I have had such luck with using a once used beer yeast cake for making cider that I have decided going forward I will keep at least one cider going after I ferment a beer. The fermentation starts up very strong and usually finishes very quickly and cleanly. I can use any amount of extra sugar that I like without having to worry about stressing the yeast, they are already veterans and can take what is thrown at them. I use primarily Notthingham dry yeast for my beers and I have used that same yeast with the best of the ciders I have made in the past. I will use this system with all my standard ciders and experiments I will be trying from now on, not only will it save me time and money on the yeast but will ensure tested and good results for cider making. I can even dump the juice right out of the bottles into the fermenter and leave it as is. I like to up the ABV with demerera sugar or concentrates on most occasions and I can just warm up a gallon of juice and dissolve all that in a pot on the stove, add some pectic enzyme if it gets too hot, and cool it off to pitching temp and throw it all together. Another upside to this is keeping the pipeline full with either beer or cider:cross:
My New System for Cider
- Thread starter BrewFrick
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Freezeblade
Well-Known Member
I've done that once, but I find that if you do plain ciders with it, you get some strange flavors from hop partials and malt proteins that are left over in the yeast cake. I prefur to just make two starters of whatever yeast I'm going to be brewing with and then make up a cider on the same day as my brewday.
