Temperature

[CamiloKong]

hey i think im going to set up like 40 gallons of cider out in this shed outside, its like 35 degrees in florida right now though, is it too cold to ferment?

 

[jaxn]

I've never made cider with a lager yeast. It should work.

The temperature fluctuations throughout the day and night are not very desirable, though. It swings up and down about 15-20 degrees F from high to low here. Yeasties don't like that too much.

 

[Yooper]

Way too cold. The yeast will go dormant at those near freezing temperatures. If you're using a cider, wine, or ale yeast, you want to be at least 60 degrees and 70 is ideal. If you're using a lager yeast (and I definitely wouldn't do that), you'd want to be in the 50s.

 

[CamiloKong]

haha i just use bread yeast, but what if i like covered them in blankets?

 

[ribbon]

Blanket wont do much. The cider isn't a heat source.

 

[CandleWineProject]

Well, craft cider makers, who just use wild yeasts on the apples, let their stuff ferment outside and don't care if it freezes. It thaws out in the spring, and starts fermenting again. They especially wait for it to be 5 degrees C (41 F) if they are keeving, which is a process where they make a nutrient poor juice, ferment it at low temps for awhile, and it ends up naturally sweet. So having a cider go dormant isn't anything to be worried about.

That said, I have no idea what yours will do with bread yeast. All the cider books say not to use it. I think that if you had fermented at 65 degrees F with bread yeast that will taste different than if you had used wine yeast. I don't know how bread yeast will handle the cold temp, either. Regardless of the temp, the bread yeast is not going to make a tasty cider.

 

[Teromous]

I'm not sure if you're married but maybe you can convince the SWMBO to store it in your house? 40 gallons is a lot but you could break it up by room or something. You also have the option of using a space heater if you don't mind the cost of fuel or electricity. They also sell brew belts but for the price of 8 you might as well just buy a space heater. Hell for the price of one you might as well buy a space heater

Also, I wouldn't give bread yeast such a bad rap. Brewing is about experimenting. Joe's Ancient Orange Mead uses it and it's very popular.

 

[DavidSteel]

I'm not sure if you're married but maybe you can convince the SWMBO to store it in your house? 40 gallons is a lot but you could break it up by room or something. You also have the option of using a space heater if you don't mind the cost of fuel or electricity. They also sell brew belts but for the price of 8 you might as well just buy a space heater. Hell for the price of one you might as well buy a space heater

Also, I wouldn't give bread yeast such a bad rap. Brewing is about experimenting. Joe's Ancient Orange Mead uses it and it's very popular.

I've used fleishman's yeast in probably 25-30 batches of wine and it works fine. It has a fruity/sweet, yet a little sharp taste that goes along with it. Got it to ferment up to 16%. Nothing wrong with it at all and very common to find. Just don't get rapid-rise.

 

[CandleWineProject]

I realized I should clarify my statement - it won't ferment at that low of a temp, but if it was fermenting and freezes, it should be okay.

I think the problem with bread yeast is that it affects the taste, and maybe that is why it got the bad rep.

 

[wreckinball9]

I'm going to do something completely blasphemous on this forum and disagree with Yoop. 70s might be the ideal temp for been making beer with ale yeast but 50s and 60s produce better results with cider. The less vigorous fermentation leaves the FG a little higher, and leaves a little more sugar/ apple flavor in the cider.

I continuously get wyeast sweet mead yeast to stop fermenting on its own at 1.010 (with 2lbs of brown sug/ 5 gal cider) by fermenting at cooler temps.that being said, 40s are definitely too low. use a brew belt or heating pad to keep at 56-62 degrees F. S-04 and straight cider produce good results in lower temps especially because its easy to crash in the ideal range of 1.006 to 1.012 or so depending on taste.

 

[CandleWineProject]

I'm going to do something completely blasphemous on this forum and disagree with Yoop. 70s might be the ideal temp for been making beer with ale yeast but 50s and 60s produce better results with cider. The less vigorous fermentation leaves the FG a little higher, and leaves a little more sugar/ apple flavor in the cider.

It's true. I am on Cider Workshop with a whole bunch of British craft cider makers, including Andrew Lea, author of Craft Cider Making. They love to ferment slowly, let it get cold in the winter, and get that MLF going in the spring before bottling in the summer. In early December, they started up keeving because it was finally cold enough at 5 degrees C to do a long slow ferment. With keeving, they left the juice with the crushed fruit, which causes the juice to loose nutrients. Then the slow ferment allows it to finish naturally sweet without having to stop the fermentation.

 

[jcobbs]

I've used fleishman's yeast in probably 25-30 batches of wine and it works fine. It has a fruity/sweet, yet a little sharp taste that goes along with it. Got it to ferment up to 16%. Nothing wrong with it at all and very common to find. Just don't get rapid-rise.

Bread yeast gets a bad rap because it's the yeast of choice for hooch, but it can make a nice tasting beverage too, as anyone who's had some JAOM can attest. The only thing to keep in mind is that it's optimized for bread, not wine. So it can be hard to floc, the lees can be easily disturbed, and the flavor profile is different from brewing/wine yeasts. But there are finings for the flocculation and lees, and taste is a matter of....well, taste. I haven't tried bread yeast with cider, but I have done a sweet mead and a couple of wines and they taste very nice if you like it sweet. In some cases if you want a sweet drink it seems easier to use bread yeast and then hit it with Sparkalloid or Super-Kleer, instead of trying to stop a fermentation by cold-crashing, etc, or fermenting dry & backsweetening. Whatever works for you--that's the fun of the hobby.