Sorbitol: The Hidden Sweetener

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Sorbitol: The Hidden Sweetener I don’t have access to perry pears and am generally limited to dessert pears or cooking pears. I have tried a number of varieties including Asian pears. However, one of my favorites to use is Red Bartlett. I can purchase them locally from a large organic orchard. Many of the dessert … Continue reading Sorbitol: The Hidden Sweetener

Alternative Cider Yeast: Hanseniaspora uvarum Overview

Alternative Cider Yeast: Hanseniaspora uvarum

This is the second of the non-Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast that I plan to explore next season. In my first post on alternative yeast for hard cider, I covered Lachancea thermotolerans. A yeast that was misclassified for over 70 years before being identified through gene sequencing in 2003. This post is about Hanseniaspora uvarum, which is … Continue reading Alternative Cider Yeast: Hanseniaspora uvarum Overview

Alternative Cider Yeast: Lachancea thermotolerans Overview

Alternative Cider Yeast: Lachancea thermotolerans Overview

As I noted in my Mâlus Trivium post about potential alternative yeast for hard cider, there are several I plan to trial for the next season so I thought I would highlight each. One of those is Lachancea thermotolerans. The Lanchancea genus is a relatively newcomer from a classification perspective. In 2003, a new multi-gene … Continue reading Alternative Cider Yeast: Lachancea thermotolerans Overview

Thai Chicken Soup and Cider

Thai Chicken Soup with Rice Noodles

Nothing does a better job of showcasing hard cider than food. My wife and I are hopeful that we can soon restart our cider parties. In the meantime, we continue to explore different food and cider pairings. One of my recent favorites was a spicy Thai chicken soup with rice noodles that my wife made. … Continue reading Thai Chicken Soup and Cider

Experiments in Sweetness: Sweet Hard Cider

Residual Sweetness: Hard Cider’s Elusive Objective

Being able to create a hard cider with some residual sweetness is often referred to as the holy grail of cider. The reason for this is because that sweetness can be used to balance the high acids often found in dessert apples and the tannins found in cider apples. This cider season I set about … Continue reading Experiments in Sweetness: Sweet Hard Cider

Stop Killing Your Juice: The Argument Against Campden

Stop Killing Your Juice: The argument against Campden

Usually, my answer to a question about hard cider is “it depends”. I generally try not to be definitive because there are simply so many unknown factors that being definitive is almost always wrong. However, for this article, I’m going to argue a definitive. The definitive is that you should not use Campden tables in … Continue reading Stop Killing Your Juice: The Argument Against Campden

Sensory Impact of Various Compounds in Hard Cider

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Sensory Impact of Compounds in Hard Cider Have you ever wondered how the level of certain compounds can impact the sensory perception of others? Okay, we all know I’m an apple geek so stick with me. Hard cider is generally a balance of sweet, sour, astringency, and bitterness. You can add aroma and we can … Continue reading Sensory Impact of Various Compounds in Hard Cider

Nachos & Hard Cider: Burnt Ends

Burnt Ends BBQ Nachos

WARNING - THIS POST WILL MAKE YOU HUNGRY! We don’t eat a lot of red meat but there are a few holidays where it’s the center piece of the meal. Christmas dinner is one of those and it is built around me cooking a bone-in prime rib. How is this related whatsoever to nachos and … Continue reading Nachos & Hard Cider: Burnt Ends

Yeast Impact on Sugar and Acids

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Yeast impact on residual sugar and acid in cider. While the research by M. Lorenzini and associates was done to assess the impact of yeast on volatile compounds in hard cider(1), I found it interesting for another reason. As part of the study, they noted the amount of ethanol each yeast produced and the corresponding … Continue reading Yeast Impact on Sugar and Acids

Exploring the Colors of Hard Cider

Exploring the color of hard cider.

I’ve talked about the color of hard cider and how the process for making wine can be used as a reference. This is because like wine, cider color can be influenced by the fruit as well as the process. In another post on hard cider color, I explored how to make what I call silver … Continue reading Exploring the Colors of Hard Cider