Written conformation about hard cider and SCD

Hi everyone, 

I wanted to post the written conformation about a few hard ciders that are available.  Some turn out to be legal and others don't or some companies only have certain varieties that are legal.  

It is always a good idea to call or email the company about their ingredients because some of the ingredients are not listed!

A sample letter to a company:

Hi there, just wanted to see if your ciders contain any added sugars? (dextrose, alcohol sugar, cane, etc) or any starches or other ingredients besides cider, yeast, citric acid, etc. I have pretty serious food allergies and notice that some of your bottles do not have ingredients on them.

Thank you!
Tucker

Here are the cider companies I have contacted so far.  

Blue Mountain Cider Company

Hi Tucker, thanks for your interest in Blue Mountain Cider. We currently add fructose(the same sugar that is naturally found in apples) to a couple of our ciders, the Raspberry, Eden Ridge, Cranberry, and sometimes the Cherry has it added. We did not add sugar to our Estate Winesap, Dry Creek, or the Peach we just released this spring. Sugar is the only extra additive we use in the cider. If you have any more questions, just let me know.
Cheers!

Crispin Hard Cider

Hi tucker, thanks so much for your question. Our ciders do contain a small amount of cane sugar to help develop the ciders into alcohol. That is just for the original, some of the others are mostly sweetened with honey or other natural sugars but would still include a little cane sugar for the yeast to eat. Does that answer your question fully?
Tucker Sweeney

Ok thank you. So the added cane sugar is added before the cider is fermented and not after as a sweetener?
Tucker
Crispin Hard Cider

That's correct yes. Cane sugars are added before, any sweetener after is just juice, honey, maple syrup, etc.

***As far as I know, as long as the small amount of sugar was added before the fermentation it would still be considered SCD legal.  It would be the same process as taking illegal milk and fermenting it into legal yogurt.  Crispin and Fox always list whether they add apple juice, honey, or other sweeteners like maple sugar , molasses, etc.  so just look at the label.  Another tip is to look at the grams of sugar in the bottle.  It should be under 10-12 grams.  Angry orchard for example (not legal) has more than 20 grams of sugar per bottle.


 Tucker Sweeney

To:  Ace Cider Company and Angry Orchard Cider company,
Love your cider but wanted to check with you about the ingredients because I follow a very strict diet for allergies and health issues.
Do your ciders contain any sweeteners or starch that are not listed on the label (corn, cane sugar, artificial sugars, etc.) This would include added sugars in the apple juice concentrate or in any natural flavors. Naturally occurring sugars in apple juice are fine. If they do which have added sugars and which do not?
Thank you very much for your time,
Tucker Sweeney

Ace Cider

All natural Tucker just fruit juices.

Angry Orchard

Tucker,
I am sorry about the delay. Your message unfortunately got lost in our que. We are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup.  Crisp Apple, Traditional Dry and Apple Ginger all have HFCS in them.
Cheers,

Wyder's Cider

Thanks for writing in and your interest in our ciders.  Wyder’s Cider does contain added corn sugar, which is added in after the fermentation process.

I hope this helps and let me know if you have any further questions.

Cheers,

Wyder’s Cider.

Reverand Nat's Cider

First here is my email...

Hi Nat, I was at the tap room yesterday and your employee was super helpful in helping to educate me on what ciders would like be okay and not okay for me to drink.

I have some serious health issues which prevent me from drinking anything that contains added sugars (polysaccharides - dextrose, alcohol sugar, cane sugar, etc.) or any starches or other ingredients besides cider, yeast, citric acid, etc.

She informed me that the revival dry would be a good place to start since there's no concentrate added after the ferment. She also said she was pretty sure that the concentrate added to other ciders has absolutely no sugars in it besides the straight monosaccharides from the apple - no sucrose or other polysaccharides. Can you confirm this is true?

Also, I was really intrigued when she shared that one of the ciders is made with lactobacillus instead of yeast. Would you be able to share which strain of lactobacillus you use?

Thank you so much for the info Nat. Looking fwd to being a loyal customer :)

Nat's reply...

Revelation Newtown Pippin has apple juice, fermented to dry and backsweetened with apple juice concentrate. There are no other ingredients in the concentrate or the single strength juice. I only know of fructose, not the monosaccharides you speak of.

Revival Dry is bone dry and only ever had apple juice in it.

Deliverance Ginger Tonic has pure cane sugar, aka white sugar aka sucrose.

Hallelujah Hopricot has apple juice and apricot/peach juice concentrate. Like the Newtown it's just fructose but I can't speak to anything else naturally found in apricot and peach juice.

Sacrilege Sour Cherry is the lactobacillus one you're talking about. It contains apple juice and cherry juice concentrate both pre and post fermentation. We use Wyeast 5335 american lacto in it.

Hope you can make use of this info and thanks for the email.


Schilling Hard Cider

Hi Tucker,

Thanks for reaching out!

All of our ciders are fresh pressed juice based and we normally don't back-sweeten or blend. However there are a few exceptions to this. On some batches the juice ferments beyond our target and we will back-sweeten with cane sugar. (We have not needed to do this on any recent batches). We try to avoid this as much as possible, but given your dietary restrictions this is the case for a few batches. Also our summer seasonal is made with cane sugar as part of the recipe so you should certainly avoid that one.

Hope this helps!
Colin Schilling

If anyone else has contacted cider companies about SCD legality please comment so we can increase our knowledge base.

Till next time,

Tucker 

Check out our book on Amazon.com