Belgian Yeast in Cider?

I did a quick search and couldn't find much on this topic. Has anyone made cider with Belgian yeast? I live in Italy and Midwest tends to send me a packet of dry yeast just in case the liquid yeast they send me doesn't make it - gotta love those guys. My Belgian liquid yeast survived the trip just fine, so I'm thinking about throwing this dry Belgian yeast (Safbrew T-58) in a cider. Any advice?

Thanks!

I did a small test batch that tasted really good before aging so i split it into a starter for a full 5g batch and a 2g belgian graff that I figured would be interesting after having a Unibroue Ephemere.

I start at 1.07 OG and usually ferment with wild yeast at cooler temps, but for the big batch of Belgian I kept it pretty warm to see how it turns out with more Belgian character.

While I said it tasted good green, did have some pretty funky days along the way, so it'll be interesting to see how it is in 6-9 months.

My advice then is go warmer and be patient, but do it.

I had a commercial example that was fermented with belgian yeast and bottled with maple syrup. It was fantastic. Can't recall the brand now, will try to look it up later when I'm home from work.

I used T-58 in a cider a few years ago and everybody loved it, but then who doesn't love free cider? It does make a very good cider, go for it. Nottingham also makes a good cider.
I assume you'll be using local apple juice, try to get several varieties of apples in there. I use crabapples and grannysmiths from my trees, and my neighbor donated red and golden delicious from his trees.

From what I understand yeast won't impart that much flavor to the profile of a cider. I Would go for it.

Beezy said:

From what I understand yeast won't impart that much flavor to the profile of a cider. I Would go for it.

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Not true at all. The cider I tried definitely tasted had the "belgian yeast taste." It was merely combined with an apple flavor base instead of a malt flavor base.

corwin3083 said:

Not true at all. The cider I tried definitely tasted had the "belgian yeast taste." It was merely combined with an apple flavor base instead of a malt flavor base.

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Anyway I'd still go for it. A guy at the club always uses saison yeast for ciders.

Beezy said:

Anyway I'd still go for it. A guy at the club always uses saison yeast for ciders.

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I'm pretty sure that you could ferment just about anything with belgian yeast and it would be delicious.

corwin3083 said:

I'm pretty sure that you could ferment just about anything with belgian yeast and it would be delicious.

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Well that's a matter of taste. I happen to hate the combo of Belgian yeast and tons of hops. I think it clashes.

corkybstewart said:

I assume you'll be using local apple juice, try to get several varieties of apples in there. I use crabapples and grannysmiths from my trees, and my neighbor donated red and golden delicious from his trees.

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Unfortunately, I'm making my ciders with regular commercial apple juice. I'm currently stationed in Naples, Italy, and I haven't found a local cidery. I went to a "sagra di mela" (apple festival) in hopes of finding a good source of apple cider for brewing and to buy 5 gal would have been cost-prohibitive. Also, their sanitation practices didn't blow my skirt up. I bought 1L of cider from one stand, and the guy looked around for a bottle to put it in, found his used water bottle he had drank a liter of water out of, took the top off, shook it around, and filled it up with a liter of cider for me. He spoke mostly Neapolitan, so I couldn't stop him or protest, so I just took it anyway.

I'm new to ciders (two batches bottled and drinking, and two batches in secondary). Based on my lack of finding local stuff and my reading of this forum, I'm just sticking to commercial juices with the minimum amount of additives.

corwin3083 said:

I had a commercial example that was fermented with belgian yeast and bottled with maple syrup....

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Crispin. Everything they make is amazing. I wanted to make a Belgian cider, but after I've tasted theirs, I don't know if I'm going to. Theirs is just too good.

I just went to the Crispin/ Fox Barrel Cidery this past weekend with the family. They have a fantastic line of ciders and perrys. They run the gamut from sweet to very dry English style pub cans. The English style is made in England and shipped here for packaging. A good accessible example of English cider. A cider called Stagger Lee was aged in Rye Whiskey barrels. The scent of the whiskey is present but very smoothed over by the cider, very tasty. The Head cider maker, Bruce sat down with us and brought out a special project that he was working on. Definitely one of the best ciders I've ever tasted. The Saint is Belgian yeast/ maple syrup cider and was one of the best they made. Try the sake yeast cider too. They said they are going to be nationally available through BevMo and Whole Foods.

Also forgot to mention that they recommend swirling the bottle to evenly mix the yeast into the cider to bring the Belgian yeast profile out. You can definitely taste it and it works really well.

wyeast 3711 is my cider yeast. I've used notty, WL cider yeast, and Lalvin 1118, and nothing leaves my ciders as good as 3711. The Notty was ok, but took a year to condition, and the other two left little apple flavor. 3711 will ferment the daylights out of anything, and it surprisingly leaves my ciders with a ton of apple flavor. I originally used it to get a bit of a spicy saison taste, but it doesn't work with cider for some reason. I've fermented in the 90's, and it just doesn't give the yeast flavors that you would get with a saison.

I tried using white labs WLP545 (Belgian strong ale) for my second cider attempt. A week and a half later, I check it and it smelled totally horrid, like a mixture of sulfur and tannin. Frantically looking it up, I figured it MIGHT be okay, so I let it finish fermenting and bottled it in champagne bottles with priming sugar. I'm gonna give it at least 3-4 months before I touch those bottles again, but my hopes aren't high.

It should be fine. It might take longer to condition out since you bottled after such a short primary. My cider with 3711 was horrendous. After 3 months primary, I bottled and it tastes great. My ciders always stink during fermentation, but a nice 6 to 8 week primary always make things better.

The primary was actually about 3 weeks. It's been about a month and a half since I bottled it, and upon opening one of my mini tester bottles, it's tasting much better. Still got a bit of that rank funk in it, but it's definitely mellowing. Might stick with hefe yeast however; my friends and I do prefer the sweeter ciders, and the first hefecider I made turned out amazing.

Double post!

twgardner2 said:

I bought 1L of cider from one stand, and the guy looked around for a bottle to put it in, found his used water bottle he had drank a liter of water out of, took the top off, shook it around, and filled it up with a liter of cider for me. He spoke mostly Neapolitan, so I couldn't stop him or protest, so I just took it anyway.

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This. That is extremely Neopolitan, I just had to laugh because thats exactly how it would go down. When I lived out in Licola I just ordered everything offline, could find a damn thing local even though everyone makes there own wine/cheese/Liquor.(I was doing beer only att)

One good thing I did leave Italy with was a good Lemoncello Recipe from my land lord though:rockin: