though only adds to your high-acid problem). Also, are you macerating? I assume you know this, but minimizing the time between milling and pressing would leave less time for oxidation.

Matt Moser Miller

Sent from my iPhone

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le vendredi 31 août 2018 07:52:01 UTC-4, Jeffrey Lewis a écrit :

I am setting out to produce a cider-champagne of sorts to please my wife (which is important given her tolerance of this increasingly time-consuming hobby!).  So losing some characteristic apple flavour may not be a bad thing.  I will be cryo-concentrating the juice as one does for ice cider to get the SG up to 1.09 or so prior to fermentation.

It seems you are attempting to make what I have called a "winter cider" in this thread...

https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=fr#!searchin/cider-workshop/%22winter$20cider%22$20claude|sort:date/cider-workshop/vX8qTcFg4Eg/7-iN1yVQBwAJ

Have you considered freezing the apples instead of the juice? It would have the advantage of yielding a lighter color juice as there is no browning of the pulp between milling and pressing. If you press the whole apples when they are partly thawed, you can get a juice between 1.085 and 1.095 SG quite easily. Then working with sullfite/ascorbic, you could possibly manage to obtain something pale enough.
For my part however, I am (and my wife also is) perfectly happy with a nice amber color when I make my winter cider...

The question of acidity is more difficult to work out... Depends on the TA. The winter cider I made last year had a TA of 8.6 out of the press, with SG at 1.088. I do not attempt to have malo lactic and the TA hasen't changed during fermentation. At that TA, I want about 20 to 22 g/L of residual sugar in the finished cider to balance the acids and still give a somewhat just off-dry flavor.
Claude

[Jeffrey Lewis]

Andrew:

This is very interesting, I will have to try something along these lines.  Half the fun of cider-making is the experimentation!

/Jeff

[Jeffrey Lewis]

Matthew:

I am in northern Sweden.  You will have never heard of the apples that are grown up here but they are all dessert apples, some with extraordinarily high acid (Swedes like very tart apples). 

Yes, I have not only been avoiding maceration but trying to get the pressed juice to flow directly into a sealed 100 l barrel filled with CO2.  There is still unavoidable contact with the atmosphere during the press of course.

[Jeffrey Lewis]

Claude: 

Thanks for that link.  That is very similar to what I want to do, and of course we have the appropriate climate up here for that method.  I have only once tried pressing frozen apples with a rack-and -cloth press.  It was challenging.  The whole frozen apples were much "lumpier" than grated apples and my cheese plates became deformed under pressure, to the point where one broke.  I think a basket press may be more appropriate?  I did get good results pressing frozen crabapples since they are smaller and gave a more homogenous volume in the cheese.

S

[Andrew Lea]

Something else you could try is the technique of hyperoxidation sometimes used by white wine makers. You would mill the pulp and encourage it to oxidise in very shallow layers, even turning it,  so that air can get to all parts and the pulp becomes totally brown throughout.  After about a day of that you would press out the juice which should be very low in colour, because all the oxidised tannin will have been adsorbed onto the pulp. 

This is counter intuitive but it can work, and is certainly worth an experiment.  Its success will depend on apple type, location of PPO enzyme (whether cell wall bound or free) etc etc. Slide 18 here http://www.cider.org.uk/phenolics_in_cider_apples.pdf gives a diagrammatic representation of the process. 

Andrew

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le lundi 3 septembre 2018 03:14:17 UTC-4, Jeffrey Lewis a écrit :

I have only once tried pressing frozen apples with a rack-and -cloth press.  It was challenging.  The whole frozen apples were much "lumpier" than grated apples and my cheese plates became deformed under pressure, to the point where one broke.  I think a basket press may be more appropriate? 

Possibly a basket press would be easier to work, but I find I get better yield with my rack & cloth. However, I need to position the apples individually (almost) in each layer, and try to have similar sized apples in a given layer. So you need to take your time for building the cheese carefully. The other important thing is to let the apples thaw sufficiently for them to become soft enough.
I guess you'd have to make a few tests in order to get the feeling for it...
If you let the apples thaw too much however, it is no big deal to refreeze the juice a bit to get to the target SG you have.
See pics of before and after below...
Claude