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["Bruce Hansen" <brucehansen@ACD.NET>]

Jackie:

 

I think that I will have a go at writing an article for the fall issue of Pomona. I raise heirloom apples at The Dancing Mushroom Farm and Nursery in mid-Michigan. What is your deadline for copy? What is your e-mail address (I suppose I could get the address by looking at the last issue of Pomona but I am at the office ---so please forgive me for asking.

 

Thanks

 

Bruce

P.S. This list-serv is great and I thank Vic for mentioning it in the last issue

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-admin@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-admin@lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of mike tomlinson
Sent: Tuesday, July 09, 2002 7:58 AM
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Pomona time again

Jackie
Here is the second part of the cider article.  Again I hope it meets your needs.  Let me know if we need to make any changes
Mike

Part II

            Making Cider           
    The following recipe will produce a cider that is a delight to drink and may come in at an
alcohol level in the teens. Making cider was, and still is, a simple process. Today all it takes is
several months time, not a great deal of work, a trip to the pantry for sugar or honey and possibly
a trip to a wine and beer making hobby store.
    For 1 gallon of Hard Cider: Try to find unpasturized apple cider that comes in a gallon
jug. You will also need a small quantity of white granulated sugar, light brown sugar and/ or
honey.  Each will produce a slightly different flavor.  At the hobby store buy yourself an airlock
and rubber cork (about $1.50 each) that will fit the mouth of each of the jugs the apple juice came
in. Buy an envelope of Champagne yeast ( also about $1.50 each).  You’re set to go to work.
    At home open your jug(s) of cider, drink a little bit-maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 of a cup, possibly
add a teaspoon of one of the varieties of sweetener depending on the strength of alcohol you
want, and 1/8 teaspoon of the aforementioned yeast, fill the air lock with a little bit of water, fit it
to the top of the jug, write on the outside of the jug what you have just done and the date, and
find a fairly dark place to store the jug at a temperature somewhere between 45 and 65 degrees-
as cool and constant as possible.  Now the hard part- watching and waiting.  Its almost as much
fun as watching fish swimming in a fish tank.
    Note: The amount of sugar added will determine the amount of alcohol generated.  If none
is added the natural sugars contained in “sweet” cider will usually produce a hard cider in the
2-7% range.  This variation occurs because different apples have different amounts of natural
sugars with some of the older varieties reputedly generating up to 8-10% alcohol.  The addition of
more sugars will result in an apple wine that ranges in the teens in percent of alcohol.
     Initially in a day or so you will see much bubbling.  Let the jug sit for at least 2 months or
until much of the bubbling has subsided.  If you have used the clear glass bottles you can see the
action more easily.  After several weeks when things have quieted down to no more than a bubble
every 5 minutes or so,  it’s time to “rack” the cider - if you want. 
    Racking means to gently transfer the majority of the clear liquid in the jug to a new bottle
so that the “lees”- the  sediment/ crud at the bottom of the jug- doesn’t get transferred into the
new bottle.  Depending on how much of a “cider snob” you want to be you can try filter paper, or
a siphon or not do this at all.  It doesn’t really change the flavor - all it does is clear the liquid.
    And you’d better check the taste while you are doing this process.  After all you want
cider to drink - not vinegar for cooking.  And does that first taste needs to be confirmed? Better
take a second sip.  But wait - don’t sample too much for the cider will get better with several
months age.

Experimentation   
    Different sugars and/ or honey as well as different yeasts will give different flavors ranging
from that of a white wine to a beer. (Bread yeast reputedly doesn’t work well.) The alcohol
content is determined by the amount of sugars added. Adding no additional sugars but relying
only on the natural sugars in the apples will generally produce a cider in the 2-6% alcohol range
and legally is considered “hard cider”.  Adding sugars will generally produce a wine level
beverage in the teens or higher.  It can go off the vinometer scale. Some folks and recipes call for
raisins either with or instead of the sugars.
    Never satisfied with a single recipe- What cook is? - one can acquire 5 or 6.5 gal carboys
in which to make their cider or, as is done in the UK, food grade 55 gallon drums may be used.
    Plastic or glass?  At this stage of your hobby it probably doesn’t really matter. If you have
or can scrounge any glass gallon wine bottles you can use these.  There is some feeling in the craft
that plastic is not as good as glass but some of the finest ciders tasted in the UK were made in
plastic drums.
    The colonists often kept their cider barrels out in the barn where in the dead of winter
their hard cider would freeze resulting in the elimination of water from the beverage and
generating Apple Jack (>20% alcohol). 
    Enjoy and consider that the average family in colonial times put up between 10 and 50
barrels of cider each winter. And a barrel was between 30 and 50 gallons.  Then consider that the
folks who wrote our Constitution and established our country lived and drank cider in that time.
Some simple math shows that if we assume 30 barrels for a family of 8 for the entire year meant
that everyone- adults and kids alike- was drinking 1/3 to 1/2 gal of the hard stuff each day. Others
have been more conservative and their documents indicate that over a barrel of cider per capita
was drunk in Mass. in 1767. Either way cider drinking led/leads to creative thinking.

Historic Middle Atlantic Cider Apple Varieties
    Based upon the foregoing information it is reasonable to assume that the apples grown in
the US before the late1800’s were primarily grown for cider production. For those readers
interested in growing and producing authentic American cider the following varieties should be
considered and used. The author is currently collecting and growing these and other cider apples
varieties in Chester County, (Southeastern) PA.

    John Bartram’s correspondence (1758-1760) with Peter Collinson  in England  indicates
that Bartram sent his friend many grafts/scions of the Newtown Pippin variety. This variety was in
such demand in London that Franklin used it to open export trade arrangements with
contemporaries in England.

    “The Accounts of a Weaver, Jos. Eldridge 1786-1804” of East Goshen, Chester Co., PA,
states in his original ledger dated 1801, that he had purchased from Jacob Sauaines on 12/10/1801
the following apple varieties for his home orchard:
    5 Rambos
    10 Red Romaines
    5 English Red Streaks
    5 Flat Pippins
    5 Pennocks
    25 House Apples and
    3 unknowns

    Warren Manhart in the Sept/Oct 1998 Organic Gardening article on “Choice Apples for
Organic Gardens” said of the Roxbury Russet that it was “probably the oldest noteworthy apple
in America- the mother tree was used for grafting back in 1649”.

    Traditional Gardening in its article Historic (American) Apples for the Home Orchard
which appears at the web site <http://www.traditionalgardening.com/Fall96/appbody.htm>
has in its list the following varieties that predate 1800:
    Fall Pippin 1700’s,
    Sops of Wine 1200,
    Spitzenburg 1700.

    The first and third of these appear in the advertisement of the Burlington Nursery in
Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser dated 10/08/1813 and Sops of Wine was mentioned in
Daniel Gregg’s 1809 document found in the Chester County Historical Societies library.

    Hopewell Furnace National Park’s material regarding their apple collection lists the
York variety as originating in or around that town in the late 1700’s.  They also list the Turley
Winesap as being one of the oldest varieties in America appearing in NJ before the 1800’s.

    The 6/18/1741 Pennsylvania Gazette had an ad for the sale by Edward Shippen of land
and an orchard which includes named varieties:
    Newtown Pippin,
    Vandevere, &
    House Apple.

    Lewis Evan’s 1753 record at Chester County Historical  Society lists:
    Sptizenberg,
    Vandevere,
    Golden Pippin,
    House Apple and
    Golden Russet. 

    And according to Carlson’s North American Apples: Varieties, Rootstocks, Outlook 1970
between 1750 -1850 the following varieties were commercially grown:
    Jonathan,
    Rome Beauty,
    Grimes Golden,
    Maidens Blush,
    Thompkins Co. King,
    Northern Spy,
    Macintosh and
     York Imperial.

    If the demand for alcoholic cider grows here in the US there will be a demand for many of
these varieties which few in the public have ever hear of or tasted.


Jacquelyn Kuehn wrote:

3D28B16A.EE1F9B64@mail.yourinter.net" type="cite">Thanks so much, Mike; the format you used is just fine.  And I will welcome future installments for future Pomonas!

I really appreciate it.  I also like the title of your upcoming book!

Sincerely,

Jackie Kuehn

mike tomlinson wrote:

Jackie
This is my first submission to Pomona so I am not sure of the format.  I'm an heirloom apple collector and cider maker in SE PA with over 150 varieties of pre 1900 mid atlantic apple varieties ranging from 1.5 to 6 years in the ground.
Here's a piece on cider.  Its the first of a several part piece so if you want more for later editions I can send you those also.  I'm putting together a book on heirlooms and other things apple which has the working title of "A bushel of apples". thanks for the consideration.
Mike Tomlinson

***************
Cider
    Much of what I have learned about cider and its production and the enjoyment of drinking
cider has come from members of NAFEX; the books by Annie Proulx and Ben Watson; Dick
Dunn’s Cider Digest at cider@talisman.com ; the folks at Cornell University both in Ithaca and
Geneva; from visiting and drinking with English cider makers; and from the experimentation that
one must do when learning about this almost forgotten (in the USA) beverage. Possibly it is
prophetic that this article is being written on July 4th.

Confusion
    Cider / hard cider / scrumpy / apple wine all are the same and all are different.  This
confusion is, in part, courtesy of our governmental bureaucracy, the temperance movement of the
late 19 and early 20th centuries, the beer and (grape) wine industries and other forces. This short
article will not be able to clear the confusion and in fact may not even be able to clear the cider
but this doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the stimulation of an interest in making and
drinking cider.

A Brief History of Hard Cider and Apples
    First a definition: cider is the fermented juice of crushed apples.
    When and where man discovered apples is not known. Whether this event predates the
Garden of Eden is not clear and whether or not it was even an apple that Eve picked in the
Garden is in question.  It seems that this fruit was not know in the Middle East at the time the
Book of Genesis was written and only at a later time did writers come to call it an apple.  It is
reported that no where in the Bible is an apple mentioned. But at some point man did observed
the impact of overripe fruit on bees and other insects and it did not take long for him to observe in
himself that overripe fruit had a good taste and warmed the heart and body.  Hence the beginning
of alcoholic fruit juices and cider.
    Scientists and other researchers now believe that the apple originated in the early days of
history in the mountains near the Baltic Sea and spread along various trade routes. Several
thousand years ago when the Romans arrived in England and France they found that the residents
were happily consuming cider, a practice continuing to this day in those countries. Other
beverages that we drink today - coffee, tea and chocolate - only came to Europe relatively late in
the middle ages well after cider was established and, as imports, were far beyond the means of the
average person. For whatever public health reasoning, there was wide spread suspicion and
aversion to water, either for drinking or bathing. Physicians of the middle ages advised against
consumption of raw fruit.  All these factors plus its low cost of production led to the creation and
consumption of fermented cider.

American Apple History
    Colonists brought to our shores their thirst for cider and their apple seeds and scions and
planted many small family orchards. Apples were not native to our country with only one form of
crab apple having been identified by our early botanists. Seeds and scions/cuttings were easier to
transport than trees and had a better survival rate when crossing the ocean on board ships.  And
as apples do not reproduce true to seed, cuttings became more desirable to transport to these
shores in the mid 1700’s and early 1800’s as efforts were made to reproduce desired European
varieties.  S. W. Fletcher in A History of Fruit Growing on Pennsylvania quotes a European
visitor who told of the building of a colonial home in 1685 where he said, “They first fix upon the
spot where they intend to build the house, and before they begin it, get ready a field for an
orchard, planting it immediately with apples chiefly, and some pears, cherries and peaches.”
Apples and cider were so important to the beginning of our country that Benjamin Franklin (who
carried a crab tree walking stick) and others,  including John Bartram, established the American
Philosophical Society in 1743 whose charter and mission called for members to “..communicate to
each other, their observations, experiments, etc....” regarding  “Improvements of vegetable
juices, as Cyders, Wines, Etc. .”  And Fletcher again reports that John Taylor of Virginia stated, “
Good cider would be a national saving of wealth, by expelling foreign liquors; and of life, by
expelling the use of ardent spirits.  Apples are the only species of orchards at a distance from
cities capable of producing sufficient profit and comfort to become a considerable object to a
farmer.  The apple will furnish some food for hogs, a luxury for his family in winter, and a
healthy liquor for himself and his laborers all the year.”  In 1762 Thomas Chapman, a
wine-cooper published the Cyder - Maker’s Instructor, Sweet-Maker’s Assistant, And
Victualler’s and Housekeeper’s Director in Three Parts in which the first part, “Directs the
Grower to make his Cyder in the Manner foreign Wines are made; to preserve its Body and
Flavour; to lay on a Colour, and to cure all its Disorders, whether bad flavour’d, pick’d, oily, or
ropy.”  His recipe, in part, called for the adding of yeast to a hogshead of cider, mixing in some
jalap (“an excellent Purger of serous and watry Humours” according to the History of Druggs
by Monfieur Pomet, published in 1709) and letting it ferment for about 2 weeks, cleaning the
bunghole every morning with your finger. This recipe, with the addition of raisins and sugar,
became known in the 1800’s as New England hard cider.
    In the first 200 years of our country apples orchards sprang up everywhere and varieties
blossomed. Where and when cider, and the fermentation of it, began as indicated above, is lost in
the fog of folk history but our colonists knew a good thing and thought no ill of cider with a kick.
Cider was almost a fool proof product. If the cider fermented one way it was good to drink; if it
went to vinegar it was used for cooking and other household purposes. It was transportable and
in barrel form, was for a time, a standard of barter and exchange or an asset to be left in a will.  In
some parts of the colonies laws regarding the establishment of claims to land required the planting
of orchards.  Beginning in Northwestern Pennsylvania, John Chapman (1774-1845), who was
known as Johnny Appleseed,  planted apple nurseries and had as his principal source of income
the sale of seedling stock to settlers. He would gather seed from  cider mills, travel to and beyond
the established frontier (from Pennsylvania through Ohio and further west) and plant in the wilds a
nursery of seedlings encircled with a brush fence with the product being ready for sale in 3-5 years
when civilization caught up. It may be heretical today in light of the Johnny Appleseed myth that
has sprung up but consider, in fact, that Chapman was bringing to the frontier the means of
establishing rights to property and a way to make alcohol and not a dessert fruit.
    A search of the Pennsylvania Gazette for the period 1766-83 for the word “apple”
produced many occurrences of the word (564) and included numerous listings of properties within
a days travel of Philadelphia that were for lease or sale and  included orchards of from 50 to over
1000 trees. (The author is sure that a similar search of the press from the same time period in
Boston, New York and Richmond would generate similar results.) As ours was primarily an
agrarian society almost everyone had a small orchard in back of their home from which they made
their own cider. The aforementioned search revealed only a few orchards where specific varieties
of apples were mentioned. However by 1813 Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser on Oct. 8th
ran an ad for the Burlington (NJ) Nursery that listed some 47 different American table apples,10
English table apples, 9 French Table apples, 17 American cider apples,  and 10 English cider
apples  And in 1828 Bartram’s Botanic Garden Periodical Catalogue had available over 80
different apple varieties at $.25 each or $18.75 per 100.
    What about beer? According to Waverly Root & Richard de Rochemont in their book
Eating in America, (Wm. Morrow, NY 1976) apples were also made into a beer. An old recipe
went as follows: “Peel your apples and dry the peelings in the sun or by the stove or hearth.  Put
them in a crock and add enough boiling water to cover them.  Cover the crock and let it sit one
or two days until all the flavor comes out of the peelings.  You may add some sugar if you want.”
    It was only in the mid 1800’s when shipping agricultural goods by rail became the norm
that apples changed from being primarily a beverage product to being mainly cooked or eaten out
of hand. The inability of certain varieties to stand up to the rigors of shipment without bruising or
rotting led to the demise of many familiar varieties of fruit. Truck transportation in the early
twentieth century compounded this trend.
    Initially even the 18th century temperance movement thought well of cider and said in Dr.
Benjamin Rush’s publication Moral and Physical Thermometer “that consumed in moderate
quantities and only at meal times it brought about ‘ Cheerfulnefs, Strength and Nourfifment.’ ”
But times change and movements evolve and in the late 1800’s as the production of beers came
into being in the US and the temperance movement gained more power and tightened its grip on
our drinking habits farmers stopped making cider, tore out their orchards and replaced them with
other crops. In many cases these crops were grains that were used for making beer which to many
seemed less harmful. In combination with the invention of the bottle cap in the late 1800’s, cider
almost disappeared from our culture.
 

For more on the history of hard cider see:
    the aforementioned authors and:
    Apples: History, Folklore, Horticulture, and Gastronomy: Peter Wynne 1975
    Food & Feast in Tudor England; Allison Sim, 1997, Sutton Publishing
    The Englishman’s Food; Jonathan Cope, 1957
    < www.woodchuck.com/history >
    < www.lallemand.com/danstar-lalvin/InFerment/Cider.html >
 
 
 
 

Jacquelyn Kuehn wrote:

3D2414F8.6DA78DED@mail.yourinter.net" type="cite">

Dear NAFEXers,

Just a reminder, in the middle of your busy summer season, that I am in need of articles for the
fall Pomona.  An update on your orchard, something new you have tried--either a new variety or a
new technique, whether it worked or not, your favorite recipes, etc.  Send them to me by email
or regular mail; we'll all be very grateful for your information.

Thanks so much.


Jackie Kuehn

---
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