Daze

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For those of you who have not been following some of my other threads I have been working with some domesticated wild yeast. After reading a post I made about creating a cider specific yeast Joe_in_CT was nice enough to offer me some "wild" yeast he had washed from a keeved cider he had made. So I happily excepted his offer and he sent me some. I want to use this yeast to make lots of different ciders so I created a starter bottle by sterilizing a corona bottle, adding 100% apple juice form a juicy juice, juice box and poring the wild yeast solution in on top and fitting it with an air lock. This was over a month ago and I have pored some of the starter in to a gallon of cider I started as well as a citrus wine cooler I started. Each time I used some of the yeast I toped the bottle up with another box of Juicy juice apple. About one week ago my starter cleared and left me with my yeast at the bottom and a beautiful amber liquid on the top. Today I started a fresh bottle with fresh juice, but before I swirled the original starter to suspend the yeast I pored most of the liquid off the top in to a glass. When I tasted it I was shocked to find it tasted Just like Hornsby's crisp apple with out the bubbles!! I cant weight to see how the ciders I am making turn out that are using better juice

Joe_in_CT

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Hi Daze,

You might work on finding a place to plant apple trees ...

I used one of the "sister" jars of yeast for a Whole Foods gallon of juice. I racked it to slow the fermentation. Even in my attic, in Connecticut, it was still too active IMO.

Daze

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good news is my father lives in a 100 year old macintosh apple orchard so i will tons of cider come next fall


As to the speed, I am not surprised. The keeved cider you did was slow because of a lack of nutrient created by the process, however the yeast probably adapted some making them even more effective in an environment with nutrient. Also coming from an orchard they were already highly effective apple eating machines. What I like about the domesticated wild yeast is the mild yeast flavor, in fact I really couldn't even taste any yeast at all which impressed me considering it just cleared.

DWavs

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Sounds yummy!

Joe_in_CT

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Macintosh apples must be lacking something.

They don't seem to be associated with hard cider very often...

Daze

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I think it is the tartness. Macs have a lot of acid even after the first hard frost, and if you are not willing to backsweeten I could see where the cider would be to tart. My first cider ever was with macs, I back sweetened with brown sugar and it was fantastic!!! MY dad also has carb apples, yellow transparent apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries and apricots so I have no shortage of fruit options

Joe_in_CT

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I would try to get some scions for some cider varieties and do some grafting...