I don't think there's a Wickson tree in that bunch. Wickson may get as high as that some years, I think I've got 1070 specific gravity a couple years ago.
Sugar content in Hewe's Crab is almost as high, grows very well here and I have a spare of that.
Medaille D'or is even sweeter, but is also very bitter.
Thanks for the reply Shaun. What does 1.070 specific gravity translate to in terms of % sugars? I have seen where some ornamental crabs are quite high in total dissolved solids (the juice would have a high SG) but in tasting some of them I have found them to be comprised of acids, little sugar.
I had seen references made by individuals to 25% sugars for the Wickson. That attracted me to the cultivar as more of a permaculture alcohol potential. I have read that Etter envisioned a champaign industry surrounding this apple as well. At 25% sugar, I would think that'd be a slam dunk!
I looked up Hewe's Crab on one gov't site and it said 13% dissolved solids, some of which might be acids. What alcohol percent can you usually attain from a straight Hewe's juice fermentation? I know very little about converting % dissolved solids to projected alcohol content.
If the answer seems too involved, perhaps you could recommend a good website for me to study!
I read recently (somewhere, no bookmarks made) that for methanol production to be minimized in fermented cider, the fresh juice needs to be heated to 180 degrees for a prescribed amount of time to deactivate a particular enzyme. Apparently folks can get pounding hangovers from methanol in cider when this process is not followed, and lack of hangovers when it is heated to deactivate enzyme. Can you comment on this, or have you ever heard it?
It looks like there are two ways to go about reducing the methanol potential of cider, one being by enzymatic treatment, the other seems way easier and that is by heating to scalding just after squeezing.
I found the two articles that relate to this:
"the methanol content of the treated juice is lower due to pectin methylesterase action"
This is the difficult one. LINK
The easy method being:
"It's good to heat the cider up to a scald as soon as it comes of the press as it deactivates the enzyme that converts pectin into methanol."
Look specifically at the post made by I-GOR on Thu Sep 11, 2008 10:37 am LINK
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