SC - cider

[Jeff Gedney]

> Well now I'm confuzzled.  Every year we go to a local orchard that sell
> unpasteurized juice.  We buy at least 10 gallons of their "apple cider" for a
> party.  These plastic jugs sit out on the porch in the weather which can be
> above or below freezing but is usually quite cold.  It takes about a day or two
> to have slightly alcoholic cider that is just yummy!
> 
> how is this so?
the short answer is: 
there is cider and there is cider....
"Apple Cider" has several definitions. one is the unfiltered juice from the 
pressing of crushed apples, another is the wine made from such juice.
We are using definition two.

What you are doing is fine, and indeed very yummy, but we are talking 
making a rather strong wine out of it. 

A large part of the yummyness of the "regrigerator cider" you are making 
is the quantity of sugar. There is still a huge amount of unfermented sugar 
in your jugs. What we are doing is very similar to several recipes in or just 
outside of Period which call for aging the cider to develop the alcoholic 
content to it's maximum. 
When this is done, the sugars (which largely balanced out the tartness of 
the Malic Acid naturally present in the apple) are mostly gone, making the 
result seem _much_ more tart in taste. The malolactic ferment cuts the 
tartness by roughly 3 to 1, making the result more balanced, and allowing 
the residual sweetness in the wine, and other flavor elements, to show 
more in the wine. It does make a difference.
Cider does have a subtle flavor so the yeast you use will strongly affect 
the final flavor, and the base wine tends to be _very_ clear, which is why 
the choice of yeast is so important. Wild Cider yeast tends to be just fine.
It has been living wild in the orchard, and is well suited to apples.
If you have a strong "wild" yeast presence in your house from much bread 
making, or some such, then you might want to hedge your bets by adding 
a well started yeast culture of a more appreopriate variety.

Bread yeast is why so many of those college dorm "Jungle Juices" I 
remember so well from my days in the hallowed halls of Academia were 
so nasty and cloudy. Bread yeast should never be used to make cider.
Cider yeast may be used to make bread, IIRC, though I have never tried it,
myself. 
Certainly a large number of the bread recipes in period call for ale barm 
as the leavening agent.

brandu