Have I got this right re adding Tannin?

[Chalkyt]

First a bit of background… here in S.E. Oz we are in Covid lockdown again and are looking for things to do.

Even though it is late winter there are a few eating and cooking apples still hanging in the trees, so I thought “here is a chance to experiment”. Unfortunately the high tannin crab apples were used up long ago.

Since my scratter, press etc was cleaned and put away until next year I decided to whizz some of the apples through the kitchen juicer and ended up with two litres. The juice is 40% Granny Smith and 60% Pomme de Neige which has a bit of acid added to bring the pH down from 4.2 to 3.8 and TA 0.5%. It is currently fermenting with S04 and I know from experience that without further acid or tannin It will be quite bland.

Having successfully made something like Graham’s English Cider a couple of years ago the plan is to try making this style again which I understand should be a low acid, high tannin “English Style” cider. With the Graham’s I used strong tea for tannin (100ml of strong tea per litre seemed to be about right, even though it dilutes the cider about 10%) but this time I decided to use “proper powdered tannin”.

Now that I have the powdered tannin it is a bit scary figuring out how much to add. The packet says 5g per 100 litres (about 25 gallons) and work upwards from there. Wow, that is a little bit of tannin powder for a lot of cider.

So I plan to make up a tannin solution of 0.5g/100ml since 0.5g should be measurable using my small digital scale (It is something like ¼ teaspoon since various sources give the weight of a teaspoon of tannin powder in the range 2-3 grams).

According to my sums, adding this solution at the rate of 10ml per litre of cider should give me 5g per 100 litres concentration. So, putting 1ml (20 drops) in a 100ml sample of the cider gives me a start regarding taste, and lets me play around with the concentration needed to get the “right” taste.

Anyone else tried adding powdered tannin to small batches of cider? All comments and advice are welcome.

 

[doublejef]

Never tried powdered tannin, I always prefer barrel aged or chip oak addition, dry hop also do the job even if it generaly totally erase the cider taste.
Anyway, I'm curious about your experience.
Also I'm surpised that a Granny Smith cider has pH as high as 4.2, maybe it's because they grow up upside down in your country.

 

[Maylar]

Be aware that tannin takes time to integrate. You should wait at least 6 weeks before tasting.
I use oak, too.

 

[Chalkyt]

Thanks for the replies. Can you tell me more about adding oak please. A quick check of ebay has quite a few local sources of oak (chips, staves, dominos, roasted, and apparently not roasted as well).

I have tried hops in the past and they do make a difference to bland cider, but a little goes a long way.

Yes, the pH surprised me a bit as I would expect GS in particular to be my most acidic apple. You might be right... does gravity affect pH the wrong way, maybe I should hang upside down when I pick them !!!!!!

Ciders from earlier this year had pH numbers more like 3.8 - 4.0 when mixing the GS with Cox's Orange Pippin or Red Delicious (which by itself had a pH of 4.1, although I haven't bothered measuring individual juice pH since I simply scratt a load of mixed apples... maybe this is worth doing in the future). In this case both the GS and Pomme de Neige (which are a somewhat sweet eating apple) had been on the trees for a long time and are part of a bumper crop which followed several years of drought. They have developed a tendency towards biennial cropping. I don't know if any of this affects the pH.

Maylar... I downloaded your information from about a month ago regarding "The Beverage People" and it was this that prompted the idea of trying to make an "English" cider using tannin powder. As you dig further into their articles they have references to other good stuff, in particular the Cornell research into cider from dessert apples and the effect of adding tannin is relevant to my situation where I have a small orchard of mostly eating apples. Thanks!

 

[Maylar]

The best oak is cubes, I use medium plus American. It takes 2.5 - 3 months to fully extract the oak flavors. Xoaker spheres are even better if you can get them.

 

[doublejef]

Actually I though you talked about TA and not pH, I often saw that pH is not always totaly corralated with TA and TA give a good idea of the tartness of apple cider, pH does not always. Maybe there is something about that.

Anyway, about the oak chip, like for everything, it depend of a lot of parameters.
What you are looking for obviously but also the type of chip.
There is different shape (chips, cube, spirals,...) and each have a different impact on how quick an strong comes the effect.
Origin also impact the favour, european and US are different. US are more vanilla and honey, French are on tannin and wood. It depend also how it is toasted, that part impact both tanin and taste.
I only use chips (and barrel) and I usually add around 1g/l (I must check this value because I also use it in beer and I may invert) and I taste it every 2 or 3 days until I'm happy with the result. Time have a huge impact also.
I always soak the chips into apple brandy or Bourbon for a month or so and then throw all in the fermenter. Cold crash works with oak chips (they end up in the bottom) but you can also use bag.
Hope it helps.

 

[bernardsmith]

TA measures the AMOUNT of acids in solution. pH is a measure of the STRENGTH of the acids. There is really no fixed correlation between both metrics: you can have a great deal of weak acids (higher TA, lower pH) or a very small amount of a very strong acid (lower TA, higher pH...) That is why adding acid to LOWER pH may not INCREASE TA by the amount you imagined.

 

[Chalkyt]

Yep, you are right about the relationship (or lack thereof) between pH and TA. I had mentioned earlier that the TA only came up to 0.5% after adding the malic acid which brought the pH. It was interesting to note that in a sample, adding more acid didn't change the TA much or in a linear fashion.

Reading the results of the Cornell study which was looking at the benefits of adding tannin, relatively high tannin vs lower TA scored just as well on taste as lower tannin and higher TA. So it seems that as well as taste, taste, taste, I wonder if there might be a "magic formula" for making an acceptable English style cider.

The exception to this was a commercial control sample which had the lowest TA and the most tannin. In this case the astringency was rated as "Too Much" so it seems as though there is a point where it all becomes unbalanced... my head hurts, I need a drink!!!!

 

[passedpawn]

Be careful adding powdered tannins. Overdoing it will make you pucker (astringency)! Frankly, I'd suggest not doing it at all. I've experimented with it in wine and avoided altogether after my tests.

If you're determined, start with a glass and add measurable amounts until you get the puckering effect. Then extrapolate according to the volumes used.

 

[Chalkyt]

I guess I really don't know what "English West Country" cider should taste like. From what I have read it can have a degree of sweetness tempered by low acidity and high tannins e.g. like Kingston Black and other traditional apples that we don't readily have here. The best English ciders appear to undergo malolactic fermentation which generates some sweetness and other "interesting" flavours like smoky bacon and old horse,,, don't really know why you would want that in your cider!!!!

Anyhow it all started off with an abundance of end of season apples and an idea to make something different, and it wouldn't really matter if it was a flop.

If it worked, the next step was to ferment with 71B... a substitute for malolactic fermentation????

So, the idea is to have an artificial English cider and if it doesn't work I can always fall back on Graham's English Cider and pretend.

Thanks for all the input so far.

 

[madscientist451]

The juice is 40% Granny Smith and 60% Pomme de Neige which has a bit of acid added to bring the pH down from 4.2 to 3.8 and TA 0.5%. It is currently fermenting with S04 and I know from experience that without further acid or tannin It will be quite bland.

I've tried adding tannin with tea and used the powdered stuff, the results were OK, and depending what you are looking for its worthwhile, but when I have a bland cider, I usually use the "fake barrel" method to make it interesting. I start with whiskey barrel chips that are sold to put in a meat smoker, add inexpensive bourbon and let sit a few weeks, then the chips go in the keg and I start adding some of the bourbon that was in with the chips. It takes a while for the flavors to develop. So don't add all the bourbon at once.
Having some bland cider on hand isn't a bad thing. Sometimes cider comes out way more acidic or strong flavored (or over oaked) than I like and having something to tone it down is helpful.

 

[Kees]

Why not add dry tealeaves? No dilution that way.

 

[Maylar]

If it worked, the next step was to ferment with 71B... a substitute for malolactic fermentation????

No. MLF via Malolactic Bacteria converts malic acid into lactic acid, which is "smoother" to the taste. 71B does Malo Ethanolic fermentation, which converts malic acid into ethanol and CO2. Basically it simply reduces the amount of acid, which cider needs for balance. It would be a good choice if your juice was north of 0.6 TA.

 

[Chalkyt]

Yesterday was cold and miserable so I had a chance to stay indoors and play around with the tannin. Basically the outcome was that the recommended powder dose of 5g/100L (or 1/4 tsp per gallon) vs one teabag (steeped in 200ml of boiling water) per litre, gave about the same result. As suggested by others, any more than this becomes a bit too much. I tried adding 1.5X and 2X as well as "extra strength" Twinings tea, and got Aarrrgh!!!!! A bit like hops, a little goes a long way.

I was using small samples that more or less were the same concentration as the above. The difference between the two approaches was that the tea version was clearer than the powder version and not quite as bitter although the astringency was about the same.

None of this is particularly new as those concentrations are often quoted in articles and past posts on HBT. I will also try the oak approach and also keep yesterday's samples (particularly the powder version) for a few days to see if time mellows the effect.

On balance it has probably been an exercise in chasing my tail as I suspect that the Graham's English Cider recipe is about as good as it gets without the proper apples for this style of cider.

 

[Chalkyt]

Just an update on using tannin.

Having left samples of tea and tannin powder in cider to "mature" for a week or so, I can't really tell the difference between the two except that the tea version is clearer. So, on balance it seems that it is easier to simply use tea (at about 1 tea bag or two grams per litre) for quantities up to a few gallons. For quantities more than that, a lot of teabags are involved so powdered tannin gets the nod. The problem with the powder is that a little bit goes a long way and it is difficult to reliably measure less than a gram. I overcame this problem by making a solution such that adding 10 ml per litre was the same as the recommended rate of 5g per 100 litres. A bit fiddly, but it works.

Basically using powder at a rate of 5g per 100 litres (25 gallons), around 1 gram of powder per 5 gallons is about as small as you would want to go if adding powder direct to the cider.

Having now made some cider using the tannin powder approach the next step is to get some oak chips. From what I have read, about 3g per litre boiled in a small amount of water for 10 minutes then added (water and chips) to secondary is the best way to do this. Any alternative views are welcome.

 

[doublejef]

I prefer to soak chips into alcool like apple brandy. I'm always affraid of having something harsh or less strong by boiling it.

 

[Kees]

Roasting oak chips reduces their tannin content, European oak contains more tannins than American oak.
How about adding hops and sloes?
Check this out: An Overview of the Factors Influencing Apple Cider Sensory and Microbial Quality from Raw Materials to Emerging Processing Technologies