"Generic" Saccharomyces cerevisae

Homebrewing supplies are a bit thin on the ground in my part of the world. So I came across sachets of "Wine yeast", indicated simply as: Saccharomyces cerevisae and as being produced by Enartis, Italy. And apart from instructions for rehydration at 35-38C using yeast nutrient (comes in a separate sachet), that is ALL! It doesn't say anything else! Oh, and the sachet print/text is dark purple, vaguely suggesting it might be intended for red wine!

Surely Saccharomyces cerevisae is a pretty vague designation, it could be any strain, and Enartis produce a number, judging from their site, including for red, white, rose and lots in between? Anyone have an educated guess on what it might actually be, or do I need to get onto the producer (a local import company)?

I was actually wanting to use it for ginger wine specifically, and possibly cider - could I go far wrong with this, whatever it is?

I would think that most wine yeast will work for your targeted product. The best test is to ferment with it and taste the end product. A small batch would be in order so you are not invested to heavily if the yeast is not what you like.

Vague, yes.

Generic would be using bread yeast. After all, it too is Sacc.

GilaMinumBeer said:

Vague, yes.

Generic would be using bread yeast. After all, it too is Sacc.

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Pumpernickel Rye Pale Ale? Sounds good to me.

Like you say, I think I'll just go ahead and do it Hopefully there won't be any nasty surprises come Yuletide!

P.S. I tried a bread-and-sugar beer a while back, it was, as you might expect, rank.

A wine yeast to make a cider should work fine. It will end very dry if you don't do something to back sweeten after fermentation. A friend of mine does this by continually adding frozen concentrate every couple days until the level of alcohol gets toxic to the yeast and then adds some more. I think he adds some k-meta and/or sorbate to finish off the yeast at some point. Needless to say it's a pretty potent and tasty product. Better for you, he just uses cheap wine yeast.

You'll just have to try it if there is not a number or some form of designation. Many wine strains are unable to ferment the maltose/maltotriose sugars so you may find the beer sweet even after the fermentation ceases.