Wild fermentation advice?

[sansbury]

For a few years I've been wanting to try making cider, and this year I finally got all the ducks lined up right on time. Last week I crushed and pressed about 50 pounds of apples from local orchards and have two one-gallon batches of cider starting to ferment gently. These were started conventionally using Campden and purchased yeasts (AB-1 and Red Star Premier Blanc).

Having finished that and thinking, "well, that wasn't so hard," I went to the local orchard and picked up another ~25# of Northern Spy apples, and have been seriously considering trying a free/wild ferment. I'm also particularly curious about the N. Spy because it's one of the varieties of trees I planted and is just starting to yield a little so will hopefully have more to go around in future years.

The advice I've seen around wild fermentation ranges from "it's a crapshoot" to "it's no big deal" to "well it can work if you control these 37 variables." The apples cost me about $30 so it would not break my heart if it was a bust. But if the odds are against me I'd be fine just doing a dry cider yeast and save the wild experiment for next season or some time when I have more apples than I know what to do with.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

 

[Maylar]

I've only done it once and it was by accident. It was unpasteurized local cider and it started fermenting on its own in a 40°F fridge. All I did was add a bit of DAP for nutrient and let it go as I normally would. The end result was no different than what I usually get with an ale yeast. The wild yeast probably came off the 75 year old belt driven scratter that the cider mill had.

 

[JAReeves]

I have had good luck with this and the initial culture I got from the press-pressed juice is still hanging around in a jug, added to new juice to contribute to the fermentation.

 

[IAmPistolPete]

It's true that it can be a crapshoot or at least inconsistent as the wild yeast may have a low alcohol tolerance or different requirements and if it lags other microbes may take hold. Def try it but keep a close eye & have another commercial yeast handy

 

[saniac]

I've done it for three years in a row with interesting results and no bad batches. My mitigation is I tend to press small amounts and ferment in 5l carboys rather than a single press and one big batch, so hopefully if a wild ferment were to be bad, it might be limited just to that carboy.

 

[brewSJ]

I've done it twice too and I've always been happy with the results. If you're used to beer, though, expect it to get off to a very slow start. A week without airlock activity isn't unusual. Oh, and when it finally does go, it can really take off. I use a blow-off tube until it settles down.

 

[lumpher]

I was doing a wild cider ferment, and was about 2 months into it. I was fermenting a gallon in a jar. Yesterday my wife said "I dumped that tea that was in that jar. It was fermenting."

 

[z-bob]

I have 3 gallons of store-bought apple juice fermenting with yeast I collected off a couple of handfuls of crabapples. I started a new thread about it 4 weeks ago. It's going a lot slower than with wine yeast, but no problems so far other than a bad smell for a while that went away. I think the smell was from not enough added yeast nutrient at that point so the yeast was stressed out; hungry for nitrogen.

 

[sansbury]

Well, thanks to this thread I hunted down a pile of really neat heirloom apples, spent 3 hours crushing/pressing/cleaning, put them up to ferment on their own, and just dumped the results down the drain after they grew mold spores on the surface within 3 days.

I think it will be at least a couple years before I can summon the wherewithal to try that again. What a waste of time, money, and energy.

 

[Maylar]

Well, thanks to this thread I hunted down a pile of really neat heirloom apples, spent 3 hours crushing/pressing/cleaning, put them up to ferment on their own, and just dumped the results down the drain after they grew mold spores on the surface within 3 days.

I think it will be at least a couple years before I can summon the wherewithal to try that again. What a waste of time, money, and energy.

That sux, sorry. The usual recommendation is to treat the raw cider with Potassium Metabisulfite but at half the normal dose. It'll kill bacteria without seriously hurting the wild yeasties. Better luck next time.

 

[Petdrummer]

Well, thanks to this thread I hunted down a pile of really neat heirloom apples, spent 3 hours crushing/pressing/cleaning, put them up to ferment on their own, and just dumped the results down the drain after they grew mold spores on the surface within 3 days.

I think it will be at least a couple years before I can summon the wherewithal to try that again. What a waste of time, money, and energy.

Are you sure it was mold? Did any fermentation start? Did you use any campden/sulfites, pectic enzyme? Natural fermentation can sometimes take days to start, and last for weeks. Once started, it can take days to hit the raging foam stage, if at all. Real apple squeezings in particular can form pectin globs and yeast rafts and other disturbing surface formations that are normal to the process. Particularly if no pectic enzyme was added. Things you normally don't get to see when fermentation kicks off right away.

 

[sansbury]

Sulfites no, pectic yes.

I used that chart actually. They were white and very clearly filamentacious, unfortunately.

 

[JAReeves]

With wild fermentations, I have been nervous. With the bottle dregs from an Italian sour (Panil) it looked like a morel mushroom growing out of the surface of the beer. But, patience rewarded me and it's some of the best sour culture I have tasted. Maybe let it ride next time and see what happens. Wild fermentations are one the places where F* Around and Find Out can work in your favor.

 

[Artisan]

I recently completed two batches of vinegar using wild fermentation. One was peach that was in a 10L fermentation crockand the other was strawberries in a half gallon mason jar using only a coffee filter (no bubbler). I had excellant results. It did take a lot longer to get going and the process overall was longer than my current batches using EC-1118 yeast. I did only add 100g yeast per gallon to the wild yeast ferments but the wine yeast gets a lot more so that may have been a contributing factor also.

 

[AzOr]

Sorry for being late to the party-

I love ciders with a bit of “character”. My favorite method is to ferment 2 or 3 gallons of aj with a Brett strain. The last one I used was Imperial Sour Patch (I no longer see it on their website though). Start this now. No need for fancy juice, anything that hasn’t been sulfited will work. Let is sit in your fermenter for as long as possible, even up to a year. This will be the most disgusting thing you will ever taste, I hope. The mixed Brett cider can't be rushed, time will develop some really interesting flavors. This is why you should start now. When this is done, pour into a soup pan and pasteurize. I hold at 150f for a min or so then let it cool down whiled covered. Once cool, pour into bottles or jars and keep in your kegerator for later use.

Meanwhile, ferment your regular cider using reg yeast. I like 71-b, mangrove's cider or my absolute favorite- Imperial's Napoleon. When this is done and you've aged it to your liking, add the Brett cider to it. I usually like a 90% cider to 10% funky cider. Run some sample test before you commit to a whole batch. I usually backsweeten much less with these funky ciders, but that's my tastebuds.
I did this to a batch of cherry cider a few years ago and won a gold medal at a regional cider and mead comp. I also do this all the time to regular cider. In fact, I have a 2 gallon batch of Brett cider in the bucket as we speak. I'll go out to the garage and take a pic of the cider later. It's pretty spooky.

A few years back I was pressing my own juice from cider apples and there was no way in heck that I would risk an entire batch to some unknown yeasties. Just way too much work to gamble on.

*Since I'm not sure Sour Patch is still being sold, I may dump a couple of gallons of store bought aj on top of the dregs.

 

[AzOr]

Here is my latest batch. It's 2 gallons. I just took a little sip and it doesn't have as much barnyard as previous batches but I'll let it ride for a couple of more months and check again. Either way, it would still add a little funk to my regular ciders.