Why clear vs cloudy cider.

[Mad4sax]

After reading many threads on clarifying hard cider.
I got to thinking why??

I am a beer brewer but decided to make some hard cider since I had an empty carboy.

Caramel apple hard cider, the recipe I found here. Airlock is bubbling away as I type this question. :rockin:

So why is everyone so hung up on clear vs the naturally cloudy cider?
Does it affect the taste?

 

[Yooper]

For the same reason I like a clear beer, I like clear wine and cider. It is just more aesthetically pleasing to me.

I enjoy food that looks great, too. I'd rather have a nicely plated meal at a restaurant, vs a glop of food put on my plat. It might taste the same, but I find that appearance counts in my enjoyment.

 

[AdventureYoung]

I"m gonna have to agree . . . It simply adds visual pleasure to that of the palate.

 

[LeBreton]

Ditto.

Although I did meet one gentleman who preferred cloudy cider to clear, as he liked the pulpy texture of the pectin and thought it contributed to the body.

 

[Mad4sax]

OK I guess I will clarify it with some pectic enzyme.

I will do the post fermentation method since it is 4 days into fermentation.

Thanks for the feed back.

 

[JonnyAppleseed]

I am new and am only on my third batch of cider, but I'll add my experience. Pasteurized, farm fresh cider and Safale S-04, racked to secondary for a couple weeks, then racked to bottling bucket. The cider is crystal clear after a couple months of aging. I don't think I would care if my cider was clear or not. I never knew they were "supposed to be" clear. I'm more into a natural product with as little additives/manipulation as possible.

 

[DisplacedSailor]

+1 to Jonny!

 

[oljimmy]

Obviously this is just aesthetic taste, but real farmhouse cider is cloudy as hell. It's only the fact that beer dominates the cider market that makes everyone prefer clear stuff. IMO, If beer were still generally cloudy, we'd all be drinking cloudy ciders.

Spend a week over in Cider Heaven (i.e. the west of England) drinking their stuff, and you will come away with a new appreciation for the "cloudy aesthetics", ha ha.

 

[LeBreton]

Obviously this is just aesthetic taste, but real farmhouse cider is cloudy as hell. It's only the fact that beer dominates the cider market that makes everyone prefer clear stuff. IMO, If beer were still generally cloudy, we'd all be drinking cloudy ciders.

Spend a week over in Cider Heaven (i.e. the west of England) drinking their stuff, and you will come away with a new appreciation for the "cloudy aesthetics", ha ha.

I don't mean to pick on you per-se but this common misconception is a trigger of mine. There is not such thing as 'real' farmhouse cider. Nor is there any one-true style of cider. Sure, many west-country ciders are cloudy, and the region is well known for its cloudy scrumpy (as it should be ), but this is a regional style and not even that consistent at that. Many west-country ciders are made clear. Farmhouse cider in France is clear, and Spanish farmhouse ciders are clear or develop a mild yeast haze when poured. These are no less real than the ciders in the west-country and would be just as wrong to say that real cider is clear.

It's like a German saying that 'real' cider is still, a Frenchman saying a 'real' cider is naturally fermented, an Englishman saying that a 'real' cider is only made from traditional bittersharps or an American saying 'real' cider is whatever the hell we want so long as it has a majority of apples in it.


Historically speaking though, cider has been a clear drink in most areas, and high quality bright ciders have been held in the highest regard, even before beer became more popular in some areas.

I never turn my nose up at a cloudy cider though.

 

[oljimmy]

Interesting. I had read that "clear" cider was a fairly modern phenomenon, and that most ciders before the 1900s were cloudy because they didn't have the means (i.e. enzymes) to clear them. The fact that many areas of the world have adopted advanced industrial/modern techniques doesn't mean that cider au naturel isn't fairly cloudy, no? I may be misinformed, though.

 

[LeBreton]

Enzymes aren't necessary to make clear cider, though they do help ensure and speed up the process. A fully fermented cider which is racked a healthy number of times and sulphited from barrel to barrel will typically fall bright over time without the aid of pectinase.

There is a host of information indicating that cider was mostly clear throughout the ages. Reading the old sources, writers are constantly noting the clarity of ciders and talking about how cidermakers go to great length to rack off only the clear liquid, which is also emphasized in most old cider recipes. Fining agents are also mentioned for instances where the cider is having trouble dropping it's solids. Keeving, arguably the most advanced cider technique dates to at least the middle ages, and results in a clear cider. Filters were commonly used in ciderys in the UK, France, and Germany from the early 1800s and maybe before, but that's the oldest date I've been able to find from a reliable source. The development of crystal cider flutes in the 1600s indicates that the consumer expected and wanted to showcase the clarity of cider.

 

[Mad4sax]

I am only an hour away from Bellwether Hard Cider. Maybe I should do a road trip and taste some cider so I know what mine should taste like this being my first batch.

 

[oljimmy]

Le Breton, thanks for your response. However, I do wonder about this: It may be that certain advanced, time-consuming processes enabled various cider-makers to create a clear cider, no doubt about it. But that doesn't show that the ordinary person's drink (i.e. the drink that ordinary farm workers were often paid with in places like Somerset for centuries) was clear. Do you think that ordinary poor people (say, before prohibition) really drank cider made from such techniques, or was that just the more prized, expensive cider?

Also, and this has nothing to do with history, I think that there's another reason to call cloudy cider "real": just comes from the cell wall of the apple. In other words, when you're trying to clear a cider, you're trying to get the apple out of it. One of the reasons that people in the West Country get (playfully) dismissive about mass-produced and foreign ciders is, in my experience, that they find it funny that people work so hard to get the apple out of the cider. I've personally heard Roger Wilkins himself make fun of the French for that, and I do think there's something in it.

Finally, Mad4sax: pectin's the antioxidant that suppresses all kinds of intestinal diseases... think twice before removing this valuable dietary supplement from your cider!

 

[LeBreton]

I guess, if you think racking is an advanced and time-consuming technique.

Read some of the primary sources which mention cider production and you will find everyday farmers making clear cider, both for retail sale as a value added product and for home consumption. Of course I'm not saying it was always clear, else folks wouldn't have developed filters and fining agents, but cider clarity has been desirable trait for centuries in most places.

'Real' cider is made from fermented apples, whether it be sweet or dry, sparkling or still, clear or cloudy etc etc. Picking a certain style and claiming it represents 'real' cider implies that other styles are, by their unique nature, not cider. This smacks of prejudice and ignores the wonderful diversity found in ciders across the globe.

I am only an hour away from Bellwether Hard Cider. Maybe I should do a road trip and taste some cider so I know what mine should taste like this being my first batch.

Please do! I'm here most days and love talking cider.

 

[Mad4sax]

Update on my cider journey. You can see I decided to go clear.

 

[Yooper]

Here are two photos from my cider today:





It started out as just fresh pressed cider from apples I picked up in the neighborhood. It's 17 days old today. I didn't use any pectic enzyme or any clearing agents- just the cider, and S04 yeast (which compacts down and clears really well!).

 

[Mad4sax]

Chickened out and pasteurized my cider before completely carbonated today.

Sparkling but not like beer.

Was afraid of bottle bombs.

 

[ICWiener]

I never worry about it. Clear ciders look pretty and sparkly, cloudy ciders look rustic and unfiltered. It's all about what you like. All of my ciders are cloudy and I love 'em.

 

[MarkKF]

I had cider sitting in the secondary for 9 months. Tastes so good and looks so clear. When I siphoned it into the bottling bucket and backsweetened it became cloudy. I am so upset. It looked great before.

 

[JtotheA]

Unfortunately most people are used to commercially produduced beer/cider that is more times than not clear. Filtered...and some may say "dead". On the other hand, I will choose a cloudy wheat beer over a clear one. A cloudy lambic over a clear one. It's purely personal taste. A little active yeast or maybe pectin will make a cider more interesting and complex in my opinion. Plus it's natural...and good for you!
Moral to the story...most percieve clear=good. Some understand that that cloudy doesn't necessarily mean bad. Unless of course it's cloudy due to infection.
I love my cloudy brews just as much as my clear ones. No pectic enzyme for me ever in my few years of homebrewing.