Spontaneously Fermented Cider

How is traditional spontaneously fermented cider produced? Is it just a matter of the culture already living in the barrels, or does it primarily come from the fruit each year?

If one was starting a cider production operation, how would one go about establishing a sufficient population of native yeasts in the fermentation equipment to fully ferment the cider?

Cider Making (found with google "naturally ferment cider") along with the search function here will yeild many pages of reading...

curtis97322 said:

Cider Making (found with google "naturally ferment cider") along with the search function here will yeild many pages of reading...

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I don't think you should treat that link as reliable scientific info, even though it is presented as such. It is based on 2 very old references, even though there is some good info there, there is also some misleading stuff for example about pH and SO2.

Whatever the source, your cider will ferment naturally if left for a few days. I have never done it but I imagine the results would be unpredictable. Most people don't like the waiting and risking the precious juice.

My German mate who grew up making "Aeppelwoin" or "viez" on the farm in Frankfurt slags me off for putting anything in my apple juice when making cider or apfelwein. They pressed the apples and then left the lot in plastic fermenters to ferment, that was it, no additions at all.

gregbathurst said:

I don't think you should treat that link as reliable scientific info, even though it is presented as such. It is based on 2 very old references, even though there is some good info there, there is also some misleading stuff for example about pH and SO2.

Whatever the source, your cider will ferment naturally if left for a few days. I have never done it but I imagine the results would be unpredictable. Most people don't like the waiting and risking the precious juice.

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Thanks for pointing out that it may not be reliable - I simply did a quick google search and posted what looked to be reasonably sound advice/ information. Your post would have been more helpful, however, if you'd posted an alternative.

That said - I plan on making up a decent batch of cider this year and fermenting ~1/2 naturally and sulfiting then adding commercial yeast to the other half.

curtis97322 said:

Thanks for pointing out that it may not be reliable - I simply did a quick google search and posted what looked to be reasonably sound advice/ information. Your post would have been more helpful, however, if you'd posted an alternative.

That said - I plan on making up a decent batch of cider this year and fermenting ~1/2 naturally and sulfiting then adding commercial yeast to the other half.

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Unfortunately there is a bit of a shortage of good reliable cider info on the net. Often when i search I come up against scientific papers requiring a subscription to view. Much that I see is just rehashing of old info, good stuff mixed with bad.

Your plan for 2 batches sounds excellent, just be a bit patient with the natural batch. The great thing about cider/wine making is you never make the same drink twice, every batch is an adventure.

I’ve done about a dozen single gallons with wild yeast and two keg batches. A few have come out exceptionally good and quite a few also that were crappy. The difference boils down mostly to two factors:

1) Keep handling of the juice to the absolute minimum. If you press the juice yourself, cut off any rotten spots or bruises on the apples. If you go to a press, make sure that they steam clean it between pressings. On pressing day, show up as early in the day at the press as possible, so the juice hasn’t been sitting in the holding tank for any length of time. From the holding tank, pour it straight to a sanitized carboy with a sanitized bung and when you get it home, put a sanitized airlock on it. Any time you check gravity, be super careful with sanitation.

2) Don’t let the FG get below 1.010. Actually, the lowest I’ve been able to get a batch to go and still taste decent is 1.014, but you might be able to do a little better. My experience with going below 1.014 is that the juice would either pick up weird flavors or lose flavor.

The juice will have enough yeast to spontaneously ferment. It may take several days. For one of my better batches it took a week for fermentation to start, so don’t give up before at least a week.

If you are successful in a wild yeast batch, then you will have achieve good enough sanitation so that you don’t need to add k-meta before you add yeast. The cultured yeast will always dominate the wild yeast, so you have the cultured yeast taste, but also a little flavor from the wild yeast. Plus you don’t have to wait for months for the k-meta sourness to wear off.

CvilleKevin said:

If you are successful in a wild yeast batch, then you will have achieve good enough sanitation so that you don’t need to add k-meta before you add yeast. The cultured yeast will always dominate the wild yeast, so you have the cultured yeast taste, but also a little flavor from the wild yeast. Plus you don’t have to wait for months for the k-meta sourness to wear off.

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Can you clarify what you mean here? I'm a little confused.

If your wild batches ferment out clean, then you know that both your juice source and sanitation practices are good enough that you can skip the k-meta when you make batches using cultured yeast. That will give you more apple taste and you can drink it earlier. See the sticky for more details

I wasn't aware of spontaneous/wild fermentations w/ cider till...now. I recently made a 1 gallon batch of cider using "tree top" cider. I used a dry English ale yeast for it.

I bought a second gallon of "tree top" to top off the first batch when I secondary it in the next few days. When I bought it (4 days ago?), I realized I never took a OG on my batch, so when I got home I took a quick sample for the hydrometer (and covered the juice while sampling/sterilized the lid of the jug) of the new store bought cider, then quickly recapped it.

However, I forgot to refrigerate the new juice. 4 days later (or so), I walk out to the garage and smelled a bit of sulfur. I assumed it was a Riesling kit I have in the chest freezer/fermentation chamber- but that kit should be done fermenting. I looked around and noticed the jug of apple cider, and it had a lot of foam on it... and the bottle was distorted by the CO2 pressure! REALLY distorted! I was lucky to catch it when i did, i would of had a nasty mess.

I then assumed it wasn't worth keeping around - especially given the time of night right now. I dumped most of the "surprise" cider but took a good sized taste. The fermentation was very young - the cider was still very sweet, and the sulfur scent was still slightly present in a small sampler glass.

Was this a wild yeast? I used my sterilized thief to get the sample... is it possible there was a microorganism still on it or yeast? (I do clean my gear after each use).

Cool! but weird........

The only way to really "sterilise' is in an autoclave. Even then there is always yeast floating in the air waiting to re-infect. Most wild yeasts are only weakly fermentative, if you had a vigorous ferment after 4 days it was probably a sacchromyces yeast and would produce decent cider. In france and Spain most artisan cider is made with wild yeast, it starts off with a lot of different yeasts but eventually the sacchromyces dominate.

Cvillkevin, how exactly do you prevent the cider from fermenting below 1.014? Do you just keep an eye on it and when it gets in that range add camden tablets to kill the yeast?

Cvillkevin, how exactly do you prevent the cider from fermenting below 1.014?

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cold crashing - BUT - in order to cold crash wild yeast, it already has to be fermenting very cold and slow. Once a wild yeast ferment really gets going strong, it is nearly impossible to stop it. I would not recommend doing a wild yeast ferment this early in the season unless you can control for temps and keep it around 50-55F for several months, then drop to 30F to crash.

I've used k-meta and sorbate to stop wild ferments. The chemicals are more effective on wild yeast than on ale yeast, but I dont like the taste.

I've done a lot of experimenting with wild yeasts and made some really good ones, but at the end of the day concluded that it was more trouble than it was worth. It is very satifying to have a keg of cider that is made from nothing but apples and the flavor is unique if you get it right, but too many batches ended up tasting like ass, so I havent done a strictly wild yeast batch since 2010.

I dont sulfite any of my ciders before pitching ale or wheat yeast, so they still get some of the positive flavor contributions from the wild yeast, but are a lot easier to control, since the wheat and ale yeasts will eventually out compete the wild yeasts and its a lot easier to stop a wheat or ale yeast.

I'm a total noob at this and have a small batch in a 1 gallon demijohn made from apples in our back yard.
I pressed the fruit and checked the SG at 1.05 then realised I had no cultured yeast left. While waiting for an order to arrive the batch began fermenting with the wild yeast and is fairly aggressive right now after a week.
Would you recommend I:

a) Kill the wild yeast (not knowing it's origin therefor risky) and add the cultured yeast?

b) Allow the wild yeast to ferment out and see what comes of it?

c) Allow the wild yeast to ferment out and then continue with cultured yeast?

What alcohol level do most prefer for their cider?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Pete

If the ferment seems sickly, then add a commercial yeast (a). Or if it's already going strong, then let it ride (b). Depending on what's alive in there it may go dry, or not, so option (c) can always be a backup to (b).

One of the best ciders I ever made was a wild ferment, using ~30ppm SO2 to knock down any weaklings initially. Fermented from 1.055 to 1.004 vigorously. Appley, clean yet earthy & delicious. People have been making cider with wild yeast for thousands of years, don't fear it!

Thanks LeBreton,

That gives me confidence.
Once it's fermented out, will the wild yeast be alive enough to promote a secondary fermentation in the bottles after it's been racked a few times to produce a clear product?

I would recommend getting the temps as cool as possible. I've done a lot of good natural ferments, also a few bad ones. Main difference is the temps

Thanks for that advice.
We're heading into Autumn here so the days are still warmish but the nights are definitely chilling off.
I may have started this a little early in the year.
Still, it hasn't cost anything and it will definitely be good data for future consideration.