# Anyone Used Bread Yeast For Cider?



## Gop (14/2/12)

My brother was making cider and said he used about 10g of bread yeast. I suppose it would work. Has anyone had experience with using bread yeast? He basically loaded the fermenter with 20l apple juice, a kilo of brown sugar and a cinammon stick, to which he added the dry bread yeast. It's bubbling so something must be working!


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## mkstalen (14/2/12)

All yeast is similar, it eats sugars, pisses alcohol, and farts CO2.
So yes, he'll get a cider of sorts. But it's called bread yeast for a reason. I'm thinking it'll impart some flavours which are not ideal in cider.


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## Paulielow (14/2/12)

Yep I made cider in my bathtub once using bread yeast it takes awhile to clear and needs to age for a good six months at least.


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## Airgead (14/2/12)

Paulielow said:


> Yep I made cider in my bathtub once using bread yeast it takes awhile to clear and needs to age for a good six months at least.



Bread yeast is a random strain that varies from pack to pack and will give you random flavours. You might get lucky. You probably won't.

A packet of good cider or wine yeast is under $5. Not worth risking many $ worth of ingredients to save a few bucks on the yeast.

Cheers
Dave


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## Gop (15/2/12)

I hear ya loud n clear. But I wonder if it's better than wild yeasts. In ye olde times they must have used either wild yeast or whatever they could get?


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## Greg.L (15/2/12)

I would sooner use wild yeast than bread yeast. A lot of cider makers use wild yeast with success, but not many use bread yeast.


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## Wimmig (15/2/12)

Gop said:


> I hear ya loud n clear. But I wonder if it's better than wild yeasts. In ye olde times they must have used either wild yeast or whatever they could get?



In old times, before there was science there would be a stick or staff often used to "bless" the beer. This contained generations of dried yeast....always kicked it off. Though..that's just one story


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## Greg.L (15/2/12)

The old times ain't that old. Cultured yeast only became widely used in the 50s and 60s. before that it was all wild yeast.


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## stux (16/2/12)

Greg.L said:


> The old times ain't that old. Cultured yeast only became widely used in the 50s and 60s. before that it was all wild yeast.



But if you didn't wash out a fermenter which had made a good batch, and cleaned the fermenters which had made a bad batch... then things worked better


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## Airgead (16/2/12)

Stux said:


> But if you didn't wash out a fermenter which had made a good batch, and cleaned the fermenters which had made a bad batch... then things worked better




If you look right back to some of the early brewing books like Digby which was from the 15/1600's, quite a few brewers even back then recognised yeast as an ingredient and even distinguished between different types of yeast. Digby is a collection of recipes from many sources and there are several references to adding "yeast of beer" or "yeast of wine" to the brew and some where it specifically says that one type is preferred above another. There were also many more references to using a barrel that had previously fermented a batch of wine or beer. On the other hand there were also many references to letting things ferment spontaneously.

Yeast management wasn't as backwards as we like to think it was. It wasn't universally recognised by any means but a good proportion of brewers were consciously practising some form of yeast management back then.

Cheers
Dave


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## Greg.L (16/2/12)

Airgead said:


> Yeast management wasn't as backwards as we like to think it was. It wasn't universally recognised by any means but a good proportion of brewers were consciously practising some form of yeast management back then.
> 
> Cheers
> Dave



Well this is the non beer forum. I haven't done any history on it but overwhelmingly it would have been wild yeast for wine and cider. Beer can be brewed at any time of year but wine (and cider) only has 1 vintage season per year. It would have been much easier with beer to use the slurry to start a new batch.


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## yankinoz (16/2/12)

Gop said:


> My brother was making cider and said he used about 10g of bread yeast. I suppose it would work. Has anyone had experience with using bread yeast? He basically loaded the fermenter with 20l apple juice, a kilo of brown sugar and a cinammon stick, to which he added the dry bread yeast. It's bubbling so something must be working!



My brother used to use bread yeast in making wine, starting with canned grape juice concentrate, variety Concord. His airlock was a wad of cotton across the top of the jug; fortunately he lived at almost 3000 meters, where oxygen is in short supply. Nevertheless, it was the worst wine in the history of humankind.

One problem is the bread yeast settles out poorly and tends to leave behind a lot of nasty bitterness.


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## winkle (16/2/12)

Scrumpy cider traditionally just uses the existing yeast that sits on the surface of the apples. Usually with campden tablets in the must to control the bacteria.


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## Airgead (16/2/12)

Greg.L said:


> Well this is the non beer forum. I haven't done any history on it but overwhelmingly it would have been wild yeast for wine and cider. Beer can be brewed at any time of year but wine (and cider) only has 1 vintage season per year. It would have been much easier with beer to use the slurry to start a new batch.



Yep. The practice seems to have been - use wild yeast for wine then re-use that yeast to brew meads at other times of year. Beers seem to have been top cropped or re-pitched.

Cheers
Dave


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## Gop (22/2/12)

Isn't it great that we can buy nearly any kind of yeast we want now. But there are still a lot of other variables that keep the process interesting!


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## indorat (22/2/12)

I use boiled bread yeast as nutrients for my cider.


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