110 gallons fresh press Honeycrisp cider

[Keepthedrive]

Hey all,
I collected a truck load of honeycrisp apples on Monday, am having them pressed at a cider mill tomorrow morning and should be driving away with about 100-110 gallons of fresh cider. I have a few different agendas for this cider, but would like to do 10-15 gallons of hard cider, maybe do a yeast comparison experiment with each 5gallon batch. My question lies in the yeast... I made a 1 gallon batch of honeycrisp cider 4 years ago using either a champagne yeast or turbo/distillers yeast... But I can't remember...

Has anyone ever used one of these turbo yeasts or distillers yeast to make a cider? If I remember correctly, my thought process 4 years ago was to use a yeast that was so fast and furious, it would overpower any wild yeasts/bacteria that might be present in the juice. After about 48 hours, the cider was done fermenting and was actually super clean. It fermented out completely with little to no yeasty flavors. I wish I had documented it, but I was just tooling around one drunk night lol.

Anyone have any experience with using one of these yeasts in lieu of them being meant for grain sugars rather than fruit sugars?

 

[ten80]

I don't see a good reason to add a yeast that doesn't impart a beneficial flavor profile and the the apple juice as fast as possible. Do some reading here and you'll see that most ferment their juice for 1+ months to avoid blowing off apple flavor during too vigorous of a fermentation. Some folks here have had good luck with champagne yeast, but because it has a clean flavor profile, not because it can ferment quickly. As for Turbo yeast, it seems unlikely that it will produce the quality of flavors that you would get from a yeast that is intended to ferment fruit (apple or grape) juices for a non-distilled product.

I guess you can always to a split-batch and see for yourself. Consider wine yeasts such as D47 and 71B for a comparison. Safale S-04 is a relatively fast-fermenting ale yeast that has made nice, quicker (1 month) cider batches for me.

The low pH of apple juice (generally below pH 4) really does a good job of keeping bacteria from taking over. This biggest risk is likely from Acetobacter which will turn your cider to vinegar in the presence of oxygen. A healthy yeast pitch and an airlock should help you produce clean cider without having to ferment "as fast as possible." You can also sterilize the juice with campden tablets (sodium metabisulfite) at the correct dosing for your pH.

You may want to blend in some tannic and acidic apples to balance the sweetness of the Honeycrisp which are low acidity and low tannin.