Results from juice, yeast and sugar experiments

[CvilleKevin]

My experience with sugar is that the darker the sugar, the more it imparts a butterscotch taste when it ferments out. Whether or not that's a good thing is a matter of taste and what you are going for. I've never used molasses, but my guess is it will give you a very caramel taste. I used Nottingham for all of the sugar tests that I did - other yeasts may produce different flavors with dark sugar. To my taste, a mix of 2/3 natural cane sugar (light turbinado) and 1/3 dextrose is the most neutral tasting, although plain white cane sugar is pretty close

 

[Firstnten]

My experience with sugar is that the darker the sugar, the more it imparts a butterscotch taste when it ferments out. Whether or not that's a good thing is a matter of taste and what you are going for. I've never used molasses, but my guess is it will give you a very caramel taste. I used Nottingham for all of the sugar tests that I did - other yeasts may produce different flavors with dark sugar. To my taste, a mix of 2/3 natural cane sugar (light turbinado) and 1/3 dextrose is the most neutral tasting, although plain white cane sugar is pretty close

Thanks one more question. There is a big difference between a fluid ounce and a solid ounce. As a fluid is more so volume which I know 90% of the people here understand being they are well versed with Specific Gravity. So when using honey or molasses I still see people here coining it by lb. Are they weighing the aforementioned or just assuming for convenience sake that fluid Oz's are equivalent to solid?

 

[Firstnten]

To take it a step further I did a little research and found out that molasses is about 12.5 pounds to the gallon, same weight as honey, almost. Which would make 200 solid Oz's in a gallon of molasses if my math is not off.

 

[jay415]

Thanks one more question. There is a big difference between a fluid ounce and a solid ounce. As a fluid is more so volume which I know 90% of the people here understand being they are well versed with Specific Gravity. So when using honey or molasses I still see people here coining it by lb. Are they weighing the aforementioned or just assuming for convenience sake that fluid Oz's are equivalent to solid?

it's by weight. Honey = 1 gal is about 12 lbs. Water = 1 gal is about 8.5 lbs.

 

[Firstnten]

it's by weight. Honey = 1 gal is about 12 lbs. Water = 1 gal is about 8.5 lbs.

so Roughly 10 Oz's of honey or Molasses equals an lb.

 

[jay415]

so Roughly 10 Oz's of honey or Molasses equals an lb.

yea it's actually closer to 11 about 10.7 fluid oz to 1 lb of honey

here's a conversion
Honey measurements converter weight vs volume conversion calculator.

 

[ColoradoXJ13]

Great thread! I am planning on doing a batch of cider soon (sorry for the Noobish question) and all I can get is pasteurized cider. (at $5/gal it isn't too bad). I prefer a semi-sweet cider, much like you. What would you reccomend for yeast and sugar to make your best (favorite) hard cider with pasteurized juice?

 

[soontobepcv]

I went to Kevin's for a tasting party and out of the 10 tasted (the agenda called for 15, but they were some pretty big samples of 8+% ciders, despite all the food Kevin had given us), the ones with wild yeast were my favorite. At least a few others concurred. In contrast with the others that had a more or less one-dimensional taste (my biggest qualm with ciders in general,) the ones made with wild yeast were definitely interesting while still having less off-taste than some of the others. Kevin suggested that it was due in part to a higher FG that masked those flavors, but I'm curious to try dryer versions.

 

[CvilleKevin]

The batch with wild yeast that we tasted last night came out really good. Out of 4 attempts with wild yeast, this was the best I’ve managed so far. Usually the brewers (and very few others) like the wild yeast batches the best, but pretty much everyone liked this one. I crashed this one at 1.020, where it was just starting to pick up some off flavors, which the sweetness helped balance out (keep in mind that 1.020 is still on the low end of a commercial cider). My brewer friends probably would have liked it better if I let it go another 5pts, but my experience is that below 1.020 is where the off flavors start developing.

On the other hand, I’ve got 5 single gallon batches with wild yeast in progress and these fermented out a lot faster than I thought – they all got down to 1.002 before I checked them a couple days ago, but they don’t taste too bad. Three I cold crashed and two I sorbated. I havent tasted them since stopping fermentation. I don’t think they will be as good as the one we had last night, but these are the first time that I’ve got a wild batch to go below 1.010 without tasting really nasty.

All of the ciders we tasted last night went over well, as did the brews that Mark brought. I had some rating sheets at the tasting and 13 folks remained coherent enough to fill them out so here are the ones that scored the best in order of average popularity:

1) Blend of Red and Golden delicious, Jonagold, Fuji, Empire. Started 10/11/08. Sg 1.052. No extra sugar. Left to ferment out with natural yeast, cold crashed 9 days later at 1.020 and bottled the next day

2) Mostly staymans, mixed with empire, golden delicious, small amount of granny smith. Started 10/9/08. SG 1.042. Sulfited and added 3lbs basswood honey. S04 yeast. Cold crashed 11 days later at 1.010. Let clear for about three more weeks and kegged at 1.010. The basswood honey gave the cyser a nice smokey taste that was a little forward for my taste, but most folks really liked it. I might do half basswood, half clover next time and let go to 1.008

3) (my favorite of this round) Mostly staymans, mixed with empire, golden delicious, small amount of granny smith. Started 10/9/08. SG 1.042. Sulfited and added 4oz turbinado, 2oz dextrose per gallon. US05 yeast. Cold crashed 10 days later at 1.012. Let clear for about three more weeks and kegged at 1.010. Had a great apple ale taste. Could have maybe gone to 1.008

4) Blend of Golden delicious, Jonagold. Started 10/11/08. Sg 1.052. No extra sugar. Didn’t sulfite. Added Nottingham yeast, cold crashed 9 days later at 1.004 and bottled the next day. Not sulfiting produced more of an apple taste and a hint of the wild yeast.

5) Mostly staymans, mixed with empire, golden delicious, small amount of granny smith. Started 10/9/08. SG 1.042. Sulfited and added 4oz turbinado, 2oz dextrose per gallon. Coopers ale yeast. Cold crashed 8 days later at 1.004. bottled a week later. The Coopers had a crisp tart taste.

6) Mostly staymans, mixed with empire, golden delicious, small amount of granny smith. Started 10/9/08. SG 1.042. Didn’t sulftite. added 4oz turbinado, 2oz dextrose per gallon. S04 yeast. Cold crashed 9 days later at 1.008. bottled a week later. Not sulfiting produced more of an apple taste and a hint of the wild yeast.

ColoradoXJ13 – It kinda depends on the juice. Without tasting it, I would go with 3lbs of orange blossom honey (or any other lightly flavored honey you like) and S04 yeast. Its hard to go wrong with that combo and you’ll get a clear finish. If the juice is nicely balanced and you want more of an ale body, bump the sg to 1.060 with 2/3 turbinado and 1/3 dextrose and use US05. If the juice doesn’t have much tartness, Coopers or S23 will give it a little more bite and if its already pretty tart, nottingham usually comes out a little more mellow. In any case, check the sg after 8 days and cold crash wherever you like it – somewhere in 1.004 to 1.010 seems to be where majority of people like it.

 

[felix]

Incredeble topic. Thank you so much for sharing your experiments with us...

I am curious about your use of wild yeasts, i happen to live among dozens of orchards...

what is your technique? Peels?

thanks again

 

[Evan!]

Man, Kevin, I just tried a sample from the spontaneously fermented gallon from that last haul from you. VERY weird. Yeasty, bready...tastes nothing like cider. We'll see how it does in a few months.

 

[CvilleKevin]

Evan - did you check the sg when you tasted it? My experience is that when sg drops below 1.020 is where it starts getting weird. Last year I tested a bottle of Scrumpy's (which is apparently fermented with wild yeast) and it was at 1.028, so they may have come to the same conclusion.

I fermented out five gallons of that same batch (Staymans and Winesaps) and bottled them on Friday. Two I sorbated and three I cold crashed. They got all the way down to 1.000 - 1.002 and taste surprisingly decent. I have no idea how that happened. I dont like these as much as the last batch but my guess is that you and the other brewers will probably like them better.

 

[CvilleKevin]

Felix - so far I have no technique on wild yeast, only luck which has been mostly poor but seems to be improving.

So far I've just done gallons, pouring out a little bit of juice to make space for foam and slap on a fermentation lock. Usually it takes about 2-3 days to start and another to really get going. One thing I have learned is to stop the fermentation around 1.020, but my last batch was an accidental exception to that rule.

The batch that everyone liked came from a cider pressing party that some friends hosted and they were really careful with prep. We washed all the apples and cut the bad spots out before pressing. That probably cut down on the chances of picking up weirdness bugs but you cant expect this level of prep from a commercial press

The odd thing about the last 5 gallons is that they fermented out before the ones I did with ale yeast. Normally I dont even bother checking the wild yeast batches before the ale yeast ones are finished because the wild yeast is a lot slower but this time the wild batches finished first - so either there was more yeast on these apples or a more aggressive strain, or maybe it was something else. I just wish I had caught them just a little earlier, like around 1.004.

I can tell you that for the two gallons with wild yeast that I sorbated, I was able to stop fermentation with half the recommended dose of k-meta and half the recommended dose of sorbate, while for the ale yeasts, it took a full dose of each to stop fermentation. I'm not sure if the wild yeast fermentation was easier to stop because of the yeast or because it was close to terminal sg already.

 

[felix]

so you just let the juice go by itself?

i've heard of people preparing wild yeast by peeling skins , put them in a small container with some juice, and let this go for a week. They would then use something like half a cup of this juice as a starter for their fermentations, happily for 2 years apparently... so my gess is that one could simply trow some peels direct in their carboys and filter them out when racking, but that doing a "mother" cider would allow for more control over what you get from wild yeasts...

edit: i hope i'm making sense, i'm quite a newbie!

 

[CvilleKevin]

Yep, I have always just let the juice go by itself. The juice will already have lots of yeast from the skins which comes off during the crushing and pressing. There may be a better way. I suppose you could culture a wild yeast but it would probably take a fair amount of work to select one that is consistently better than whatever natural yeast is on the apples.

 

[RugenBrau]

In an earlier post you said you were going to try The Wyeast3068 with unpasteurized juice. I was wondering how much of a difference you found between that and the pasteurized juice. By the way I've really enjoyed this post. I don't think I would have ever tried the Safale S 04 without it. I love it.

 

[Freezeblade]

so you just let the juice go by itself?

i've heard of people preparing wild yeast by peeling skins , put them in a small container with some juice, and let this go for a week. They would then use something like half a cup of this juice as a starter for their fermentations, happily for 2 years apparently... so my gess is that one could simply trow some peels direct in their carboys and filter them out when racking, but that doing a "mother" cider would allow for more control over what you get from wild yeasts...

edit: i hope i'm making sense, i'm quite a newbie!

I've done quite a few batches using this method of propagating wild yeasts, and I'm waiting to post up a thread on it untill I've got the method down pat, but what I can tell you, is that the first batch using the peels will be a bit wierd if you go down below 1.020, like a earlier poster said. HOWEVER, I have found that if you let a small batch (gallon or half gallon) go all the way, then wash the yeast using the yeast washing instructions, the next batch is very clean and nice. My theory on that is that once the abv gets above 4% or so, the bugs have a harder time surviving, but the yeast does fine. I've got a bit of a wild yeast bank going from the yeast gotten off fruit grown in different areas. So far I've got two different wild apple yeasts, plum, and peach. some of the yeast is so-so, but I've got one that kicks the pants off the White Labs english cider yeast.

 

[jay415]

so you just let the juice go by itself?

i've heard of people preparing wild yeast by peeling skins , put them in a small container with some juice, and let this go for a week. They would then use something like half a cup of this juice as a starter for their fermentations, happily for 2 years apparently... so my gess is that one could simply trow some peels direct in their carboys and filter them out when racking, but that doing a "mother" cider would allow for more control over what you get from wild yeasts...

edit: i hope i'm making sense, i'm quite a newbie!

I tried this once based on a youtube video I saw. It was really good until about 1.024, then it started tasting and smelling like nail polish remover. I think that was an infection rather than an off flavor. I haven't tried it again but I probably will in the future. Here is the thread of my notes.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/quick-sweet-cider-impatient-70318/

 

[felix]

i find the subject of wild yeasts wildly interesting.

 

[CvilleKevin]

I have a keg batch of Wyeast 3068 in progress now, with unpasteurized Stayman and Winesap juice. It has been the slowest fermenting of the most recent five keg batches. I started them almost 3 weeks ago and have already cold crashed the other four at sg's ranging from 1.002 to 1.004, but the 3068 is still at 1.030. Its still chugging along, just slow. It tastes pretty good though. Really nice body. Still too sweet and not much of a tart note, but hopefully that will change in a couple more weeks.

I'd have to say though, that for as much hassle as this 3068 batch has been, it will have to be a lot better than the ale yeasts to be worth another shot. It produced a foam that wasnt very dense, but it was soapy and gummed up the airlock for days. I finally gave up trying to keep it clean and just wrapped a towel around the neck of the carboy so that it wouldnt drip all over the carboy. That worked but encouraged fruit flies. If I use it again I will definitely use a blow off tube for the first 10 days instead of an airlock. And I'm not crazy about tying up a primary for six weeks. Normally three weeks in the primary is plenty and then three more weeks in secondary so I can free up my six gallon primary jugs for more juice. Hopefully it will be worth the extra hassle in a couple of weeks.

 

[RugenBrau]

Thanks for that info and everything your doing. This post is a great source for me and others.

 

[RugenBrau]

just a quick question of your saflager s23. I was going fine with it but it got away on me and is now at 1.000 Yeeech!!!! You say it improves with age. About how long? Oh well, if it improves a little bit maybe I 'll try to blend it with the safale s 04. I think I'm addicted to that

 

[CvilleKevin]

Bummer about the S23. Mine has dropped a little bit more since crashing to 1.002, but still very tasty. It has a bit more complexity than the S04 with the same juice. I just kegged the S04 batch and it tastes great. I also just crashed the S23 one more time to clear it a little more before kegging and hopefully keep it stable until I can drink it. I'm going to let it chill for several days this time.

The S23 definitely improves with age. I didnt think it was all that when I bottled the first batch in mid December of last year, but it was OK when we drank most of in in January and really good when we drank the last liter in September. In my short experience with saving cider, the drier it is, the longer it takes to really get good.

 

[gwood]

Great thread, lots of good info here.

Question for Kevin: Do you have anything that's been in the bottle for more than a year now?

I've got some more long term plans for a few batches and just wanted to get your take on longer term storage.

 

[CvilleKevin]

I still have two liters of a batch that I started on January 2 of last year. Thats the oldest stuff I have.

Last year was the first time I've ever managed to save anything past February, maybe March at the very latest, so I dont have much experience as others with storage. I saved 36 liter bottles and two kegs until September. The kegs were overly dry and I was planning to give them to a friend to make vinegar until about the end of August when they started to get decent tasting.

I have read a lot of posts from folks who just let it go dry and then save it for at least a year and that is what I am planning to do with the first 5 kegs I made this season. I let them ferment all the way out, didnt cold crash and will try to save them until next Fall. It remains to be seen if they will last that long or be any good, but that is the goal.

 

[gwood]

I still have two liters of a batch that I started on January 2 of last year. Thats the oldest stuff I have.

Last year was the first time I've ever managed to save anything past February, maybe March at the very latest, so I dont have much experience as others with storage. I saved 36 liter bottles and two kegs until September. The kegs were overly dry and I was planning to give them to a friend to make vinegar until about the end of August when they started to get decent tasting.

I have read a lot of posts from folks who just let it go dry and then save it for at least a year and that is what I am planning to do with the first 5 kegs I made this season. I let them ferment all the way out, didnt cold crash and will try to save them until next Fall. It remains to be seen if they will last that long or be any good, but that is the goal.

I've got two batches that feremented out to 1.002 with Montrachet that are over a year now and one Cotes de Blanc batch that is getting close and they are both still good. The Montrachet has improved significantly.

 

[jay415]

I've got two batches that feremented out to 1.002 with Montrachet that are over a year now and one Cotes de Blanc batch that is getting close and they are both still good. The Montrachet has improved significantly.

What was the OG?

 

[gwood]

What was the OG?

I don't have the numbers with me but I think that both batches had four pounds of sugar added...relatively high.

 

[RugenBrau]

Kevin
I just thought I'd give you an update on the saflager S23yeast. 2 weeks ago I told you how it had chaged to something horrible. Well I took a sip of it last night and it is on its way back. I can't believe how much it changed in just two weeks. It is really quite pleasant tasting

 

[RugenBrau]

When you tried the 4184 sweet mead yeast what was the FG? I am reading where this yeast is suppose to die out early and I was wondering how sweet the cider would be.