# Ale yeast for cider



## Bribie G (29/3/14)

Mate brewed an excellent batch of Aldi juice cider using S04. I currently have a batch pitched with Wyeast Ringwood slurry.

Question: where do the esters produced in the finised beer by ale yeasts arise from? I'm interested to see if the Ringwood gives more complex fruity overtones to the batch, but in the case of beer fermentation do the esters arise because the yeast just does that sort of thing, or are the esters derived from the nature of the malt wort?

If they just *do *it, I wonder what a cider would be like made on recultured Coopers yeast with the banana / pear esters.


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## manticle (29/3/14)

Ester formation is a complicated result of a number of chemical pathways that start as a reaction to the composition of wort and a host of other things. Will look up some more info when not on phone but the thing that yeast ferments will influence the characters the yeast produces as much as the yeast strain will (or more). Bread made with 1469 won't be like maris with 1469.


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## Airgead (29/3/14)

Yeah. Wot Manticle said.

Ester formation is a complex thing. It essentially relies on a bunch of precursor compounds being present for it to happen. Generally those compounds are present in a wort but not in a cider must so ester production will be much lower on a cider than a beer.

Yeasts will produce particular esters by preference so some strains will be all banana some will be pear/apple etc depending on the strain but if the precursors aren't present they can't do it.

Ciders usually have a much lower ester profile than beers for this reason.

Cheers
Dave


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## manticle (30/3/14)

None of this is to say of course that using a different yeast won't provide a different result in flavour to your cider.


https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jbb/96/2/96_2_110/_pdf might have some of the info you're chasing Bribie. 

Esters are formed mainly by combining higher alcohols and organic acids, a reaction that needs to be catalysed by various enzymes. A number of factors influence the production of esters including temperature, available oxygen, wort composition, yeast reproduction and so on.

Not sure how it all works in cider. Will have a look in some of my cider books but I don't remember any of them having that level of detail.


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## Bribie G (30/3/14)

Thanks. She's fermenting away vigorously and the poor old Ringwood is doing its thing and pretending it's fermenting beer, with top-cropping cauliflower head well underway :unsure:


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## Not For Horses (30/3/14)

It's probably going to have a lot to do with free amino nitrogen.
The levels of FAN in wort are much higher than apple juice. A large portion of the ester precursors are derived from FAN by the yeast for their own growth and maintenance. In turn they excrete esters and ester precursors.


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