Yeasts?

[timotb]

Any suggestions for an alternative yeast to the strong red star campaign yeast?
Ive used this for years with no problems except that it's hard to stop and makes a very dry cider wine. It's also great because I don't have to kill off the wild yeast first, just over powers them. I like to ferment in a 55 gallon drum with dissolved granular sugar. I try and stabilize at 1.000 SG

Like to find something that starts easy, and makes a product that is just a little less harsh.

 

[podz]

Yeast stops eating sugar when it runs out of sugar to eat or when it reaches it's alcohol tolerance.

With cider, you have almost zero long chain sugars so the attenuation is almost always 100% regardless of what the yeast's spec sheet states as an attenuation percentage. That is, cider will almost always stop on it's own in the area of 1.000.

 

[timotb]

Sounds like you are saying changing the yeast won't improve the outcome. I have no reason to doubt this is true.

 

[podz]

There is a trick you can use to retain residual sweetness: use a yeast with a lower alcohol tolerance than your starting gravity at 100% attenuation. However, if you want to use this trick then you need to find a beer yeast with a really low alcohol tolerance. Wine yeasts normally tolerate 13-14%, and champagne yeasts go up to 18%.

 

[timotb]

You are staying find a yeast that quits early.

Mine will go to 12 or 13% with a pound of sugar per gallon. Ive throttled back last couple of years with the sugar to 4 pounds to every 5 gallons and get about 10-11%

Any suggestions on a name of yeast, that is relatively common you are referring to in this trick?

 

[podz]

I guess you could go with 2206 bavarian lager yeast, but you'll need to keep your temps low. It will stop at about approximately 9% ABV, so just add more sugar than you need to hit 9% ABV and the rest will remain.

 

[timotb]

does this Bavarian 2206 yeast start easy? override the wilds?

 

[podz]

It's a liquid yeast so you'd need to make a starter. Probably best to inhibit growth of existing yeast first with campden.

 

[Yooper]

Sounds like you are saying changing the yeast won't improve the outcome. I have no reason to doubt this is true.

Yeast strains do change the outcome. Not wine yeast strains, as those will all finish dry. But try a dry ale yeast strain. I've found that S04 will generally stop at 1.004-1.008, while other ale yeast strains like nottingham do about the same. I'm not sure exactly why this is, except that those strains don't ferment simple sugars like the ones in apple juice or sucrose as well as wine yeast strains do. (Ale yeast strains prefer maltose).

 

[podz]

Here's a cider making experiment that was conducted to perform comparison of 6 different yeasts and the gravity measurements at the end of fermentation (that Cherry Cider starting gravity might be a typo):

OG FG
English Ale Yeast 1.060 0.998
Munton's ale 1.060 0.998
Cooper's ale 1.060 1.000
Cote des Blancs 1.060 1.000
Prise de Mousse 1.060 1.000
Fleischmann's 1.060 1.000
New England Cider 1.080 0.996 Using Coopers
Cherry Cider 1.550 1.002 Using Coopers


http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?t=52108