HOME
ABOUT US
CONTACT US
CALENDAR
NEWSLETTER
RECIPE FILE
LINKS
 |
|||
 |
October 2008
Meeting Minutes - 10.14.08 20 Members attended Fred and Mary Anne started the meeting by passing around apples to compare, and discussed the characteristics of each. Our new president was late arriving at the meeting. Business: Dues were collected from those that didn't pay last month. And the Celtics tickets for the game on Friday, October 17, 2008 were raffled off. Brian Shurtleff won the tickets. The Wort's Ciderfest 08 will be held at Carlson Orchards on October 26th, 2008. Please click here to register if you plan on going. The location for next months meeting will be held at Frank Whites. The presenter will be Jeff McNally for the "Aged Beer" portion, and the kegging portion will be a round-table discussion. The Christmas Party will be held at Dan Kahn's, unless a larger venue becomes available. BeerAdvocate's Extreme Beer Fest will be held on February 20th and 21st, 2009, at The Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts - 539 Tremont Street in Boston, MA. Friday's session - from 6:00 pm to 9:30 pm - includes wood-aged beers, and is titled "Night of the Barrels". A reminder about the Franklin County CiderDays on Nov. 1st & 2nd in Colrain, MA. And a reminder of the Moat Mountain Smokehouse and Brewing Co.'s Brewer's Dinner on Nov 15th. Congratulations to our "slim, dark-haired lawyer" (Kris Butler) and Fred and Mary Anne for their appearance in the Boston Globe's article. Also, Kris Butler has a good article in the Yankee Brew News. I believe it's in the October/November 2008 edition, though I don't have that issue yet. And finally, a toast to Jimmy Carter for signing HR 1337 into law on the day of this meeting, back in 1978. The bill paved the way for our hobby to flourish. Thank you, President Carter, for passing HR 1337. Presentation: The presentation was delivered by Fred and Mary Anne, and Dan Kahn. Fred and Marianne started the meeting by passing around apple slices, discussing the characteristics, and pointing out the best apples to make cider from. The apples presented were:
"Some of the later ones weren't quite ripe yet, like the Russets. Russet means that yellow brown color, not very attractive for the typical apple buyer, so they aren't grown as frequently." Fred and Marianne are trying to grow a few Kingston Black apple trees, "a great English cider apple." "Usually the later apples make the best cider." "Ours are all semi dwarf trees. Some of the big orchards plant a lot of dwarfs, get production in 2-3 years, and have to stake them but can plant many trees per acre; and change due top changing trends." (Update):Fred and Mary Anne also recommended two books:
Dan then took the floor to pass around various commercial ciders. He also gave the group handouts of the 2008 BJCP Style Guidelines for cider (Categories 27 - 28), and an excerpt of the book "Cider: Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet and Hard Cider", by Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols. The ciders he presented are (in order):
And finally, the cider competition was won by Jeff McNally. Congratulations. His cider "was made from a blend of 60% Baldwin and 40% Northern Spy apples." He bought the raw cider (OG 1.054) from Clarkdale Orchards' 2005 Cider Days. He added five pounds of light colored wildflower honey to bring the SG up to 1.089, and he didn't kill the natural yeast before adding Safale S-04 yeast. He fermented for 10 months before bottling, and he doesn't remember whether he racked during that time, but he may have. Either way, he had a winning cider.
If there are any updates or corrections, please contact Rick Rodriguez |
 |
|
Site Design by Roger Warner
info@rogerwarner.com