Hi all, I had no idea where else to post this other than here. I think I may have a strain of mutated superyeast straight from a nuclear reactor. :rockin:
I was fairly new to homebrewing a year or two ago, and got into making some cider (I live near an orchard, why not?). I took a trip to my LHB store and asked for the best yeast to ferment a cider with. I was given a package of no-name, dodgy looking yeast (I think the package is around 100g). All it says on it is 'Standard Wine Yeast' (what the hell does standard mean?), so I took it home and got started.
Being a noob, I never thought much of it until I came to these forums last year. I've seen people with stuck fermentations, dead yeast, pitching starters and getting rhino farts - none of the problems I have had with this yeast. This yeast tears through anything. Kind of like using a samurai sword on a stick of butter. It has fermented everything and anything (except beer, I've never brewed a beer), so more accurately a whole bunch of wines/ciders/meads.
Now, I have fermented a few batches of hard lemonade, using a few different methods. I used the juice of around 40 lemons + some peel in one, lemon concentrate in the other and bottled lemon juice in the last. In each I pitched my yeast dry, no starter into an extremely acidic environment. NOT A PROBLEM. Airlock activity within 6 hours. The bottled lemon juice had sorbate in it, and still, not a problem.
I've had extremely high gravity meads, pitched dry, same story. I've pitched it in near boiling juice (one of my first ciders, I simmered the juice then dumped everything in as soon as I poured it in the carboy - D'OH). At the moment I have a 1 gal cider going, I wanted to cold crash it for some residual sweetness (I'm experimenting with burnt sugars and honeys). Dear lord, you think that would be an easy thing to do. I have it in a fridge set to the lowest temperature it can go, still with airlock activity (I know the difference between residual CO2 coming out of solution and fermentation, there are still bubbles coming up the sides of the container, as well as it still being cloudy).
So.. What the hell do I have? What is this superyeast? As a comparison I did a test with some EC-1118 and this yeast. EC-1118 took at least half a day if not more WITH nutrient to get started.
I don't know how much conversation this will provide, but man, I needed to share this with someone.
But more importantly, who wants some? :rockin:
I was fairly new to homebrewing a year or two ago, and got into making some cider (I live near an orchard, why not?). I took a trip to my LHB store and asked for the best yeast to ferment a cider with. I was given a package of no-name, dodgy looking yeast (I think the package is around 100g). All it says on it is 'Standard Wine Yeast' (what the hell does standard mean?), so I took it home and got started.
Being a noob, I never thought much of it until I came to these forums last year. I've seen people with stuck fermentations, dead yeast, pitching starters and getting rhino farts - none of the problems I have had with this yeast. This yeast tears through anything. Kind of like using a samurai sword on a stick of butter. It has fermented everything and anything (except beer, I've never brewed a beer), so more accurately a whole bunch of wines/ciders/meads.
Now, I have fermented a few batches of hard lemonade, using a few different methods. I used the juice of around 40 lemons + some peel in one, lemon concentrate in the other and bottled lemon juice in the last. In each I pitched my yeast dry, no starter into an extremely acidic environment. NOT A PROBLEM. Airlock activity within 6 hours. The bottled lemon juice had sorbate in it, and still, not a problem.
I've had extremely high gravity meads, pitched dry, same story. I've pitched it in near boiling juice (one of my first ciders, I simmered the juice then dumped everything in as soon as I poured it in the carboy - D'OH). At the moment I have a 1 gal cider going, I wanted to cold crash it for some residual sweetness (I'm experimenting with burnt sugars and honeys). Dear lord, you think that would be an easy thing to do. I have it in a fridge set to the lowest temperature it can go, still with airlock activity (I know the difference between residual CO2 coming out of solution and fermentation, there are still bubbles coming up the sides of the container, as well as it still being cloudy).
So.. What the hell do I have? What is this superyeast? As a comparison I did a test with some EC-1118 and this yeast. EC-1118 took at least half a day if not more WITH nutrient to get started.
I don't know how much conversation this will provide, but man, I needed to share this with someone.
But more importantly, who wants some? :rockin:
