Results from juice, yeast and sugar experiments

Thanks for the info Kevin. You definitely deserve a lot of praise for everything you do on this forum. I bought the s-23 prior to finding your post... my newest batch that I started Monday is using nottingham. I'm going to use your method of rack-crash-rack and hope that is enough. I dont have keg equipment yet. But I am gradually getting swing cap bottles and plan to use them once fermentation is complete. Thanks again

CvilleKevin said:

wCarter - good luck with the US05 batch. Tinfoil and holes will work OK while the cider is fermenting hard. Once it slows down, I'd recommend getting a new bung - it will be worth the 65 cents or whatever your LHBS charges. Bungs can sometimes have off flavors - there was a batch of fermenthaus bungs out a couple years ago that were really obnoxious smelling and the smell would transfer. FH seems to have got that straightened out recently so if you have a new bung, you should be OK.

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I went down and picked up a few bungs just be safe in the future. I got a little worried about the tinfoil, i took it off and the underside turned black. My thoughts are that the aluminum reacted to the oxegyn based sanitizer i use.

Think the juice will still be ok?

I also moved the juice to a different container. The bungs i bought at the store didnt smell but i dont want to take the chance.

thanks for the feedback

Damn, apart from an amazing, informative post, you my friend (the OP, Kevin) have what I'd call:

An APPLE problem! (just see my sig )

For my next cider I'll reread, ingest, say thanks, and drink to your health!

Kevin,

When you rack, do you backfill it with anything to fill in the extra space in the bottle? I am about ready to rack a 1 gallon batch, and am not quite sure what to do. In your pictures on page 15, you show a batch that you racked, crashed and then racked again... and it seems to be as full as the 3 carboys next to it? Shouldn't it be less full after crashing it?

jrss13 - when I rack, I usually fill the headspace with CO2. Sometimes for test batches I skip this step if I dont care about it oxidizing a little bit. Dont worry if you dont have CO2 - I skipped this step for years and nothing horrible ever happened, it just wont keep as well.

I use a converted keg charger, which is in that same picture on p15. One 16oz CO2 cartridge holds about twice as much CO2 as a big can of wine conditioner. If you are doing gallon batches, a can of wine conditioner will last a long time.

In the pic on pg15, both carboys on the left have been racked. The two on the right are still fermenting. They are a little more full than the ones on the left

Thanks for the info Kevin. I didn't realize id need a wine conditioner. Perhaps i should make something similar to what you use. I have a 1 gallon carboy going with cider. A 6 gallon carboy going with cider. A 1 gallon carboy going with mead and 1 gallon carboy going with welchs grape juice wine for curiosity/fun. I didn't plan to use any conditioner or co2... but I should probably look into it huh?

You can skip the wine conditioner if you are going to be drinking this in the next few months. If you want it to last more than 6-9 months without chemicals, then it helps to keep contact with air to a minimum.

Sounds good. Thanks. I'll have to look around for a keg charger. I assume you blast the co2 in while the bung is in... and just shoot it through the opening? Would it be wise to do the same in swing cap bottles too... or just while aging in carboys?

Sorry for all the questions.

I add the CO2 after racking, before putting the new bung on the carboy. I've never tried to do it to bottles, as that is a much smaller proportion of air to cider.

Dog House Brew said:

Hey CK,

I made my 14 gallons, boosted with dextrose ans honey, OG was 1.068. Pitched 3, 11g sachetes of S-04. It has been 2 weeks almost and it is only at 1.022. It has been fermenting around mid 60's. When I checked the gravity it was at 67 degrees, so that should be about the right temp. Never used 04 before, the sample tasted fantastic. Do you think it will go down some more? What should I do? No activity in the airlock, but that doesn't mean there isn't activity. Thoughts?

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CvilleKevin
You know your SO-4 yeast and cider for sure. I transfered it to secondary today and it was @ 1.002. It fermented mostly in the mid 50's. I ramped the temp up to 70 a few weeks ago and it took off and finished pretty quick. Temps dropped to the mid 50's again with the weather. Tastes great! No doubt the best combo of cider I've made. Love the S-04. Do you think I can just bottle as usual with some dextrose, or should I use a little bottling yeast? I want to make half of it carbed and the rest still. Would it be OK to bottle the still as is? Thanks again for all your input. It is awesome how much info is in this thread. :rockin:

DHB - cheers! I dont bottle carbonate. Personally, at 1.002 I'd cold crash it now while it still has some of the original apple sugar and then either keg it or bottle it flat or hit craigslist and ebay to find a keg.

If you want to bottle carbonate and like the way it tastes now, I'd recommend searching the forum for "bottle pasteurization" which looks to me like the most simple and reliable way of getting a sweet or semi-sweet bottle carbed cider without the risk of bottle bombs.

If you like it drier and havent crashed it, you could probably just bottle it and use the existing yeast and residual sugar. The SO4 will go right down to 1.000 and maybe a little lower, depending on your juice. It will be like a dry sparkling white wine with some apple finish. It will still have some residual apple taste, but probably not nearly as much as now.

If you backsweeten, even for priming, I'd recommend a mix of 2/3 turbinado and 1/3 dextrose or original juice over just dextrose. Dextrose ferments out a little beery tasting, which works great for beer and OK with cider and US05 but not so much with S04 and Nottingham.

Kevin:

I just wanted to register to thank you for this amazing post. As a direct result of it, my second batch of cider is about a hundred times better than my first! We've been getting apples from Henley's Orchard (usually Stayman/Winesap/Rome), but was interested to know if you are aware of any local sources for heirloom cider varieties. Next year, I'm making a lot more, although I'm not sure I can keep up with you!

Henley's has good apples. They're probably you're best bet in terms of variety of cider apples, and this was a good year. This fall I helped some friends press apples from Henleys and got 10 gal for myself. The mix I did was Cameo, Fuji, McIntosh, Gala, Jonathan, Grimes Golden, Winesap, and Granny Smith. We also used some Rome and York. It came out great.

You can get pretty much anything you want for a great cider mix at Henleys if you are willing to pay the regular bushel price, but that is steep. They usually have a lot of good #2 cider apples, which are very reasonable if you buy a truckload. We just missed being able to get Northern Spy #2s and we were too early for Black Twigs, which are both really good. The BTs are considered vintage. I heard someone else had Albemarle Pippin #2s, but I did not pursue it as I had no extra capacity at the time.

I'm going on my last run of the season to Showalters tomorrow. The mix will be Stayman, York and Empire. Those are commercial crop apples but are vintage cider apples as far as Central Virginia is concerned. I went to a cider workshop that made a mix from Grimes Golden, Albemarle Pippen and Hewes Crab, which is a sorta local 'vintage' recipe. It was great stuff, but I think the juice I get from Showalters is just as good.

You might want to check with Vintage Virginia - they have great juice. I suspect they will be diverting it all to their Cider Works next year but if they have a real bumper crop and its more than they can ferment, that could be good for local home cider.

Getting new juice tomorrow, so I have to make room. These 6 batches are from the November 24 pressing - Stayman and Pink Lady. Two are already in kegs, the 3068 batch and a malt cider. The malt cider is sortofa lazy man's Graff. 3lbs of muntons amber malt in the cider and US05. This came out a lot better than my previous malt cider attempts. It has a nice body and this malt taste works a lot better with the sour apple finish. The 3068 is reliably tasty. I made this batch with no sugar.



Its been really cold. Two batches arent ready to crash yet, even though its been seven weeks. You can see they are the ones a little lighter i in color. Both of those batches have honey added. The one with S04 is almost ready, the one with 3638 can probably go a couple more weeks.

The other four batches have been crashed and racked to secondaries. I added raspberries on two of these (the two in the middle) S04 and 1010 yeast, both with no sugar. They both taste great. The S04 tastes more like a raspberry wine. I realy like the 1010 with the raspberry. I still think my favorite to use with raspberry so far is the one I made the previous round with US05 and 2lbs turbinado.

The 2001 with no sugar batch on the far left came out pretty good. Its still a little stinky but has a lot of apple taste. The US05 +2lbs turbinado batch on the far right tastes great.

Of the 15 test batches I did this last round, I liked the Ritchie's Ale and Youngs Ale the best. Most of the others were poor to middlin, although some might improve with age

Showalters is doing their last pressing of the season tomorrow - Staymans Yorks and Empires. I'm planning on getting about 65 gallons for myself and another 60 for friends. I'm not sure where I'm going to put it all...

CvilleKevin said:

I'm going on my last run of the season to Showalters tomorrow. The mix will be Stayman, York and Empire. Those are commercial crop apples but are vintage cider apples as far as Central Virginia is concerned.

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There is a lady at the local farmer's market who just called me and said she can get more juice for this weekend. She thought that the cider press was done for the season, but they told her that they had "one more big order" so she could get one last batch. She's bringing 6 gallons to Richmond Saturday for me. I really wonder if you are the last "big order" and she is getting it from Showalters. I'll ask her Saturday.

Mike - the juice might be coming from Showalters, but I'm not the big order. They usually press close to 1000 gallons in a day. I got 122 gallons, which is starting to be a significant percentage, but not the main one. I think it was one of their distributors that was the main order - hopefully their Richmond distributor, because it was some good juice today.

How might I get in contact with said Richmond distributer?

I dont know for sure whether Showalter's distributes to Richmond or not. Their Central Va distributor is Cavalier Produce in Charlottesville. You might want to give them a call to see how far East they go or you could call the orchard to see if they have a distributor in Richmond. The juice going to the stores will have some yellow delicious, because its table juice, but there is relatively little YD in this batch. They had a few bins of YD that they were adding later, but most of the bins were Stayman, York and Empire.

Here’s the last batch of juice for the season. Its my favorite mix so far this season. It’s the same mix of apples (Stayman, Empire, York) that I got on Oct 8. That was the start of the harvest for those apples. The juice had great midrange flavor, but not a lot of sweetness up front. OG was 1.054.

Three months later, same apples, but they were on the tree longer and in cold storage for a couple months. Same great flavor and much sweeter. There is a lot of skin in the taste, like the first part of biting into an apple.

The two carboys on either end are from the last batch – still fermenting after 7 weeks. The 7 carboys in the middle are all new. The raw juice was fairly light in color – almost as light as the fermenting batches. I’ve also got a wild yeast keg batch that is on my back porch. It gets real cold there but doesn’t freeze – at least not so far – so 8 new keg batches total.



OG of the raw juice ranged from 1.064 to 1.068 , ten to fourteen points higher than a few months ago.

The variability in sg is because when I got to the press they were just starting up. Since I had to get back to town, I didnt want to wait for them to press and mix all the good cider apples, so I started filling my carboys after a bin (22bushels) of Stayman and another bin of mixed Empires and Yorks were pressed. While I was filling, they pressed a third bin that was a mix Empires and Yorks and started on another bin of Staymans after that. I’m not sure which bin or bins were sweeter and I cant really tell the difference in taste, but the hydro sees a difference.

Since the SG was so high, I only added sugar to two of the keg batches. I’m using US05 on both of those, one of which I plan to add raspberries before I crash it. I only used 12 ounces – a very small bump for the US05. I added a pound and a half of orange blossom honey to another batch with Wyeast 3333. Everything else is no sugar, just yeast. Wyeast 3068 and 3056. SO4 and Nottingham.

The test batches this round are WLP005, WLP320, WLP500, WLP565, Wyeast1099, Wyeast1275 and Wyeast1968. Three gallons of each. One with no sugar, One with 1.5oz turbinado, 0.75oz dextrose, One with 3oz Sage honey, except 320 which got orange blossom honey. 24 hours later, the keg batches and Wyeast test batches have all started. The White Labs batches haven’t started yet. All of the 1275 batches needed blowoff tubes.

I just crashed a wild yeast gallon batch that I had on my back porch from the Nov 24 pressing. It’s OK, but I wish I had crashed it a week ago. Three weeks ago it was good and appley but still too sweet. SWMBO liked it. I was going to check it again last week but forgot. It’s still at 1.022 but it picked up this taste that is like a sour from a slightly unripe peach, like a peach cider. If I had made it from peaches I’d probably be happy, but to me it conflicts with the apple taste. SWMBO liked it tho, said it was tangy. Maybe it will grow on me. Must be some sort of fruit acid that the wild yeast releases.

This same sour peach taste was a lot of the UK yeast gallon batches that I did last round. I think it probably came from the wild yeast, since it’s the same taste and I didn’t sulfite the test batches. However I didn’t get any of that taste in the keg batches – probably because in all of those batches I was using yeasts that I know either get along pretty good with the wild yeast (the wheat yeasts) or overwhelm them (the ale yeasts). The UK ales mostly were OK - Richie, Youngs, Gervin and Brupaks were the ones I liked. The Morgans Ale had the peach sour as did all of the lager yeasts. The Youngs lager was the least objectionable of the lagers. The Youngs cider got drier than I wanted. It went all the way to 0.998 It doesn’t have the peach sour and has some decent apple in the finish so it might be OK in a few months.

Kevin,

A few weeks ago I made a batch with Store bought Simply Apple Juice. I cold crashed it at 1.024. I has stayed at room temp since then and is still stable but still seems like it is missing some apple flavor. Since this is stable can I back sweeten with a can of frozen apple juice without having to stabilize this?

On a side note when I hear you talk about the cider you get from the press my mouth just waters. I have 2 presses near me, about 45 min away unfortunatly they close early to mid november and dont open back up til about may, so Im stuck with store bought juices now. Are there any store bought juices you have used that seemed all right?

Thanks to this thread you have helped me with several questions Ive asked you over the past 4-5 months. My summer ciders turned out really well. Cheers!

wcarter - going above 1.024 would be kinda risky. Personally, I'd take the risk over the chemical taste. Definitely keep an eye on it to make sure it doesnt start back up and cold crash again if you need to

You can get good store bought juice, but probably not at the super market. I bought the pasteurized version of Showalter's juice at a local produce store for a couple years before I started going to the orchard. If you have some good produce stores, they may have some good local juice. Some orchards are finding it hard to compete with the Chinese for cheap bulk juice and focus instead on finding outlets where customers will pay a premium for better quality juice.

Other than getting Showalters from C-ville Market, the best store bought juice I used was from Whole Foods, but even that was not as good as a mediocre fruit stand batch.

It turned out that her last batch is labeled as from Morris Orchard. The OG is 1.061, which is the highest of any apples I've had this year. I'm using S-04 for the first time. I think the blend is Fuji, Winesap & Rome. I like the taste of the juice even better than the stuff I've got from Henley and I didn't have to press it! It was even cheaper too, so fingers crossed.

I wound up just going to whole foods to get some more juice. I have 3 batches going now. 1 batch with Notty which has been very good to me, 1 batch I did with wyeast 3068, and I did a batch with Brett B. Kind of curious how the brett will act in cider but my guess is that it will be different for sure, but some of the fruity esters might pair well with the cider.
Ill report back in a few weeks.

The batch I did with Us-05 that was at 1.024 has started back up again when I added the frozen juice to sweeten it up. I have since then re racked it, cold crashed and re-racked again. I just did this today so will see what happens. Its now down to 1.018 and since I added the concentrate it tastes a lot more appley.

Its funny but before I started to read this thread I used to buy and drink a lot of cider with sorbate in it and couldnt taste the difference. Just for the hell of it I put a flake of sorbate on my tongue and it was horrible. I then bought a gallon of the cider with sorbate in it and did a side by side with one without sorbate and could right away tell the difference.

Kevin:

You think it would be worth while to culture some yeast from a bottle of JKS scrumpy? I know its a wild yeast strain and was just curious if there would be a any downfalls to doing this? I ask cause my wife , my best friend, and I typically drink about 15-20 bottles of this a month. Could try to get dregs from like 6-8 bottles and slowly step it up. what do you think? How high of an Og should i be looking at for starter 1.030? How big of a starter do I need to make?

By the way my batch with us-05 and added juice was mighty tasty. Not sure how long it was going to be stable for so decided to have friends over and the gallon went that night.

The Notty batch is moving along pretty well. Thinking a few more days and will check fg.

The Brett B batch is moving very slowly. It took almost 2 days to show signs of active fermentation. Airlock smells have been very interesting. Kind of has a roasted bacon/mango smell.

wcarter - I'm pretty sure that JKS uses natural yeast for the main fermentation and then uses champagne yeast for carbonation after the natural yeast is finished. They also ferment at lager temps (which are good for natural yeast) over a period of many months. You might get some of the wild yeast from using trub from a few bottles, but I suspect it would be mostly champagne yeast.

The closest batch I've tasted to JKS was made by some friends before the holidays. They added 2 lbs of brown sugar to fresh unpasteurized juice -- nothing else, and used the WLP300 wheat yeast. The wheat yeasts ferment pretty slow, which gives the wild yeast a bit of a chance to take hold and add some flavor before the wheat yeast takes over - and wheat yeast is easier to manage than a wild yeast batch. It took about 3 or so weeks to drop down to 1.020, at which point they crashed it. The end result was very similar to a JKS - it had a little lighter taste than JKS, which I liked, and definitely in the same style.

If you dont have access to unpasteurized juice, some of that brett batch might work to give you some of the wild yeast flavor. maybe mix a small bit of that batch with one of your other batches to see how it tastes.

I'm on my 4th batch of cider... started with two different 1 gallon batches using S-23, then switched to a 6 gallon batch using nottingham, and now I've got another 6 gallon batch going using S-04. The S-04 has a lot more apple flavor than the nottingham had at the same SG. I crashed the nottingham at 1.014 and got it stabilized. I then let it sit for a couple days and primed it and bottled it. It has been 2.5 weeks and my plastic carb tester bottle hasn't firmed up much. I'm thinking of stopping the fermentation on the S-23 sooner on this one... to see if that helps carb it up more. It is currently at 1.018 and tastes fantastic. If I prime it and bottle, once the bottles are firm enough... can I move to the fridge without risk of bottle bombs? Basically, is there any chance that the fermentation will continue once they are bottled and in the fridge?

Hi jrss13 - In general, I dont think you can rely on the fridge to completely stop the S-23 particularly with that high a gravity. Since its a lager yeast, its really tough to get it to stop fermenting. Usually I've had to crash the s23 batches twice to get them to stop fermenting. However, it does seem to be easier to get gallon batches to stop. A few years ago I crashed a gallon of S23, just did one crash, and saved a liter at room temp till the following September - but I might have just got lucky.

If you crash at a high enough sg, you dont need to prime it - the sugar in the juice will give you the carb, but if you cold crash it and you get all the yeast out, you are not going to see much carbonation. Maybe a little bit from MLF. So you probably wont get any carbonation from that Nottingham batch, or from the S04 if you cold crash it. The S-23 is more likely to keep going after a single crash.

If you want to bottle carb, you are probably better off with a single rack instead of cold crashing. That will get rid of most, but not all of the yeast. Then you can either pasteurize the bottles after the test bottle firms up (most reliable), or if you have fridge space and you are using ale yeast, you can put them in the fridge when they reach the desired carbonation level. The ale yeasts will go dormant in the fridge, the lager yeasts will just slow down.

Kevin,

Thanks for the response. I messed up a little in my post (figures...as I was drinking some Pilsner I bottled a few weeks back)... anyways. The S-23 batches are long gone at this point, and I currently have the S-04 batch that I am contemplating what to do with. I want it fairly sweet, and I want it carbonated... but at the same time I want to get rid of the yeast taste. I am not all that concerned with it being clear. Anyways, I did rack it and crash it yesterday, so it has been in my fridge for about 30 hours or so. I am not really seeing too much yeast on the bottom of the carboy at this point.

If I read your post correctly, I should probably pull it out of the fridge soon so I don't drop out too much of my yeast? Would you recommend letting it sit at room temp for a few days before bottling?

jrss13 - if you want it to bottle carb, then yes, you dont want all the yeast to drop out, so take it out of the fridge soon. I'd bottle it straight away and not let it set at all if you want to get a bottle carb. Just make sure you get them back in the fridge when the test bottle starts to firm up. My experience with S04 is that it stops fairly reliably if you cold crash it, although you might get a little bit of carb from MLF if you are lucky. It probably depends somewhat on the juice. good luck.

Here is one I tried.3 gallons fresh cider with 2 cans Apple juice concentrate mixed via instructions.2 cups of table sugar and red star montrachet(sp) yeast. Well gotta say.. so. Far it tastes kinda rancid. I have bottled it. Each week I try some and it has started to get slightly better.

I finished bottling all but 1 of the last 21 one gallon experimental batches from the last batch of juice last week. The juice was pressed on Jan 13th and is a mix of 50 percent Stayman, 25 percent York, 25 percent Empire. OG 1.068, pH 3.9, no k-meta

I crashed most of these three weeks later. I was out of bottles so they sat in the fridge for a while. The yeasts were WLP005, WLP320, WLP500, WLP565, Wyeast 1099, Wyeast 1275, and Wyeast 1968. For each yeast strain, I did one batch with no sugar, one with 2oz turbinado/dextrose mix per gallon and one with 3oz honey. I didnt add much sugar/honey because the OG was so high - these were late season apples.

Most of these came out pretty good, although a little on the dry side for my taste. I should have checked them earlier. The ones that I bumped with a bit of sugar came out the best, mainly because there was still some residual sweetness left when I crashed them.

Of the batches with sugar added, all but the WLP565 were very drinkable. The 565 might have been better if I caught it earlier, but by three weeks it was pretty much flavorless. The WLP005, WLP500 and Wyeast 1099 had the most residual sugar and tasted great. The WLP320 was a little drier. The 1275 was dry (1.000) but tasted very good and the 1968 is so-so

Of the batches with no sugar, the WLP005, WLP500 and Wyeast 1099 tasted the best. All of the rest were quite dry. Of the dry batches the 1275 was most drinkable. The 1275 seems to maintain a lot of flavor when the sugar is gone, so if you like em dry, I'd recommend 1275.

Of the batches with honey, the WLP005 and WLP320 tasted the best. The others were mostly drinkable but probably not worth repeating. And for some reason the WLP500 batch is still chugging along although its about ready to crash. It was way slower than the rest.

Next Wednesday I'm having some folks over to do a tasting of these and some previous batches, so I'll have a broader evaluation than just my own bottling notes. If any of you are close to Charlottesville and want to drop by for some cider, PM me.

WLP005 is awesome for ciders, I seem to go back to it alot, although thoes belgian yeasts just taste strange for my tastes, but I generally do my ciders to dry.

You should try WLP023, works awesome too.

WLP023 was one that I wanted to try for this last round of experimental batches, but I didnt get my act together early enough to order it before the pressing and the LHBS was out of it. There are still about a dozen yeasts that I want to try out next year. So many yeasts, so little time. I've got about a dozen now that I really like and a few more that are promising, so I suppose at some time Im gonna quit with the experimental batches and get back to just doing kegs.

Last Wednesday some friends came over to help evaluate the latest experimental batches. We checked out a couple of previous favorites and then 21 new ciders. Eighteen folks were kind enough fill out rating sheets and I got some great feedback. Three months in the bottle was real good for the UK yeasts (as well as Morgans, which is from Beenleigh, Australia, via a UK store). They all got noticeably better from the last time I tasted them.

The 3333 batch from October picked up a secondary fermentation. It didn’t break the bottle, but it had a strong carb and tasted like it had dropped at least 4 points in the bottle. It was the first one we tasted. All the other bottles were either completely still or a very tiny bit of carbonation, having been bottled from 2 weeks to almost 6 months ago. I put all the rest of my 3333 bottles in the fridge just in case this is a problem with that yeast not staying stable after the crash.

The ciders were mostly from the last two pressings and three from an earlier pressing:
Jan 13th 2009: 50:% Stayman, 25% York and 25% Empire. OG 1.066 Bottled March 2010
Nov 24th 2009: 50% Stayman and 50% Pink Lady.. OG 1.060. Bottled Dec 2009
Oct 8th 2009: 50% Stayman, 25% York and 25% Empire. OG 1.054 Bottled October 2009

Here are the ciders with average score ( rated 1-10, with 10 highest) and [overall ranking] for the top batches

rank rating Pressing Yeast Additives? final gravity

(6.36) - SYE 10-8-09 Wyeast 3333 Bavarian Wheat yeast no sugar 1.010
(3.14) - SYE 1-13-10 Wyeast 1275: Thames Valley Ale turbinado 1.000
(7.04) - SYE 1-13-10 Wyeast 005 British Ale yeast 3oz sage honey 1.008
(6.39) - SYE 1-13-10 White Labs 500 Trappist Ale Yeast turbinado 1.012
(6.32) - SYE 10-8-09 White Labs 380 Hefeweizen yeast no sugar 1.010
(4.62) - SPL 11-24-09 Enoferm Assmanhaussen wine yeast no sugar 1.005
[9] (7.37) - SPL 11-24-09 Youngs Ale yeast no sugar 1.010
(4.57) - SYE 1-13-10 Wyeast 1275: Thames Valley Ale no sugar 1.000
[5] (7.70) - SYE 10-8-09 Wyeast 3056 Bavarian blend yeast, turbinado 1.012
[7] (7.65) - SPL 11-24-09 Morgan Ale Yeast no sugar 1.008
[8] (7.43) - SYE 1-13-10 White Labs 320 Hefeweizen yeast orange blossom honey 1.004
(6.67) - SPL 11-24-09 Gervin English Ale yeast no sugar 1.008
(6.08) - SYE 1-13-10 White Labs 500 Trappist Ale Yeast no sugar 1.002
[10] (7.36) - SYE 1-13-10 Wyeast 005 British Ale yeast 2.25oz turbinado 1.012
(5.93) - SPL 11-24-09 Lalvin RHST wine yeast no sugar 1.000
[4] (7.86) - SPL 11-24-09 Youngs Lager yeast no sugar 1.010
(6.75) - SYE 1-13-10 White Labs 320 Hefeweizen yeast no sugar 1.002
[2] (8.00) - SPL 11-24-09 Brupaks Ale yeast no sugar 1.012
[6] (7.67) - SPL 11-24-09 Ritchies Real lager yeast no sugar 1.012
[1] (8.25) - SYE 1-13-10 White Labs 005 British Ale yeast no sugar 1.010
[3] (8.00) - SPL 11-24-09 Ritchies Real ale yeast no sugar 1.010

Take those last couple scores with a grain of salt, as these were the last ciders of the evening, although the WLP005 was very good as was the Brupaks. I see multiple kegs of those two for next season. I thought the Gervins, Youngs Ale and Ritchies Lager were all at least as good as the Ritchies Ale. The Wyeast 3056 makes a great sweet cider. I liked the WLP500 a lot, but not too many agreed with me. Same with the Wyeast 1275 and RHST, both of which make a decent dry cider. Overall, dry ciders don’t get much love, although some people like them a lot and find the other stuff too sweet. The driest of the top 10 ciders was the Morgan Ale at 1.008. That one had a nice sour apple finish.

Right now, what I like the most about the Brupaks, Gervins, Morgan, Ritichie and Young yeasts is that they are all dry yeasts and I have an extra packet of each in my fridge for next season. They have mostly Fall 2011 expiration dates. Hopefully before I run out of these, someone will start distributing them in the US.

Last night I took two bottles from 3333 batches to the local homebrew club tasting. I was curious if they had also carbed in the bottle like the one we tasted last week.

One bottle was from a 3333 batch with honey and the other with turbinado. They both had a nice carb and a good pub cider taste with just enough sweetness and a nice sour apple finish. The carb on both bottles was enough to keep them bubbling through the tasting but not so strong that there was any worry about gushing.

Now I kinda wish I had not put the rest of the 3333 batches in the fridge. I suspect that if I had left them alone they would not have carbed much further because there was not enough nutrient left in the juice.

One of my goals in experimenting with these wheat yeasts was to find some that would be good for bottle conditioning a sweet cider, and it looks like the 3333 might be a good candidate.

Its now been almost 6 months since the 3333 batches were bottled. I'm planning to get some storage containers that can withstand bottles bursting, so next year I plan to repeat the 3333 batches and see (a) how long before the carb is good and (b) can it last a year without any bottles breaking. I have a 3333 keg batch with honey in the primary right now, so I might experiment with bottling some of those right after the crash and see how it goes.

Kevin,

Any updates? My last batch of brett b cider came out mighty fine, i tried my last 22 oz bottle thats aged for a few months and it seems to have picked up a slight carbonation but nothing to worry about. Flavor profile has picked up some pineapple mango style flavors, im assuming thats the brett. The apple flavor still shines through. I think i may have found a winner here.

Only just found this thread
But what a great thread with a wealth of information
I too have some cider under different yeast strains so I can see the difference.
Last fall I got 20 gallons fresh pressed from local farm unpasteurized.
Added my favorite yeast which is white labs English Cider yeast WPL775 which ferments completely dry on 10 gallons. And I used safale 04 and red star Montrachet on 5 gallons each
They are all still in my basement bulk aging.
Being an English man from the West Country originally I am very partial to dry ciders and scrumpy.
Thanks for all you information

Funny you should ask .... This evening some friends are coming over and we're going to check out the last 25 of the experimental batches from last season. These are mostly the "B list" batches - stuff I didnt think was all that when they went into the bottles, but hopefully some have shaped up now that they have been in the bottle for a few months. I'm going to be pretty slammed this week but will try to write up the results in the next few days.



Here's a pic of the last 8 keg batches of the season, shortly before I kegged 6 of them. Two still have a bit of malic acid in the finish so are still aging. The juice is a mix of ~50% Staymans, ~25% York and ~25 % Empire, pressed on Jan 13th. No k-meta. OG ranged from 1.064 to 1.068. From left to right:
- Wild yeast, no sugar. Crashed at 1.020. Tastes pretty good. I left this one in my back porch, which is enclosed, but still gets near freezing during the winter. That seems to have worked out pretty well. The ferment didnt run away like some others did and crashing/racking stopped it dead. Easiest wild yeast keg batch I've done so far (knock on wood)
- US05, 8oz turbinado, 4oz dextrose (just a bit of sugar, cause US05 likes a little sugar bump). Added raspberries right before crashing at 1.004. A little on the dry side but very good. The keg is almost gone
- US05, 8oz turbinado, 4oz dextrose (just a bit of sugar, cause US05 likes a little sugar bump). Crashed at 1.010. Had a bit of MA in the finish, but I kegged it anyway for a party a couple months ago
- Wyeast 3068, no sugar. I crashed this at 1.010, which is lower than I've let the 3068 go before - and a little too low for this yeast IMHO. Its OK, but not as good as previous 3068 batches
- Wyeast 3056, no sugar. Crashed at 1.022. Tastes great. SWMBO and I just finished the keg off last night. I'm pretty sure this yeast is going to take the place of the 3068 for SWMBO's favorite, although hard to say for sure since I let the last batch of 3068 go a little long
- S04, no sugar. crashed at 1.012, has a bit of MA in the finish, so I'm still bulk aging this one.
- Nottingham, no sugar, crashed at 1.012, has a bit of MA in the finish, so I'm still bulk aging this one.
- Wyeast 3333, 2lbs Orange blossom honey, crashed at 1.012. This one was really good. I saved 12 grolsh bottles to see if they would carb up like my last batch with 3333 did. I'm planning to wait another month or two and then drink one a month for the next 12 months (or until they start bursting, whichever comes first). The rest of the keg was quickly dispatched at a party.

I still have several half kegs, plus the two that I havent kegged yet and about 150 or so bottles. So it looks like this might be the first season where I'm able to save enough to make it through to next seaon. Still a little early to say for sure though. Could be a long hot summer.

The B list experimental batches turned out to be a few Bs and mostly Cs and Ds and at least one F.

We only made it through 12 liters, as well as finishing off half a keg of a real tasty batch made from Stayman and Pink Lady apples, 2 lbs of Orange blossom honey, and Wyeast 3638 Bavarian Wheat yeast.

I'd say 2 out of the 12 were pretty decent, another 4 are worth saving because a few people like them a lot, and the other 6 are not worth saving

The experimental batch ciders were from 4 pressings:
Jan 13th 2009: 50:% Stayman, 25% York and 25% Empire. OG 1.066 Bottled March 2010
Nov 24th 2009: 50% Stayman and 50% Pink Lady.. OG 1.060. Bottled Dec 2009
Oct 8th 2009: 50% Stayman, 25% York and 25% Empire. OG 1.054 Bottled October 2009
Sept 9th 2009 Cortland, McIntosh, Gala, Jonanthan, OG 1.050 Bottled October 2009

Eleven folks were kind enough fill out rating sheets and as you can see, most of these scored pretty dismally.

Here are the ciders with average score ( rated 1-10, with 10 highest) and [overall ranking] for the top batches

rank rating Pressing Yeast Additives? final gravity
[2] (6.71) SYE 10-08-09 Wyeast 1010 American Wheat yeast, turbinado 1.012
[ ] (3.7) SYE 1-13-10 WLP565 Belgian Saison yeast, turbinado 0.998
[ ] (4.25) SYE 10-08-09 Wy3942 Belgian Wheat yeast, wildflower honey 1.002
[5] (4.22) CMGJ 9-14-09 Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan, light malt 1.024
[ ] (3.86) SPL 11-24-09 Youngs cider yeast, no sugar 0.998
[4] (5.33) SYE 1-13-10 Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale Yeast, no sugar 1.004
[1] (7.4) SYE 10-08-09 Wy2001 Pilsner Urquell yeast, turbinado 1.010
[3] (5.05) SYE 1-13-10 Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale Yeast, turbinado 1.000
[ ] (5.2) SYE 1-13-10 WLP565 Belgian Saison yeast, sage honey 0.998
[ ] (4.25) SYE 10-08-09 Wyeast 3942 Belgian Wheat yeast, no sugar 1.010
[ ] (5) SPL 11-24-09 Safale K97 German Ale yeast, no sugar 1.000
[6] (5.25) SPL 11-24-09 Wy2001 Pilsner Urquell yeast, amber malt 1.014

I agreed with the same top two as my friends. Since making these gallon batches, I've done keg batches with each of these yeasts. The 2001 Pilsner Urqel goes real good with my juice for a dry pub cider. Nice apple taste, not too sweet, clean finish. It had a little sulfur when I bottled it but its gone now. The keg batch with the 2001 also came very well, although it took a while in the keg to scrub the sulfur smell. It throws off a lot of sulfur during the ferment as well. I'll wait till it gets real cold before doing another batch of the 2001.

The 1010 wheat yeast is fruitier and juicer tasting with a bit more of a sour finish. I think it would have scored better with a few points more sugar to balance the sour. I put raspberries in the 1010 keg batch and crashed it at 1.012. That worked out great. There was also a bit of sulfur that developed about 2 weeks after I kegged it, but it scrubbed out easily.

I adjusted the rankings for the next 4 ciders, because the only reason to keep them is that a few people liked them a lot even though they mostly got no love. The Wheast 1099 and 1968 batches both had a good amount of flavor for being so dry. The two batches with malt also had a few fans. The 3068 tasted a little like a lambic. The 2001 batch was smoother but could have used more malt.

The other 6 batches are not worth saving for another round and I'll probably take the 12 remaining bottles from these batches and give them to a friend for making vinegar. I still have another 13 bottles in the fridge that I want to check out. Then I will have tasted all the batches from last year after a bit of aging in the bottle.

Kevin, thank you for posting the results of your efforts to produce ciders/cysers with residual sweetness that owes itself to unfermented apple sugars…I believe you are right to assert that back-sweetening does not taste the same as those apple-juice-derived sugars that remain when the fermentation halts before reaching 1.000.

I found your thread after beginning a search for methods to use to produce a 5% alcohol carbonated ginger mead that ended with noticeable sweetness, and that held that sweetness for several weeks or longer. I have a recipe for ginger mead that takes only two weeks to complete, including the time needed to rack to a keg and carbonate to a high volume of CO2. It’s meant to be drunk very soon after being made…I think the touch of fruitiness that remains from the yeast adds to the brew’s enjoyment.
Brewing friends suggested potassium sorbate; however, from your thread and others I discovered all that really does is create “yeast eunuchs” who stop reproducing but continue eating sugar. And besides that there are flavor issues to contend with…and not for potassium sorbate alone, as other chemical additions often have an aftertaste…and these take time to fade away so they don’t work well for a quick mead.

After reading your thread more than once, I think I see where there are three four five routes involving yeast manipulation to leave some sweetness:
1. Early yeast flocculation
2. Induce a stuck fermentation
3. Cause the yeast to go dormant
Add: 4. Filter out yeast (Thanks to EricMc for pointing out this fourth method after reading this post)
Add: 5. Pasteurization/sterilization to kill yeast

Early yeast flocculation can be tough to do. Picking a low attenuating strain helps, but not much when you consider the high fermentability of the sugars that are in cider and honey. The research papers I have found point to only two strong factors that decide when yeast will flocculate: decreased sugar content and increased ethanol content. It seems we can disregard decreased sugar content, as all it really ends up meaning is NO sugar content before flocculation begins. Increasing ethanol is doable, in fact desired to a point; yeast strain selection is the first step in this direction, as alcohol tolerance is part of how we identify a yeast strain.
I see where you often add additional sugars to bring your ciders up to 1.060 or so. I expect that this pulls in enough sugars to increase the ethanol content, but not so many that you end up with rocket fuel or a cloyingly sweet cider. Maybe there is a fine balance going on here, where you bring the yeast close to the flocculation point, but not too strong or too sweet in the end. But here’s where I hit a point of uncertainty: does cold crashing aid in inducing early flocculation for yeasts that are on the verge of flocculating? I have not found solid experiment-based evidence that suggests this. I’ve seen where people stated this in forums, but that alone does not make it true…they may be making an assumption that is incorrect.
By the way, have you seen/heard that calcium is a mineral that is vital to good flocculation? Not much, just something on the order of ¼-teaspoon calcium chloride in 5 gallons. Is there calcium in apple juice? (Oh, and it helps that one of the effects of chloride in a brew is to enhance the perception of sweetness)

“Induce a stuck fermentation” Seems this is what keeving is all about. (well, okay, in the sense that "stuck" may include "slow fermentation," and/or "fails to ferment to its normal conclusion") The reduction of vital fermentation nutrients can cause a stuck fermentation…more so for some strains of yeast that use lots of nitrogen to grow. I’ve given my recipe for two-week ginger mead out to friends, and their first question is “what, no yeast nutrients?” I omitted them at first because it’s such a low-gravity mead that I thought it superfluous; but after reading your post I now see where it benefits me to have a slower fermentation that I can halt at just the right sweetness – and not have any nutrient-derived off-flavors to age out. How nice for me that honey lacks nitrogen! (It does lack it, right?) The amount of yeast you start the fermentation with will matter here as well; a very large amount of healthy yeast will be less susceptible to a low nutrient condition, as they are already starting with plenty of intra-cellular nitrogen. I’d bet that a full packet of dry yeast in a gallon batch would possibly plow through regardless of low nutrients.

“Cause the yeast to go dormant” Okay, simply put this is cold crashing. Here’s the question that I cannot find an answer to: do the yeast flocculate when this occurs, or simply drop out of suspension? There is a difference, and it matters because if they flocculate out when exposed to temperatures below 40F then perhaps anything that aids in flocculation will aid with cold crashing (remember calcium?). Plus, I would expect that if they do flocculate when induced to go dormant, then hastening that flocculation will hasten the drop-out time required.

I started a 3-gallon batch recently, and I’ll follow your process for cold crashing when the batch reaches a pleasant level of sweetness. I did add calcium chloride, just to see its effects; but really, it won’t help me determine much because I have no past non-CaCl2 cold-crashed batches to compare.

Which brings me to another point. I had several classes in my college career that required and/or taught sound experimental design, and how to evaluate evidence for validity. I must say your “experiments” are run quite well; you often hold all but one variable stable, which means you can evaluate the effect of that one variable in an objective manner…plus you conduct taste tests to broaden feedback. Nice work, keep it up…especially the posting it online part!

Cheers,
JohnW