Results from juice, yeast and sugar experiments

[DAVEL3]

Thanks for the reply Kevin..thats what I thought, but I couldn't find the exact post again were you explained how you do it. Congrats to you and Mark on your ciders. What type of yeast was in the oaked batch? Do you use chips or sprials,french or american roasted? Also should I have to treat the berries with anything before adding them to the cider or just dump'em in the jug..appox. 4 to 6 ounce? Gonna use fresh frozen berries.

Thanks again!

Dave

 

[CvilleKevin]

What type of yeast was in the oaked batch? Do you use chips or sprials,french or american roasted?

Brupaks yeast with medium toast french oak chips. I soak the chips in rye for a couple of days before adding them to kill any yeast. bourbon would work fine as well.

Also should I have to treat the berries with anything before adding them to the cider or just dump'em in the jug..appox. 4 to 6 ounce? Gonna use fresh frozen berries.

I usually use 12 oz. I've had pretty good luck with just thawing frozen berries and dumping them in. I did have a batch get a little vinegary where I used fresh berries from the store, but I suspect that is because there are more opportunities for fresh berries to pick up bugs during the supermarket supply journey vs frozen berries. I've thought about treating them to be sure, but havent really come up with a good way to do it. Soaking them in a sulfite solution for enough time to kill any wild microbes would lose a lot of juice to the solution and heating them up to pasteurization temp and cooling them back down to put in the cider seems like too much of a PIA. If anyone has figured out a good way to solve this, that would be good to know. For now, I just use fresh frozen to minimize exposure and hope for the best

 

[Iseneye]

I have been making dry cider from home pressed apples for a number of years now. I am able to make good cider for the style but finally figured I don't really enjoy bone dry cider. I have been adding a bit of lime / boysenberry / blackcurrent concentrate to my glass but it's just not the same.

I went to a presentation by a private french cider maker who makes cider using the french traditional method which involves keeving and long slow fermentation. The cider was without doubt the best I've ever tasted. I was planning on doing this method but it is a long process. I discovered this thread a while ago and figured this was exactly what I was looking for.

I pressed 30 litres of my own traditional cider apples (60%) and own eating apples to make up the difference. Fermented with S04 at 16º and no preservatives. Crashed at around 1.012-1.010 and drinking 3 or 4 weeks after pressing. The final product is amazing. Thanks Kevin! The only thing is it is very cloudy. Does this drop out over time with this method or do I need to use enzymes next time?

 

[CvilleKevin]

The only thing is it is very cloudy. Does this drop out over time with this method or do I need to use enzymes next time?

I'm glad that your cider turned out great! Almost always, the ciders will clear up over time. This year I made 23 batches and almost all of them got crystal clear within a few weeks in the secondary. There were a couple that took a couple months and one batch that is still cloudy.

Adding pectic enzyme does help with clarity, but the downside is that, in my experience it makes the cider harder to crash. I suspect that one of the byproducts of breaking down the pectic is that it increases the nutrient level, but I'm not really sure. Using super kleer after the fact has worked well for me in the past, although I havent used it in a while. I just drink a few cloudy kegs now and then and no one ever seems to mind.

As near as I can tell, the biggest factor in getting the juice to clear is picking the apples at the right time. The orchard where I get my juice has started selling their hard cider and has started leaving their cider apples on the tree a little longer than they would for table juice. This seems to have had helped a lot with the clearing, and this years batches cleared about as fast as they ever have.

The one cloudy batch that I still have from this year is from a cider pressing party and was pressed by hand. It was all Stayman apples and these were #2s because they were so ripe that they cracked. So I'm not sure why this batch was cloudy. In the past, we've got #2s that were a little underipe and starchy, and those can take a long time to clear. Also apples that are grown for applesause because of their naturally high pectin can take a while to clear.

The yeast can also have an effect. I've found that Nottingham and Abbaye batches clear the fastest. These are also easy to crash and make a nice cider, so if your juice doesnt clear up on its own after a while, you might want to try one of those. Notty is probably the easier to work with because it has about the same fermentation time as S04. Abbaye ferments quickly, so you need to monitor it more closely

 

[Albionwood]

The best thing that I have found for dealing with tartness is maple syrup. Its an alkaline sweetener, so it is good at balancing acidity. If you add just a little bit, it will take the edge off the tartness without adding a noticeable flavor. If you add more, the maple flavor usually works well with cider. The only disadvantage is that it is fermentable, so you have to leave the keg in the fridge if you do this. Stevia is another alkaline sweetener that is not fermentable and it works OK, but doesnt taste quite as good IMHO. Most of the other sweeteners are neutral or acidic so they can make your cider sweeter, but not as good for balancing the tartness. You can use 2oz samples and 1/8 tsp increments of sweetener to figure out what is the best to use and how much.

Interesting observations. The distinction between alkaline and acidic sweeteners hadn't occurred to me - in fact I though all sugars were acidic, so thanks for correcting that.
Just recently I added a little Maillard syrup to a bone-dry and tannic cider; 1/3 cup in a 3-gallon keg. It turned out great - not enough to create a perception of sweetness, but it really did seem to balance the acid & tannin so the cider was more enjoyable. It hadn't occurred to me that the nature of this sugar (created by cooking an alkalinized sugar with yeast nutrient) would have efffects beyond just the sweetness and flavor. I'll do more experimenting with that stuff.

 

[chunkychicken]

Yeast – the best ones so far (for the juices I used) - Updated/QUOTE]

Do you have any experience with T58?

 

[CvilleKevin]

Do you have any experience with T58?

I made an experimental gallon with this yeast in 2009. It was one of 15 one gallon test batches, all with different yeasts using the same juice (Stayman and Pink Lady). It was one of the fastest to ferment out and went to 0.998 in two weeks in late November. It finished clean, but didnt taste like much, just watery. Not as much apple flavor compared to Youngs Cider yeast, which also was from the same batch of juice and also got to 0.998 in the same time. Also not nearly as much flavor as some of the other ale and lager yeasts from that round of experiments, most of which took twice as long to ferment. It might have tasted better if I had caught it earlier, but my guess is that it might be hard to crash because it is a fast fermenter

 

[phug]

I also did a batch with t58. It gave my cider a light banana and spice flavour. Which was nice and not unexpected. Definitely unusual

 

[chunkychicken]

I also did a batch with t58. It gave my cider a light banana and spice flavour. Which was nice and not unexpected. Definitely unusual

Oh that sounds nice. I'm working on a pear batch with T58. I meant to buy S04, but the T58 was an accident. Is there a like a recommended gravity I should move into secondary fermentation with to slow down before the flavour changes too much to the peppery side? I'd also like to keep a bit of the pear flavour without making it 10% alcohol

 

[phug]

sorry can't make any reccomendations. I let it ferment all the way dry. but I didn't add any sugar so it stayed nice and light and flavourful

 

[CvilleKevin]

This past week I kegged all 10 of the secondary carboys that have been sitting in the basement.

All 10 of them got nice and clear – even the two that were from previous pressings and took a little longer to clear than the others. The other 8 were all from the Jan 14 pressing, and they have mostly been clear for a couple of months. Here are the notes on tasting, as they went into kegs:

From Jan 14th pressing (Stayman, Pink Lady, Albemarle Pippen, Winesap apples)

Unsulfited Abbaye – 1.008 Super clear, smells and tastes great. The flavor is a little sharper than some of the ale yeast batches, but also more appley. I put this keg on tap.

Unsulfited Brupaks – 1.008, very clear smells good, tastes just a little tangy, which works at this stage, but I think it is starting to turn. I tasted this a month ago and at that point I liked it better. It was cleaner and smoother, so its just in the past month that its started to turn. Its still very drinkable though and I put it on tap. I think most people will like the little extra tang, but to me it’s a sign that this keg needs to be consumed fairly quickly

Sulfited Abbaye – 1.008 Super clear, tastes great and has a ton of flavor, just like the unsulfited batch, but just a bit of an eggy smell when you first pour a glass. The Abbey yeast doesn’t like sulfite and this batch really stunk up the basement when it was fermenting (the unsulfited Abbaye batch smelled fine). Also has just a bit of kmeta bitterness compared to the unsulfited batch, but its fairly faint and could pass for tannin. I used a full dose of kmeta on these and it will probably be another couple of months before its not noticeable at all. By then the eggy smell should be gone as well. If not, a couple cycles of force carbonating and purging the keg will get it out.

Sulfited Brupaks – 1.008 Clear. Taste is nice, very full, with a nice clean finish. Doesn’t have any kmeta bitterness, but slightly sulfury

Sulfited Nottingham – 1.010 Super clear, tastes great, maybe just a tad of kmeta bitterness, which passes for tannin. No sulfur, Clean and appley. It tastes drier than 1.010. very drinkable.

Sulfited S23 – 1.006 Very clear, tastes good, definitely on the dry side but still has a nice apple flavor. No sulfur or kmeta bitterness. The S23 batch also stunk up the basement during fermentation, but seems to have cleared itself up better than the sulfited Abbaye batch. It has a bit of a quinine flavor, which works for a dry cider

Sulfited Wy3056/Brupaks – 1.010 Very clear, tastes great. No sulfur or kmeta bitterness. It has more of a Wy3056 flavor than a Brupaks flavor. When I pitched the Wy3056, the pack did not swell much after 6 hours and there was no sign of fermentation after 24 hours, so I tossed in a back of Brupaks, but something must have been happening with the Wy3056 because it has a signature flavor that is in this batch

Sulfited Wy3068 – 1.014 Very clear, tastes great. No sulfur or kmeta bitterness. More of a “juicy” flavor than the ale yeast batches

From other pressings:

All Stayman, pressed 10/18/15, no sulfites. 1.012, clear, tastes great. I pitched Brupaks, but I let it get too cold and it never took off, so it was mostly a wild yeast ferment, which is what it tastes like. In early Jan I added an ounce of oak chips, which IMHO work nice with a wild yeast batch. This will probably be the next one that I put on tap as soon as I kill another keg to make stome space. This batch looked like it was never going to clear, but it just cleared up in the past month or so.

Stayman, Winesap Pippen, pressed 11/5/15 Unsulfited BRY97- clear, and definitely starting to turn. Unlike the unsulfited Brupaks batch from the Jan pressing, this one is a little too far gone to taste good on its own IMHO, but a little bit of maple syrup takes the acidic edge off and makes it drinkable. This one also took forever to clear and just cleared up in the past month

 

[Albionwood]

When you say "starting to turn," do you mean acetic or lactic?

 

[CvilleKevin]

When you say "starting to turn," do you mean acetic or lactic?

acetic

 

[Albionwood]

That seems odd to me; I have ciders in carboys for over a year and get no acetic, though sometimes I do get lactic. Acetic requires oxygen - how is that getting into your cider? Are those carboys plastic?

 

[CvilleKevin]

That seems odd to me; I have ciders in carboys for over a year and get no acetic, though sometimes I do get lactic. Acetic requires oxygen - how is that getting into your cider? Are those carboys plastic?

I've got a combination of plastic and glass carboys, and of the two that are starting to turn, one was glass and one was plastic. That doesnt seem to make any difference. What does make a difference is that neither of the two batches that are starting to turn were sulfited before pitching the yeast. Over the years, I've found that if I dont sulfite the juice before pitching, roughly a third of them will start to get acetic at around this time of the year. I dont think its from acetobacter. Pretty sure its from brett. I get most of my juice from a commercial press, and while the apples get washed on their way from bins to the scratter, the bad ones dont always get ejected unless I'm there watching them. So I think that's ultimately where its coming from. Ive never had any issues with not sulfiting the batches that we press by hand, because any of those apples that are bad get tossed and bad spots cut out. For the commercially pressed juice, I've been sulfiting about half of the batches. I usually try to drink the unsulfited batches within the first few months of pressing, but I got a little behind in drinking this year

 

[Albionwood]

Pretty sure its from brett.

I keep learning stuff in this thread! Did not know Brett would produce acetic flavors. But now it makes sense, I sometimes get a sourness that I think is from Brett - it isn't really vinegary, nor lactic, exactly... just a kind of funky bite that some people love and some (wife) hate.

 

[DagoBrewer]

I need to read thru this thread when i haven't been drinking my own cider and home brew and smoking my own home grown herbs! Haha!

 

[ShareBrewing]

Thanks for the very educational thread! Learned so much already.

Just started a 5 gal batch of 1.050 unpasteurized cider with WLP090 - Super San Diego yeast. Added 1.5 lbs wildflower honey to boost SG to 1.060.

Been sitting in primary for 4 days now at 66F. Gonna try to stop it around 1.008. Will keep you guys updated.

 

[ShareBrewing]

Before starting the 5 gal batch, I made a 1 gal batch with WLP090 to try it out.

1 gal batch (started 9/11/16)
1.050 - unpasteurized, just juice.

5 gal batch (started 9/19/16)
1.052 - unpasteurized. Added 1.5 lbs wildflower honey to boost to 1.060. 1/2 tsp yeast nutrients.

Took a gravity reading on 9/25 of both. 1 gal had fermented totally dry to 1.000. Tasted slightly dry but still had a fair amount of apple sweetness with just a hint of clean fruity esters from the yeast. Very clean and smooth for being dry.

The 5 gal had dropped to 1.026. Nice and sweet apple flavor with good mid-range of fresh cider flavor. Very smooth and clean. Lightly tart on back-end.

Having used this strain many times in batches of beer, I've become pretty familiar with its behavior. It tends to pick heavily after 24 hours and with large swirling colonies with strong internal convection. This usually persists for 3-4 days, at which point the large clumps settle almost instantly, forming a very compact creamy cake. The batch always displays a very fine haze for a day and then begins to drop and clear very definitively by 5-7 days. This happens almost every time, without missing a beat. Usually attenuates 77%-80% but have easily gotten it to reach 85% or so. Often ferments very clean, similar to WLP001 or US05.

However I haven't noticed a similar behavior when in cider. The cider has not cleared in either, and still remain opaque. The yeast also hasn't flocculated to the bottom nearly at all.

Tonight I racked the cold crashed 1 gal to a new vessel. It became slightly clearer but there was barely any sediment on the bottom. I also racked the 5 gal to hopefully slow fermentation. After 2 days it had dropped another 6 points down to 1.020. Still tastes delicious.

Added k-meta to both post-fermentation. Added 1/16th tsp prior to cold crashing the 1 gal. Added 1/4 tsp to the 5 gal after racking.

It'll be interesting to see what it'll take to stop this strain. It's a fairly aggressive strain.

 

[DagoBrewer]

5 gals of pasteurized cider comin up! Added 2 lbs of orange blossom honey and 1 cup of brown sugar. Came out to 1.065! I'm gunna dry hop it with centennial or cascade and add a cinnamon stick in seconday. Using a saf-05 yeast i washed from my last batch of this.

View attachment 1475288670653.jpg

 

[CvilleKevin]

This past Monday, friends and I got ~250 gallons of Cortland, Gala and Jonathan juice. About a third of each apple in the mix. SG was 1.050, which is about average for this time of year, but lower than this time last year.

I got 8 six gal carboys. Bumped the SG to 1.065 with turbinado and corn sugar mix and then sulfited half of them

Unsulfited Brupaks, Abbaye, Wy3056 and BRY97

Sulfited Brupaks, Nottingham, Wy3068 and WLP005

Six days in, I just crashed the Abbaye batch tonight, at 1.006. It was moving really fast. Yesterday, SG was at above 1.020. By afternoon today, SG was 1.008. By time I made room in my fridge and crashed this evening, SG was at 1.006. Smells good. Lots of banana, but in a good way. Taste is a little sour and yeasty at first, but fades really nice and should be good after the yeast drops.

Abbaye crash seems to be going well even though it was going like gangbusters earlier. It has only been in the fridge post-crash for about an hour and already its starting to get noticeably more clear. Hardly any swelling of the carboy means that the ferment shut down fast, which is good.

It looks like BRY97 will be next after the Abbaye batch. Its at 1.012 and tastes great but just a tad sticky in the finish so I am going to let it go until tomorrow morning

After that, all of the other batches still have a few days before I need to crash them (knock on wood). The first batch of the season always goes really fast.

 

[CvilleKevin]

I crashed four more batches today, first two in the morning, second two tonight.

Nottingham - 1.010
Wy3056 - 1.010
Brupaks unsulfited 1.010
BRY97 - 1.008

The BRY97 tastes a little sweeter than the other 3, even though the gravity is lower. They all taste a little yeasty at this point and the Notty and Wy3056 have some bitterness from the sulfite but the good signature flavors are there and they finish nice. They also seem to be clearing fast which is good because the last three batches will need to be crashed in the next few days and I dont have space to keep them all in the fridge.

 

[phishie]

This might be odd but can you post pictures of how your ciders look out of the tap? I love the color retention on your ciders, it always bugs me when ciders look like champagne/lager (odd I know). I'm aiming to make my first cider next week and based on skimming through this thread I'm thinking Nottingham or Abbaye - although Abbaye rips through so fast based on your experience I think I like the flexibility afforded by the slower Notty. I'm aiming for more of a sweeter cider "ale" than a typical dry hard cider.

 

[phishie]

Yeast – the best ones so far (for the juices I used) - Updated

Disclaimer - The best yeast is very much dependent on the style, juice and process. I generally like a pub style cider in the range of 1.004 to 1.012, that you can drink by the pint vs a drier style that you would have with food. I also like to keep some of the residual apple sugar for flavor rather than any sort of backsweetening, so I cold crash. These yeasts all work well for my purposes YMMV

Fermentation times for the yeasts depend a lot on ambient temperatures. I ferment in my basement, which isn’t temp controlled, but generally stays about least 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. I’ve divided the yeasts into three general categories.

Slow: 2 wks early season (62 – 66), 3wks midseason (58-64), 5+ wks late season (54-62)
Moderate: 8-9 days early season, 2+wks midseason, 3+ wks late season
Fast: 3-4 day early season, 6 days or less mid or late season

...

WLP041 – Good for early season ciders, it’s a slow fermenter and easy to crash. This is particularly nice early in the season when temps are warm and everything else is fermenting relatively quickly. For someone who doesn’t have a cool place for brewing, this one would be a good choice. It doesn’t do so well later in the season, as temps drop its more prone to stalling and wild yeast takeover. I’ve been using it mostly for sweeter styles, up to 1.025, but it does fine down to 1.010 and could probably go drier.

My ground floor temp is ~68-73 this time of year; do you think WLP041 would be a good option for me? For liquid yeasts do you create a starter? Wondering if it's necessary for a 3-gallon batch.

I'm planning to use 3 gallons of unpasteurized cider from a local MD orchard. I plan on pitching directly with no sulfities, possibly adding 2/3 cane : 1/3 corn sugar to bring OG up to 1.060 or 1.065 (depending on starting gravity). I'll cold crash somewhere between 1.010 and 1.025 FG depending on taste. Hoping I can pitch this Sunday and won't hit those FGs before 12-14 days have passed as I'll be out of town. Any thoughts or recommendations you have are greatly appreciated.

 

[CvilleKevin]

My ground floor temp is ~68-73 this time of year....Hoping I can pitch this Sunday and won't hit those FGs before 12-14 days have passed as I'll be out of town.

At that temp range, it will be more like a week or less, even with the slowest yeast. I really try to avoid hitting 68 if I can because the ferment can really take off then. This season we had nice cool temps, but I was lazy and didnt open basement windows at night, so basement temps were mostly in the 64-66 range and they were all ready in 6-9 days. I probably would have crashed the last three in 8 days if I had the fridge space.

At 73, my guess is Abbaye would be ready to crash in 3-4 days so maybe you could get it done before you leave?

I dont make starters. I know a lot of people swear by them. With the wyeast packs you can tell how healthy the yeast is by how fast the pack swells up, and set the pack somewhere warmer if it doesnt swell up after a couple hours.

I let all the yeast get up to room temperature before smacking the Wyeast packs or pitching White labs and dry yeast

With the new White Lab packaging, I'm not sure that the WLP041 is still going to be a slow fermenter. I havent used WLP041 since the packaging change but I just used WLP005 in the new tube and it fermented out faster than usual. It still took about 24 hours to start, but it was done in 9 days vs usually at least 2 weeks for this time of year with the old vial style packaging.

 

[CvilleKevin]

This might be odd but can you post pictures of how your ciders look out of the tap?

Sure, here are the 4 on tap right now. On the far right is Stayman, Pink Lady, Pippen and Winesap juice, s23 lager yeast (1.006), 2nd right, same juice with Abbaye yeast (1.008). Far left, same juice WY3068 (1.014) , 2nd left Stayman juice and stalled brupaks (mostly wild) yeast, with oak chips (1.012). From the photo, it looks like the Abbaye has a better carb, but pretty sure that's just the shape of the glass. Yeah, I had to go taste them all again just to make sure. These are sample glasses, so 2oz pours in 3-4 oz glasses. Not nearly as dark as when in the carboy.

Here are the first 5 batches from last week in secondaries. The Nottingham, Wy3056 and BRY97 batches have started fermenting back up again, which is not too surprising given that they only took a week to ferment. I'll have to throw those three back in the fridge after the three that are crashing now are done, give them another couple days in the fridge and rack them again. Next year I gotta remember to open the basement windows at night so they they take a little longer to ferment out. OTOH, the Abbaye fermented out the fastest and it appears to have been stopped dead. Its clearing pretty fast too. Brupaks also well behaved, knock on wood

 

[RevKev]

Has anyone tried using Orval or Lambics / Geuze dregs? Sorry if this is in the thread but after post 400 got a bit tired

 

[phishie]

At that temp range, it will be more like a week or less, even with the slowest yeast. I really try to avoid hitting 68 if I can because the ferment can really take off then. This season we had nice cool temps, but I was lazy and didnt open basement windows at night, so basement temps were mostly in the 64-66 range and they were all ready in 6-9 days. I probably would have crashed the last three in 8 days if I had the fridge space.

At 73, my guess is Abbaye would be ready to crash in 3-4 days so maybe you could get it done before you leave?

I dont make starters. I know a lot of people swear by them. With the wyeast packs you can tell how healthy the yeast is by how fast the pack swells up, and set the pack somewhere warmer if it doesnt swell up after a couple hours.

I let all the yeast get up to room temperature before smacking the Wyeast packs or pitching White labs and dry yeast

With the new White Lab packaging, I'm not sure that the WLP041 is still going to be a slow fermenter. I havent used WLP041 since the packaging change but I just used WLP005 in the new tube and it fermented out faster than usual. It still took about 24 hours to start, but it was done in 9 days vs usually at least 2 weeks for this time of year with the old vial style packaging.

Well, I think I'm going to pick up the cider today so that gives me a 7-day window to cold crash before I leave for a week. I left a gallon jug of water in a "cold" spot on our ground floor and after 24 hours it's still at 71 so unlikely that I can ferment much cooler than that. (I could use a swamp cooler and probably get it down to 65-68). Debating between these yeasts (in no particular order):

WLP041
Nottingham
US-05
Wyeast 3056
Abbaye (do you use Lallemand Danstar Abbaye or Fermentis Safbrew Abbaye?)

Any thoughts on how each of those might fare at ~70-71 in 7 days? A carbonated keg-served "English Pub Style" is my goal so I'm guessing Nottingham or US-05 are going to be best.

 

[CvilleKevin]

Any thoughts on how each of those might fare at ~70-71 in 7 days?

I'd expect that any of those yeasts would ferment down to the 1.010 range within 5-6 days at 70-71F. The tricky part will be catching them at the right place and getting them to fully crash, since they will be moving so fast. If I needed a cider to be finished in a week, I'd go with the Abbaye (Fermentis BE-256), since its most likely to stop when you want it to. I'd check it every 8hrs after the 2nd day and maybe throw it in that swamp cooler after a few days to slow it down and get some better control over exactly where to stop it. OTOH, if I was leaving town in a week, I'd probably just wait until I came back, when temps will be cooler and easier to hit the final SG target without overshooting

Has anyone tried using Orval or Lambics / Geuze dregs? Sorry if this is in the thread but after post 400 got a bit tired

I havent, but you can use the forum search function and find a number of references to these

 

[phishie]

I'd expect that any of those yeasts would ferment down to the 1.010 range within 5-6 days at 70-71F. The tricky part will be catching them at the right place and getting them to fully crash, since they will be moving so fast. If I needed a cider to be finished in a week, I'd go with the Abbaye (Fermentis BE-256), since its most likely to stop when you want it to. I'd check it every 8hrs after the 2nd day and maybe throw it in that swamp cooler after a few days to slow it down and get some better control over exactly where to stop it. OTOH, if I was leaving town in a week, I'd probably just wait until I came back, when temps will be cooler and easier to hit the final SG target without overshooting



I havent, but you can use the forum search function and find a number of references to these

Thanks! I went with BE-256, will be pitching little more than half a pack into just under 3 gallons shortly.

Also tucked away another two unopened gallon jugs in my 38-degree storage chamber to revisit in 5-6 months to see how any Wild yeast do!

 

[ShareBrewing]

For the WLP090 (Super San Diego) it took two cold crashes to finally stop the yeast. The first racking was done at 1.026. I figured this would only slow the yeast down a little until crashing. My SWMBO likes ciders a little sweeter, so the higher the FG the better. At this point, it was at a perfect 5% and tasted delicious. After a few days, it was cold crashed and racked again at 1.016. After a few days of stabilizing, it had fallen to 1.012. This was crashed another two days and then racked at 1.010. After letting it sit another week, it had finally stopped dropping in gravity.

This yeast is one of my go-to beer yeasts. It ferments much like WLP001 on steroids. It's very clean, fast fermenting, and usually easy to deal with because of its strong flocculation.

The cider tastes delicious, decently sweet apple flavor, nice crisp with some subtle fruity esters. Happy to see that this yeast makes a clean cider, but man it takes some work to stop this baby. It took adding k-meta, two - two day cold crashings and three total rackings.

This yeast is one of my favorites but it displays a totally different behavior in cider than it does in beer. It is quite aggressive and doesn't want to stop, even when held at temps as slow as 35F-40F. This truly surprised me because it's preferred temp range is 64F to about 70F. In the future, using Nottingham or US-05 sounds a bit more appealing because of all the work. I love this yeast and do not mean to discourage its use in cider. If anyone gives it a go, please let us know how it goes.

 

[biggerk]

C'Ville CAMRA expat, now living in Albuquerque here. Question:
Can you repitch onto yeast cake, or wash-rinse/reuse yeast from cider for other cider?

 

[kukubau]

C'Ville CAMRA expat, now living in Albuquerque here. Question:
Can you repitch onto yeast cake, or wash-rinse/reuse yeast from cider for other cider?

Sure you can. Search on YouTube and here on the forum about yeast washing. I've never reused the yeast cake, but here on the forum you can find all the info you want.

 

[chunkychicken]

So I've got 3 different yeasts going at once, has anyone else had experience with S04 fermenting slowly? I wonder if it needs to be warmer or cooler than it currently is. The ambient temperature is typically 18-20c but will get warmer as the summer comes along.

Thinking of buying a big brewing barrel (20+L) to use over the summer since it's going to be pretty hot.

 

[cgrilly]

So I've got 3 different yeasts going at once, has anyone else had experience with S04 fermenting slowly? I wonder if it needs to be warmer or cooler than it currently is. The ambient temperature is typically 18-20c but will get warmer as the summer comes along.

Thinking of buying a big brewing barrel (20+L) to use over the summer since it's going to be pretty hot.

My current S04 fermentation is slow compared to what I had expected after reading (some of) this thread and other sources. Ambient is ~18-20 here as well for the current process.

 

[CvilleKevin]

C'Ville CAMRA expat, now living in Albuquerque here. Question:
Can you repitch onto yeast cake, or wash-rinse/reuse yeast from cider for other cider?

Hey Kirk! - How's things in Albuquerque? Sorry, havent been on the board in a while. Short answer - what kukubau said! Longer answer - yeah, but there is a limit and not sure its worth the time. I once made 14 consecutive gallon batches from a single packet of yeast by splitting into thirds and pouring some of the trub from each old batch into the next batch. That is about as easy as you can get and I got 4-5 generations each time before the batches got funky. I'm sure you could do even better with washing the yeast, but not sure its worth the effort to save a few bucks on yeast.

has anyone else had experience with S04 fermenting slowly? I wonder if it needs to be warmer or cooler than it currently is. The ambient temperature is typically 18-20c

At that temp range, S04 should ferment out 5 gallons of cider within 10 days or so. IMHO, if you are planning to stop the fermentation to leave some residual sugar then ideally you would want a little lower temp - like 16-18c, so that the ferment goes a little slower, like 2-3 weeks

If your ferment is slow then a couple of possibilities. (1) you may have low nutrient juice, which is a plus if you want to stop the cider with some residual sugar. So dont worry, it may take a little longer but will be easier to stop. Unless you want a dry cider, in which case add some nutrient. Or (2) you didnt get a good pitch. I've found that it is best to sprinkle about 1/3 of the pack slowly on top of the juice so that it spreads completely out and can rehydrate slowly on the surface. When it re-hydrates and sinks, pitch another third until the packet is done. That should give you a good start within 6-8 hours. If you just dump it in, it tends to clump together and you can lose cells that way. I dont recommend using starters - its more hassle than it is worth. But if you do use a starter, use the same juice, so that the yeast start up in the same conditions as they will have when you dump it into the primary

 

[chunkychicken]

I started the yeast in the juice and that wasnt a problem. Just that its fermented so much slower than the T58 or S23. All 3 had nutrients and plenty of sugar to work with. I mixed caramel in and it was like meh, so what. I added apricot nectar and that got it going a bit.

My spiced brew smells excellent, cant wait!

 

[kukubau]

I'm about to start fermenting 13 gallons of fresh farm pressed apple juice (cider for you over the pod) from normal dessert apples, using WLP7705, but the juice comes unpasteurized.
Regarding this, will it be better not to sulfite the juice at all? How will that turn out? Will it improve the final taste if I'll add yeast nutrient?
Thank you.
Merry Christmas!

 

[MarkKF]

I use Camden (K Meta) 24 hours before pitching yeast while it's coming up to basement (ferment.) temp.

It keeps wild yeast from starting before the pitched yeast. Don't know what flavor it imparts.

 

[kukubau]

CamPden not Camden is overpriced KMeta, I can buy the powder form very cheap over here. My question is regarding the nonpasteurized juice, will make such a big difference?