Day 5—January 10, 2010

    What a day.  We were supposed to begin fermentation today and even had a journalist and a photographer working for Vermont Life come to observe and take pictures of the process, but the juice wasn’t sweet enough.  Just as salt melts icy roads, sugar lowers the melting point of water, so the plan was to capture the super-sweet cider that melted below 0 degrees Celsius and ferment that.  Everything was all ready to start converting the cider to wine until we tested the sugar content.  The refractometer, a fancy tool that indicates the percentage of sucrose of a solution by weight in “brix,” reported only 24 brix.  We can’t ferment the concentrate because we need at least 34 brix to maintain the sweet, indulgent nature of the wine.  The reason the concentrate is not as sweet as last year is because the cider did not freeze enough.  Instead of leaving the “totes” of juice outside as before, Eleanor and Albert built a barn, the “Juice Caboose,” to hold their increased amounts of concentrate.  However, the lack of exposure to the elements (i.e. wind) raised the temperature so that not enough of the solution froze, leaving us potentially days behind in production.  Albert and Inaki are rearranging the totes so that they are farther apart and are keeping the doors open for better circulation.  If the weather stays chilly, we may be able to start fermentation on Wednesday.

    The day was not completely lost.  We entertained both Melissa Passanen and Daria Bishop for next year’s winter edition of Vermont Life.  Melissa took notes as we explained the process of making ice cider, and Daria took some great “action” shots.  We followed the morning in the basement with a beautiful, leisurely lunch (without the time pressure of beginning fermentation).  Melissa brought some fabulous Vermont sausage and Willow Hill cheese in addition to homemade bread and cookies to accompany Eleanor’s homemade curried carrot soup and foie gras she brought from France, and Inaki provided a bottle of his own wine he made in Spain, Malus Mama.  Although his wine comes from apples, it does not go through the same freezing process that Eden does, which is reasonable given the climate of Spain.  The slightly more acidic wine was delicious with the foie gras, so we hope that Inaki can continue producing more and hit the market with his product once he returns to Spain.

    Melissa and Daria are gone now, so I think we will try to finish the day up with some data analysis and paperwork.  We sleep tonight with the hope that the weather stays cold.