Cider with (mostly) WLP565 Saison Dupont

[youreanimpulse]

This morning I bottled my Dupont-style saison and saved some yeast. Then I went to the Apple Tasting Festival at the Portland Nursery and brought home these apples:

8 lb Red Winesap
6 lb King David
6 lb Braeburn
6 lb Rubinette

Filled a 6.5 gal bucket with apple pieces. Got 2.5 gal out of them with the help of my Omega juicer and my 4 year old. Supplemented with 4 gal Ryan's Honeycrisp Cider. Used yeast nutrient and pitched some of my saved saison yeast. Technically it started as about a 5:1 mix of WLP565 and WY3068 Weizen yeast, but I'm sure that ratio could have changed. The saison sample was super Dupont heavy.

I started out brewing with ciders a couple years ago, but I didn't know anything about fermentation. 200+ gallons of beer brewing later--studying feverishly how it all works--I'm excited to see what I can do with what I know now. Happy cider season!

 

[youreanimpulse]

 

[youreanimpulse]

Kegged this today with 3 oz cane sugar to naturally carb in time for a party in 3 weeks. Also got a 12 pack of bottles out of it. Sample is delicious and appley. Very nice flavor, and sweet for fermenting down to 1.000. That should be 6.5% going from 1.050. Cloudy like it should be. No off flavors I can detect, and it's surprisingly clean for the yeast I used. The saison it came from is super barnyard and banana. I'll post when I'm sampling a finished product, but I think already that this is a great yeast choice for cider, and the Omega juicer is a pretty good way to do it.

 

[rowan57]

Nice dude. I am about to jump head first into a Cider / Saison / Brett / Sour experiment, good to see your Saison base came out well!

 

[youreanimpulse]

Brett is next for sure. Needed a quicker one first . I'd love to hear how yours turns out!

 

[rowan57]

Yeah for sure, I'm thinking a gallon or two of S04 just to give me something to drink. My thread is called Cider Making - Wild Fermenting.


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[youreanimpulse]

Drinking a bottle, either mostly or fully carbed (did like 2.0 vols). Tasty! Fruity and tart with a nice tannic finish, nothing weird or off. A nice fresh dry hard cider! I've got another batch going now with 3711 and some cool tart giant apples in the mix (Hanover's Giant I believe). Gonna be good!