cider yeast????

[biglongdarren]

Going to try my hand at cider this year, what yeast is best for it although i have been reading that a lot of people don't add any and just let the apples own wild yeast do the magic??

any info folks???

cheers Darren

 

[Greggorio]

Yeah natural yeast works. You can buy yeast online specifically for what you want though. Just google it.
We have made cider (I live in Calvados which is famous for cider and calvados funnily enough) and elderflower champagne and never used yeast. The elderflower once exploded and murdered 3 mice in the process (found their dead bodies in the sticky remains).

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk

 

[psafloyd]

Going to try my hand at cider this year, what yeast is best for it although i have been reading that a lot of people don't add any and just let the apples own wild yeast do the magic??

any info folks???

cheers Darren

There's enough yeast on the skins of the apples, Darren. Made the best cider I ever tasted that way many, many years ago.

 

[oliver90owner]

No ''best''. Wild yeasts can be unpredictable and apple variety can make a large difference to the product.

 

[For want of a better word]

No ''best''. Wild yeasts can be unpredictable and apple variety can make a large difference to the product.

I use Hocking's Green Cider apples.. a Great Tamar Valley specialty... and Champagne yeast as it is the only one worthy of a Great sparkling Tamar Valley Cider !!

200 bottles last year.... drinking the last right now!!!


Yeghes da

 

[pargyle]

I won't risk wild yeasts ... I've had some good ciders from wild yeasts over the years and some really bloody awful ones .. as RAB says - completely unpredictable - you are totally at the mercy of nature.

I used to use Champagne Yeast as ICANHOPIT above but it really does ferment every last vestige of sugar in the must and you end up with a very dry cider - indeed, I have had to resort to sweetening it a little to make it more palatable for my family.

So .. these days I tend to use a proper Cider yeast .. there are lots available - I buy them from my local Home Brew shop but if you do a search on ebay for 'Cider Yeast' you will find loads .. from about a quid a sachet.

I find that these tend to produce more of a farmhouse cider than an apple wine but it all depends on the raw materials and the original specific gravity. I find that adding a few crab apples to the mix gives the finished product a bit of a bite and it's good if you can get a mix of different types of apple - the juicier the better. Try to avoid ones that are past their best and cut out any brown bits before scratting and pressing.

Good luck ...

 

[biglongdarren]

thanks and my next question is could i use a juicer to juice them instead of pressing?? my women bought one last year and now its never used so might put it to the test.

Darren

 

[pargyle]

thanks and my next question is could i use a juicer to juice them instead of pressing?? my women bought one last year and now its never used so might put it to the test.

Darren

Well .. they make cider out of apple juice so I can't see it would be a problem ?

... I do it the more traditional way .. I have a bucket and bash the apples whole with the end of a pick axe handle (I never got round to finishing the scratter I started making about 10 years ago !).. Then I have a home made cider press which works with a hydraulic car jack ...that works incredibly well.

The juicer will probably do the job but it's going to take a while putting apples through one at a time....

 

[BeeJayBee]

thanks and my next question is could i use a juicer to juice them instead of pressing?? my women bought one last year and now its never used so might put it to the test.

Yes, we use a juicer to make cider. Ours is an AWT Breville like this one, a few years old now.

Two people working together can get through a lot of apples in a fairly short time - one rinsing the apples and cutting them up a bit so they fit into the funnel, the other doing the juicing and emptying the pulp into a bucket.

Sometimes we use the pulp to make apple wine, which is usually rather good - got that tip from a member of my family who's made cider for donkey's years. They always use a garden shredder to chop the apples, I'm not sure how hygienic that is though.

 

[oliver90owner]

Juicing large amounts of apples requires a robust juicer. Many domestic kitchen types are under-powered and have a relatively short life-span, so may not be particularly good value for the outlay.... Loads of threads on juicers (wines at home forum, per eg) and, I daresay, u-toob clips.

 

[Nakedapiarist]

I'd go for a commercial cider yeast too, wild yeast can be amazing - when they work You could always split the batch and if the wild approach works, save some of the yeast for the next year. I do use wild yeasts for brewing ( from elderflowers, grapes, sourdough culture and the like ) but I prepare a small starter batch, try it and if I think it's ok use it to pitch into the main brew.

I have tried using juicer - way too much work ( mostly in emptying the pulp every few apples ). I've got a nasty looking T bar blade that does into an electric drill and a small press. If you have the freezer space and don't want to buy pressing equipment, freezing an thawing your fruit will make juice extraction easier.

I chuck in some unbletted medlars to add more tannin to my juice - I've planted a couple of cider apple trees but they're only a couple of years old and ten apples doesn't go far.

Adding honey - to make Cyser - is worth considering.

 

[dclewis]

I had a go with wild yeast last year and added the twist of keeving too.

To start you need to know your juice's ph so you can kill off the bacteria and some of the nasty wild yeasts using metabisulphate but without totally sterilising it and then you have to have the enzyme and calcium carbinate to bind up most of the natural yeast nurtients so that your fermaentation is long and very slow and then time your bottling right so there are still residual juice sugars left in the cider so its not bone dry at the end, whilst also getting not too explosive bottle conditioning.

Adds a bit of interest to the process, a lot of which will come with more practice I'm sure. The taste wasn't too bad either for a first attempt at the method.

 

[For want of a better word]

My trials with wild yeast have produced some very good batches of honey~cider vinegar

In one of Patersons's pretty dark 250ml long bottles and a very well designed label... retails for anything up to a fiver... in the poshest of our deli outlets!!!

Yeghes da