TeePee Cider

Cidery in Aotearoa

[teepeecider]

A few weeks ago I posted about yeast and how they had evolved in to niches where they excelled such as champagne yeast for cool fermentation and baker’s yeast for hot fast fermentation, and suggested you choose the best yeast for the job at hand. A friend @AdrianHarrison just sent me this photo of sourdough bread he made using left overs from a cider tasting and local minchin milling flour. It look delicious, and it’s humbling to be proved wrong. 😊 #yeast #bread #cider

[teepeecider]

Ukrainian cider is not something I know about apart from reading on the inter and trade magazines. But it making is a rapidly growing new craft and industrial sector, heavily concentrated in the apple-rich Vinnytsia region and close to Kiev. The industry combines classic European techniques with local fruit to create both traditional and modern craft ciders.

Producers utilise both cultivated apple varieties and wild local fruits, berries, and honey, resulting in unique beverages like mead-cider fusions (sizers) and fruit co-ferments.

Ukrainian craft cider makers are building an international reputation for natural, barrel-fermented dry ciders, earning medals at competitions. Cideries have shown tremendous perseverance. For example, Berryland Cidery an award-winning craft producer in the Kyiv region-was destroyed during the 2022 Russian invasion, but the community of cider makers across Ukraine rebuilt it. Ukraine has a reputation in the global craft community for its exceptional perries. As we know perry is incredibly difficult to make well, but Ukrainian producers have excelled by utilizing a unique blend of orchard and wild forest pears - Pyrus pyraster foraged from the forests. These wild pears contribute the tannins and acidity missing from standard eating pears. The resulting pery is delicate, unfiltered, champagne-like, and floral, with a soft tannins. I must go there when the war is over. #ukraine #perry #cider

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Perry like cider can be made still bottle conditioned or method traditional ( or albion as I call it, given that English cider makers were responsible for bubbles in champagne. This doseage machine makes getting a consistent fill levels in the bottles easy with the gravity fed reservoir bottle. ( foils on champagne bottles we invented to hide the differ levels originally). This machine is Spanish and based on a classic design from Épernay. #perry #doseage

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Birds of Beau Vista orchard Wairarapa New Zealand. The Chaffinch, Fringilla coelebs, or Pahirini in te Reo is a common bird in NZ todayand the most widespread of New Zealand’s introduced finches, and are found in a wide range of habitats from sea-level to 1400 m in gardens orchards and bush. Chaffinches were first intentionally introduced to New Zealand from Britain by Acclimatisation Societies with the first major liberations beginning around 1862.

They were originally brought over to help control insect pests and remind settlers of home. large flocks can be a bit of a menace in orchards with fruit damage but I have not seen large flocks here in Wairarapa. #chaffinch #birds #NewZealand #orchards

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Critters of Beau Vista orchard, the large Black Cockroach, Maoriblatta novaeseelandiae, or Kekerengu in te reo. This is New Zealand's largest native cockroach. They have glossy, dark black-brown bodies with dark red legs and grow up to 3 cm long. They are flightless and known for producing a foul-smelling defensive odor when disturbed so handle carefully! 
They naturally live outside under bark, in rotten wood, and among leaf litter. They are harmless to humans as they don’t carry any diseases we catch, they don’t like our indoors either, so if you see one like we did yesterday walking up a wall, catch it carefully with a cup and paper lid and take it back to some leaf litter. Ours must have got in, in a bucket of feijoas I picked. #NewZealand #cockroach #indigenous #orchard

[teepeecider]

If you are after an academic view of cider making it’s hard to go past this book. Published 2003. The chapter on cider is written appropriately by Andrew Lea as well as him being joint editor. Although 20 years old now there is little out of date. Sits on my cidery shelf for consultation alongside his other book on craft cider making and The New Cider Maker's Handbook by Claude Jolicoeur. All well thumbed! #cider #cidermaking #books

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The old masters of perry making encountered the same problems with making perry as we do. Although they didn’t know the science their remedies work well today. Rev John Beale in his aphorisms (number 14) in Pomona (attached to Sylva) by John Evelyn 1st edition 1664 states “The reason of grinding these harsh Pears is after a full maturity, not till they have dropped from the tree, and there lain under the Tree, or in heaps, a week, or thereabouts.”

#perry #Sylva #pomona #book

[teepeecider]

At Beau Vista orchard in New Zealand we celebrate the turning of the seasons. Although no official, we seem to have passed into winter. The trees are bare, the crabapples gone. The grass sward has stopped growing. Our pear trees look dormant but under the scales of the buds the new year’s growth potential is slowing maturing. Apical and spur buds on the trees are the primary growth points for next year. During autumn, in preparation for winter dormancy, these buds develop harden overlapping scales (modified leaves) to protect the delicate meristem inside which continues to undergo microscopic growth and development whilst accumulating the required "chill hours" before Spring.

#pear #perry #bud #dormancy #winter

[teepeecider]

I came across this 1960s photo of the nearby apple growing area of Wairarapa. The orchards are clustered around the village of Greytown. In the foreground is Tate’s orchard now sadly long gone. According to the New Zealand Soil Classification (NZSC) the area is of ‘Recent Soils’. These are deep, well-drained, friable, medium-textured silty soils formed from river greywacke alluvium. Ideal for orcharding. TeePee Cider is 10 km away and on ’Brown Soils’ of the older alluvial terraces and the wider plain. These still have high natural fertility but more variable in depth to gravel, which impacts moisture retention which is fine for cider and the stress encourages flavour. #orchards #apples #cider

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I use a simple whip graft. I pop the scion wood in the fridge mid winter when it’s dormant and graft it to the rootstock in spring when the sap is rising. I wrap the join in paraffin grafting tape then some electrical tape. The latter to stabilise the graft as I have had a few go wobbly after birds perching on the scion wood! So far I have had a 90% success rate. All out perry pear and cider apple grafts have been done this way. For pear we use quince roots and a Beurre Hardy interstem. Each year we bring on 5-6 new perry pear trees and these start fruiting 5 years later. #pear #perry #grafting

[teepeecider]

Folklore of perry pears. May Hill, 15 miles north-west of Gloucester on the Gloucestershire Herefordshire border is said to be the epicentre of pear growing. There are 2 main myths as to why. Firstly it was said to have been the stomping ground of giants and one autumn a giant thundered home with a handful of Perry Pears. After taking a bite of the fruit and finding it bitter, he spat it out, scattering pips across the countryside and sowing the seeds for the 3 Counties orchards. Alternatively he may have spat it out at the top.

Another myth looking back through the mists of time to the dawn of the World to a day when immortals were feasting on May Hill. One brought a pear which he described as the elixir of life, providing a nectar fit only for gods. He handed it to the chief, who took a large bite. That pear was so dry and astringent as to be virtually inedible, this discovered, spitting the pear all around the hill. And out into the countryside. His companions explained that the pear must be crushed and the juice turned into perry, but the damage had been done, those pips took root and flourished – the perry pear had entered the mortal World.

You can choose either myth but it is believed that this was the birth of perry s and those trees will only prosper in sight of May Hill. #pears #perry #MayHill

[teepeecider]

Pressing perry pears is different from pressing apples. Because the fruit contains thick-walled stone cells and high levels of pectin, the pulp is incredibly soft and watery. Timing of processing is critical. Too ea and juice is hard to extract. S few days later and it’s a mush! As pears ripen and soften from the vote outwards it’s hard to judge this. Many cider makers use enzymatic treatments, and coarse cloths to maximize yield and prevent clogging. 

Pears contain thick, lignified plant cells commonly called stone cells technically sclereids which give the fruit its "gritty" texture. While they provide structural support, they make milling unpredictable, resulting in a thick, "porridgy" mash. 

Pear juices are lower in soluble pectin than apples, but the remaining pomace is notorious for making pressing cloths slippery and prone to clogging. I check the fruit for ripeness daily approaching harvest and collect in the pears of each variety depending on their ripeness to overcome this.

Perry pears benefit from an extended maceration process. I leave the crushed pulp or pomace from the scratter to sit for 12 to 24 hours. This allows controlled oxidation to soften any aggressive, astringent tannins and prevents the tannins from precipitating later. #perry #pears #pomace #scratting

[teepeecider]

For all perry makers. A tip from Capreolus distillery in the UK. Use urine test strips. One application, as a doctor and cider maker, I should have known of, is this way to know if your fermentation is over. Often a perry will stop fermenting at a SG of say 1.008 and it’s impossible to know if this is a stuck ferment with residual sugar or it’s from the varying amounts of sorbitol in the original pear juice. The solution is urine dip sticks from the chemist for diabetics.

So I went to look, and because diabetic control has moved on now to ( affordable) continous glucose monitoring with an easily applied sensor and phone app, urine test strips are really hard to find in New Zealand and I suspect elsewhere. So I investigated one technology back. That is a small gadget that digitally measures blood glucose from a finger pin . These are very cheap now that technology has moved on to the continous monitoring. The devices come with the warning “only for blood not urine” and hint at there may be inaccuracies from the different opacities and contents of the two liquids but I have tried comparisons at different glucose levels with urine dipsticks and it’s accurate enough for our use. The minimum reading of this common one from i-SENS Inc. for glucose is 1.1mmol/L (equal to 0.180 grams per litre (g/L)) ie fully fermented and comes up as “Lo” on the screen below that. You can then calculate how much sorbitol is present. In the case of a fully fermented perry with a SG of 1.008 due to sorbitol there is near 1.5mg/L of sorbitol. #perry #sorbitol #science #measuring

[teepeecider]

Watercore is a trait that has been bred out of commercial apple varieties because it reduces the ability to chill store apples for 6+ months and aesthetically is not pleasing to Western eyes.

It's from an accumulation of sorbitol inside and between the cells, sorbitol is the sugar alcohol that makes pears taste sweet, (and perry from pears too, as it’s not metabolised by yeasts). Watercore seems to be yet another trait that has been sacrificed at the altar of Western tastes. However other cultures favour these differences and celebrate them. Watercore is sought after in Japan due to the sweetness it brings.

Normally, a tree transports sorbitol from the leaves to the apple, in which the fruit cells then convert it into fructose. With watercore, sorbitol is translocated to the fruit faster than it can be processed. Because the cells cannot absorb the excess sorbitol, it leaks into the intracellular spaces by the osmotic pressure gradient across the cell wall. This fluid-filled space reduces light scattering, making the flesh look glassy, translucent, or water-soaked.

Environmental factors like high daytime sun/heat combined with low nighttime temperatures, as well as over-maturity and calcium deficiency, accelerate sorbitol production. Sorbitol is the primary product of photosynthesis in apples and makes up the vast majority (about 60–80%) of the carbohydrates exported from the leaves to the fruit. #apples #watercore #sorbitol

[teepeecider]

Interesting botanical facts of pears. On the plus side for successful fertilisation they show asynchronous stigmatic maturation. Each blossom feature 5 distinct stigmas. The biological timing of each stigma's maturation is different. They also secrete sticky stigmatic fluids, which drastically increase the window of time for successful pollen adhesion and fertilisation to each stigma.

Meanwhile most are self-sterile, limiting the chances of pollination but favouring survival but the mixing of genes. They biologically require cross-pollination from specific compatible pear varieties to set fruit, relying heavily on wind and insect vectors to transfer pollen to the blossom's stigma. And the two varieties, the pollen producer the recipient must bloom at the same time so bees and other pollinators can transfer pollen between them. Each anther releases its pollen only for a day. Variety is the spice of life for wild pears unlike the grafted cloned ones we orchardists want. #pollen #pears #fertilisation

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The colours of Autumn. We have quite a few Pin Oaks around the orchard. Quercus palustris was originally native to North America, primarily in the swamps of North Carolina and around the Great Lakes. #autumncolours

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A cider book well worth reading. Ciderlore: Cider in the Three Counties 2003 by Fiona Mac. Fiona is an author and journalist and explores the historical and cultural aspects of the cider industry, specifically focusing on Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and

Worcestershire, capturing interviews with local orchardists, cider-makers, and drinkers. Fiona is a national campaigner for CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) who defends the preservation of small scale cider and perry making through her in depth knowledge of cider and perry as a vibrant, living tradition. #cider #perry #book #folklore #history