18th and 19th Century American Ciders and "Scrumpy"

[mdennytoo]

I am a beer brewer and have slowly been getting into cider over the last couple of years using my beer brewing knowledge. Hence, all of the crappy cider I made at first. It wasn't until I took a break, knowing I was barking up the wrong tree with juice concentrates. I have done some reading and am trying to imagine what a "real" cider ought to be. A lot of people know this website: http://cider.org.uk a real eyeopener!

Traditional cider is not just fermenting some juice. Or is it?

Keeving (in English) and Defecation (in French) using real apples is not complicated, but is akin to mashing in beer. And, it makes cider actually become a store-able stable food stuff without chemicals or pasteurization. 200 years ago without campden tabs or starsan, how would you make a drinkable one year old product? The answer is they allowed all comers in terms of micro-flora and manipulated the growing medium to favor yeasts first and bacteria second. You want an apple with a lot of acid because it is a malo-lactic fermentation in the end that makes the cider good and provides carbonation in the bottle, unlike the priming sugar thing we do in beer and modern American home-brew cider. The whole process takes a year!

Now, I try to make some nice juice and add in crab-apples for tannin. I don't sulphite hoping to let some of the wild stuff affect my cider and immediately pitch something like 71B, Safale 04, or US Chico 1056/ US05. I keg and force carbonate in the end- one month tops. I have yet to do an intentional Keeve (spelling verb?); however, one of my ciders split (Pectin on top and debris/ yeast on the bottom) on its own after cold crashing the yeast.

Here are my questions:
1) Did American settlers assisted by Johnny Appleseed engage in keeving their ciders? I am sure some did, being immigrants from the old world, but I am suspicious that the whole of American cider culture did? If they didn't, they must have fermented warm and fast (relative to English/ French cider) like we do with beer, for two weeks or so. They would have racked off and stored a dry cider? Was American cider more like a 6% abv wine then? If so, it would only be the acid and lack of O2 keeping spoilage at bay. (I am speaking generally, obviously a lot of it turned to vinegar or busted the secondary barrels).
2) Is this kind of cider is much more like the idea of a Scrumpy? Are there two types of Scrumpy? (a) The nostalgic, to be proud of type at ~6% abv made of nothing but apple, wild or wild and cultured wine yeast pitched immediately to cloudy un-keeved juice. (b)And the modern commercial kind that is really just dry booze chaptolized with sugar, then back-sweetened and sulphited.

Can anyone from Europe set me strait about what a "real skrumpy" is? Does anyone know how American ciders were made in the 18th and 19th centuries the way we know about Cream Ales, Steam Beers, and Pre-Prohibition Pilsners?

 

[theciderman]

I feel that most cider made here in the early days was simply fermented like wine and stored in barrels. Given that most cider making would have been by colonists of a British descent, keeving would have been less common. It's still uncommon in England, unless you believe those lying Somerset cheese huggers. French cider is typically (but notbexclusively) defined by the keeving process and champagne yeast finish. I would also imagine that colonists would have drunk actively fermenting cider, it would have still provided sterile qualities but benefited from being sweeter.
Scrumpy is a strictly English thing, some would even say West of England thing. The word has many meanings but always they have to do with a cider of somekind. My village scrumpy was defined by the use of highly acidic apples in the blend, open fermentation and no commercial yeast. It was dry, unfiltered, with a farmhouse character and a kick that could floor an elephant. However the most common meaning of the word Scrumpy is a cider that has been made with fruit that have been "scrumped" - a West Country word for........er........borrowing fruit (sometimes veg) from the farmers orchards, with the desire to make alcohol from them. To go out "scrumping" is to go out "borrowing," Scrumpy made this illicit way were often quite rough and tend to leAve you were terrible hangovers. My local understanding was that the poor fermentation methods and wild yeast often resulted in small amounts of methanol production this would hinder your eye sight, and thus the term "blind-drunk" was born. Kinda like a "British Moonshine."
Hope this helps

 

[mdennytoo]

Would fermentation of a traditional scrumpy be hotter than normal? (West of England-September/ October) In beer, you can get fusel alcohols that do the eye flash thing if you ferment a regular ale yeast at or above 88f or 31.1c.

 

[mdennytoo]

Also, is there such a thing as a "good" scrumpy? Will a well made scrumpy keep after bottling?

 

[dmtaylor]

I doubt the early Americans did any keeving unless perhaps they were of French heritage, which is entirely possible but not the norm. I imagine their ciders were just your regular decent wine-like beverages of 6 or 7% ABV like you thought. They may or may not have known about yeast, but my guess is not.... just leave the juice to sit for a day or two and it will ferment wild all by itself. That's surely how they made their cider.

I never understood the fascination with the word "scrumpy". It isn't really a meaningful word as far as I could ever tell. Trade the words "apple cider" anyplace you ever see that word and that's all that probably matters.

Modern cider made from concentrate, sulfited, backsweetened, and force carbed is not "real" cider as far as I'm concerned. It might be a nice fizzy apple drink, but it's not cider IMO.

Drink up.

 

[bernardsmith]

I think keeving is a process designed to reduce the nutrients available for the yeast that results in both a sweeter and a carbonated cider (because the yeast cannot ferment all the available sugars. So it is a pretty sophisticated cider.
Scrumpy, I think, is a simply made folk kind of cider. Typically, the cider was drunk cloudy, not clear and was made in Somerset and Dorset

 

[mdennytoo]

Yes, the lowering of nitrogen made the cider ferment very slowly. At the end they (Europeans) had a cider that would keep for years. Vintage cider? Could 18/19th century American ciders keep, or did they drink them generally sour from volatile acidity before the next harvest? Is scrumpy like that, or can they keep?

 

[BrewSavage]

The only thing to do is take a holiday in England's West Country. Explore Somerset and drink the real thing. Investigate the country pubs, visit some cider makers (farmers, not cider artisans), and chat up the locals.

They keep it simple.

 

[dmtaylor]

Could 18/19th century American ciders keep, or did they drink them generally sour from volatile acidity before the next harvest? Is scrumpy like that, or can they keep?

They would have to make just enough cider to carry them through 12 or 13 months until the next harvest. In most cases I think, the cider would last that long with no ill effects. But of course I'll bet some barrels went to vinegar over time. Today is no different. It happens sometimes. So if you started with 10 barrels, then after several months you have 8 barrels of cider and 2 barrels of vinegar, or whatever. They found ways to use the vinegar of course so it didn't go to waste. They weren't idiots either. If they knew they would lose 2 barrels to vinegar on average, they'd make an extra 2 barrels up front if they could get the apples, or plant 20% more trees if they had the acreage (which I'm sure they did).

All ciders properly prepared will last for several years. Tartness level is something you either deal with in the recipe and use different apples or sugars, or just learn to love it. Vinegar, like I mentioned, is a bit of a different animal, but there are still those who think it's okay in cider as well. J.K.'s Northern Neighbour Saskatoon Cuvee springs to mind -- very vinegary.

 

[bernardsmith]

Shrub is the name for a drink made from vinegar so my guess is that even if the cider turned to vinegar that vinegar would have been drunk much like cider...

 

[dmtaylor]

I've had a shrub. I love vinegar on salads but I've got to say... a shrub is another one of those acquired tastes that I was unable to acquire.

 

[mdennytoo]

I never understood the fascination with the word "scrumpy". It isn't really a meaningful word as far as I could ever tell. Drink up.

Agreed. I was using the name scrumpy as "the way the English/ Welsh used to make cider before coming to America". Scrumpy is probably newer than that. I am trying to understand the method of making cider. Assuming that a given Englishman used to making cider one way before immigrating to the new world, would make cider the same way after coming to the new world? Before and after: would he engage in keeving? Would he press and dump into a fermenter and let her go? Would press and dump cider keep for the year? Today we have sulphites, sanitizer, and we backsweeten and pasturize/ or sorbate. Seems the "natural" way is to keeve? Why would someone abandon that method just because he moved to Appalachia in the late 1700s? Am I assuming too much about the way English/ Welsh ciders were made in the 1700s?

 

[mdennytoo]

http://mason.gmu.edu/~drwillia/cider.html

This is a really cool read. The author points out how Americans mysteriously abandoned the apple for barley, theorizing that the quality of beers and ciders were probably pretty bad in 18th and 19th century America until the Germans brought lager yeast, and that cider was more difficult to industrialize than beer.

So we assume poor quality? Should we assume that most American ciders were press and ferment without keeving? Is my assumption that the English and Welsh were keeving before the 1750s incorrect?

 

[mdennytoo]

Gaymers in the 1880s was not keeving:

http://cider.org.uk/Notes Towards a History of Norfolk Cider.pdf

"After the apples were picked and heaped they were crushed between granite rollers and then the juice expressed with the use of a hydraulic press. It was quickly transferred into casks where the fermentation process took place. The large number of casks were arranged side by side in “low-roofed houses, specially constructed with double-brick walls and reeded roofs, so as to maintain a cool and unvarying temperature throughout the changeful seasons." It was kept in the cask (secondary or tertiary, I guess) for a period of anything from a few months to two years or even more."

 

[20grit]

An American recipe book I have on hand 's has a few descriptions of cider making.
"Put into a gallon of good French brandy a quarter of an ounce of cochineal: when it becomes well tinctured and of a fine red, pour it off clear from the small sediment that there will be at the bottom. Pour this into a hogshead of cider newly made, putting in at the same time half a pound of roll brimstone, and three pounds of sugar candy, or double refined loaf sugar. Stop it up closely, and when it is fine bottle it off. The colour is pleasing, and no cider keeps so well, or has so good a body."
It also has some descriptions of making Perry, and compares/contrasts it to the cider process.

The book is:
The Universal Receipt Book Published 1818. There were multiple versions. I have seen two. The 1818 version is available online as a scan.
You could check that out. Don't know if it really helps with your specific question, but could provide insight into a process.

 

[bernardsmith]

I am certainly no expert but I think keeving was a French technique and not a technique used by local farmers in England. That most Americans, today, prefer a sweeter wine, cider and beer does not mean that in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries folk drank their alcohol sweet. You drank alcohol because well water was often contaminated with the bodies of dead animals, and you drank alcohol from when you woke up to when you went to sleep.

 

[theciderman]

Mostly agree with this but go to Herefordshire, they host more cider it's and hold the largest number of wassail. Plus were better looking than them "Sumurrset folk"!

 

[thm57]

I remember reading a book from the beginning of the 1900s that was talking about how to make the American cider industry into an actual, profitable industry as opposed to farmhouse cider for personal use. It referenced that people were just pressing their apples then adding yeast and leaving it to ferment before they drank it. single barrel process there, but I don't know if people just got a bit lazy by that time.

 

[BrewSavage]

I would have thought prohibition in the 1920s would have been a real boon to hard cider making but cider doesn't seem be part of the lore.

 

[Northbank]

If I decided to tell people their beer wasn't real beer because they had things like malt extract, whirlfloc and the ability to cold crash I think I might get yelled at I really doubt a "Real" scrumpy in 2016 is anything like a cider from the 1700s is

 

[mdennytoo]

Nortbank the voice of reason. The word real can get you in trouble. I want to make real 19th century American cider. Do I keeve or do I press and dump? Assuming I really know how to keeve, anyway. Assuming I know what kind of apples make real American ancestral cider? These are valid questions. Queen Victoria loved CD Newtown Pippens from Bent Mountain, VA so much that she lowered the import tax on them. To me, details like that are what make real, real.

 

[bernardsmith]

But the word "real" is a lot like the word "natural". There is nothing more or less "natural" about anything we handle and there is nothing more or less "real" about anything we make that is made today. You cannot make anything in the 19th Century if you are making it in 2016. The raw materials are not the same, the yeasts are different, the farming is different, our tools and equipment are different, our energy sources are different, we have a different understanding of the science, and a different appreciation of the art. It's as "real" as re-enactment is real. Real re-enactment, perhaps, but not something that is fundamentally more real than that..

 

[dmtaylor]

I think; therefore I am.

I drink; therefore I am and it is.

 

[LeBreton]

Nortbank the voice of reason. The word real can get you in trouble. I want to make real 19th century American cider. Do I keeve or do I press and dump? Assuming I really know how to keeve, anyway. Assuming I know what kind of apples make real American ancestral cider? These are valid questions. Queen Victoria loved CD Newtown Pippens from Bent Mountain, VA so much that she lowered the import tax on them. To me, details like that are what make real, real.

Except those Virginia grown Newtown Pippins presented to the Queen weren't even real for back then! REAL Newtown Pippins come from New York.

After years of research, it has become clear that over the millennia, cider has meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Location, time, social status, as well as business interest all play a part. There are records of wealthy landed British gentry geeking out over single variety ciders in the 16th century who defined the perfect cider glass as an etched crystal chalice. Their goal was to make and sell exclusive cider to their wealthy counterparts and needed to justify the price. Meanwhile, across the ocean, American farmers were making cider from apples they couldn't sell in the fresh market. If they couldn't sell the cider or imbibe enough themselves they might distill it into a higher proof and try to sell it as either brandy or even as an industrial strength product. Both were making real cider, albeit for somewhat different reasons.

You hear some 'Scrumpy' producers talk about how they're the only ones who make 'real' cider these days. If you define 'real' as 'traditional for my area', then they are correct. But that seems like a very myopic view of the wide range and history of cider which reaches far beyond Great Britain.

Based on my research, keeving cider seems to have been at least a somewhat common occurrence through the mid 1800's in this country, as it is mentioned in a few different texts, but by the turn of the century seems to be a relatively unused technique here while remaining common in France and the UK, but not necessarily the rest of Europe. I'm thinking that innovation in grinding & pressing technologies may be responsible, which resulted in more efficient workflow and less time between grinding and pressing and thus less pectin in the juice. Additionally, advancements in temperature control, filtration, and carbonation may have made the technique uneconomical. Additionally, the rise of beer culture and urbanization simply made people make, drink, and write less about cider in general. In places with a more stable cider culture, keeving was able to survive as a viable process.

 

[MarkKF]

I always thought a "real" authentic Scrumpy had a dead rat or two in an open top fermenting barrel. I'll pass.

 

[BrewSavage]

I always thought a "real" authentic Scrumpy had a dead rat or two in an open top fermenting barrel. I'll pass.

That's how you get the fermentation going.

 

[WVMJ]

l think a lot of the early cider literature is from the Northeast mostly where they would press in the fall, ferment in barrels, winter would come and fermentation would greatly slow down, then as the spring warmed up the MLF would kick in along the time of the apple bloom. Its kind of vague about after that but it seems they mostly drank it out of the barrel vs bottling it up? WVMJ