what is the best yeast to use for making sparkling cider

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baddagger

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so what yeast is best to use to make a sparkling cider?

also to make it a sparking cider do i have to let the yeast carb up the cider ... or can i force carb? or will force carbing change the flavor and not make it a sparkling style cider?
 
You could force carb chocolate milk if you wanted to... check out Edwort's Apfelwein recipe. Its been restarted, it used to have a thousand posts before it got locked. You might be able to access the original. Anyway, there's a lot of good information on there, everything you are looking for and much more.
 
Oh but to answer your question, Montrachet wine yeast is what is used in that recipe. Its super cheap and will give a nice dry cider.
 
I've only used ale yeasts, and probably only about 10 of them. From comments that I've read, ale yeasts seem to leave the cider with more apple flavor. I have no data for that assumption and have never brewed with wine yeast. For me the yeast is cheap since I just take some from the cake of a beer (free yeast).

I've used several English yeasts, American yeasts, Belgian yeasts, and some Brett.

My favorite is Brett-B (WLP650), followed by WLP550 Belgian yeast. Both of these provide a lot of fruit flavors from the yeast, bringing a lot of flavor to the finished cider.

NOTE: Brett, when used as a primary yeast, does not produce funky/leather/farm flavors, it produces lots of fruit flavors.
 
Ill bet that ale yeasts tend to leave a sweeter cider. Some wine yeasts can ferment the cider well below the 1.00 mark.
 
Any yeast will ferment out the fermentable sugars in apple juice, if left to its own devices for long enough time. Ale yeasts are easier to control and stop before they eat all the sugar and there are several ways to do that. I am partial to cold crashing and kegging. If you are bottling, I believe that bottle pasteurization is probably more reliable for making a good sparkling cider on the first try. Both are described in the stickies

As far as which ale yeast to use, Brupaks, S04, US05 and Notty are my favorites. Any of these will make a good pub cider. For best flavor, same rule applies as for beer - the better the starting juice, the better the final product. If you can get good cider apples, that is ideal.
 
CvilleKevin said:
Any yeast will ferment out the fermentable sugars in apple juice, if left to its own devices for long enough time. Ale yeasts are easier to control and stop before they eat all the sugar and there are several ways to do that. I am partial to cold crashing and kegging. If you are bottling, I believe that bottle pasteurization is probably more reliable for making a good sparkling cider on the first try. Both are described in the stickies

As far as which ale yeast to use, Brupaks, S04, US05 and Notty are my favorites. Any of these will make a good pub cider. For best flavor, same rule applies as for beer - the better the starting juice, the better the final product. If you can get good cider apples, that is ideal.
Click to expand...

well i want to keg... i just bought a couple 5 gallon kegs and i plan on using them..

now just wondering sense it is my frist time making cider to make a sparkling cider.. do i need to use a certin yeast to get that.. or will any yeast do that?

also i was thinking about maybe trying to make a couple one gallon batches.. now if i do that can i just use the 1 gallon jug that apple cider comes in?
 
For me, 3711 made the best cider, I tried Notty and 05 previously, the 3711 cider was so good, i'll never use anything again. But thats just me
 
All the yeast is doing is releasing co2 into the cider, any yeast will do that, or kegging. All co2 is the same so how it is produced shouldn't change the flavour much. Kegging allows you to sweeten your cider by keeping it cool and minimising the yeast cells in suspension, while still carbing. To get the same effect in a bottle you need to pasteurise before all the priming sugar is used.
 
gregbathurst said:
All the yeast is doing is releasing co2 into the cider, any yeast will do that, or kegging. All co2 is the same so how it is produced shouldn't change the flavour much. Kegging allows you to sweeten your cider by keeping it cool and minimising the yeast cells in suspension, while still carbing. To get the same effect in a bottle you need to pasteurise before all the priming sugar is used.
Click to expand...

Different yeasts create different esters and alcohols, and therefore contribute different flavors to the beer. Some have a big flavor contribution. They do more than just create ethanol and CO2.

I like dry ciders, so I don't pasturize, and they carb up fine.
 
Calder said:
Different yeasts create different esters and alcohols, and therefore contribute different flavors to the beer. Some have a big flavor contribution. They do more than just create ethanol and CO2.

I like dry ciders, so I don't pasturize, and they carb up fine.
Click to expand...

Sorry if I gave the wrong impression, I was referring specifically to CO2 production, not other properties of yeast.
I also like dry carbed cider. My latest batch has been in secondary for months and is quite cool so it is carbing very slowly since I bottled a couple of weeks ago. It has been still and a bit sweet but is getting a bit of fizz now.
 

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