Cider Yeast

[casualties_army40]

Hi, im just wondering what people think is the best cider yeast to use and where you get it from?

the cider i make is all juice from the supermarket, yeast nutrient, sugar, and vintners harvest SN9 wine yeast. the wine yeast ferments the cider toooo dry. im looking at making a draught cider or a dry one with a hint of sweetness in it. i also like it strong, between 6-10%.

im open to try any yeast along as it dosnt cost heaps.

cheers and beers and ciders.

 

[MarkMc]

Hi, im just wondering what people think is the best cider yeast to use and where you get it from?

the cider i make is all juice from the supermarket, yeast nutrient, sugar, and vintners harvest SN9 wine yeast. the wine yeast ferments the cider toooo dry. im looking at making a draught cider or a dry one with a hint of sweetness in it. i also like it strong, between 6-10%.

im open to try any yeast along as it dosnt cost heaps.

cheers and beers and ciders.

I only tried once - with an ale yeast - first taste was good but after taste was really crap.

My mate says to use a champagne yeast - but makes it very dry.

 

[Franko]

wyeast 4766

enough said

 

[Hatchy]

I made a cider for SWMBO. It was ultra dry even with 500g lactose. I was going to use more lactose in the next 1 & hadn't thought about using different yeast. I used ec1118 wine yeast with 21L of apple juice. I think the next 1 will have some pear juice thanks to the inspiration of st helliers apple & pear cider. From my understanding the sugar in the juice will ferment out with most (all?) yeast & the best (only?) way to get it sweeter is to add lactose.

Disclaimer: I know less about brewing cider than I do about brewing beer. I'll need to do a lot more research before I feel like I've got a decent understanding of cider. I don't actually drink cider but figured if I brew some then SWMBO may be more forgiving about the 4 fermenters & countless bottles that have moved in with us.

 

[Hatchy]

wyeast 4766

enough said

That's what I was meant to get. Neither of the shops I went to had it. I grabbed whatever I could get my hands on.

 

[tcraig20]

Ive made ciders with S04 that was a real wife pleaser. Good thing is that its cheap and any home brew shop worth it's salt will have it.

If you want a little more sweetness, add a few litres of apple/pear juice instead of straight apple.

 

[Scruffy]

Make cider all year. Used loads of different yeasts.
Apple juice/Pear juice, it's all sugar. it'll all go!
Use a load of Apple concentrate... after.

Many ways to get it sweet, 4184 notwithstanding. Not as attenuating as S-04 so finishes sweeter and lends an interesting profile. Nottingham on the other hand eats everything, but doesn't like as high an alcohol as the Mead so sugar it well (high gravity) and let it get as far as it can (- giving you residual sweetness).
Remember too, there's no yeast nutrient in fruit juice (there's loads in Malt...), so hydrate the Notty (+S-04) well before you start and fee... oh you do, sorry!...

3068 was a cracker I remember - low attenuating, nice and sweet, Big apple flavour!

The supermarket stuff is artificially sweetened, so if you let it go all the way to 1.000 (or below), you'll be left with a faint weird sweetener taste...

By far the best flavour is obtained by letting the yeast on the skins of your apples do the work - but this takes months (I've got a Demijohn from 14months ago, ageing nicely... tasted awful for the first four months, pretty passable now!) you could bung some grapes into your flagons of Berry... but hey

all in all, for what you want - give 3068 a go - all the sponsors (look for the banners, top of the page) should have it... or Danstar Munich, might do the trick - not tried it though...

 

[brettprevans]

One assumes that are not actually wanting to make a draft ccider (ie on tap - that's what draft means). Assuming u want a sweet cider then u should read the sweet cider threads in the non-beer brewing section.

Essentially the issue u face is Ibtaining residual sugars in higher amounts.
So either use a lower attenuating yeast (wyeast make a sweet mead yeast u could use) or stop fermentation before sugars are all eaten (this means using a chemical so it's not desirable) or backsweeten.
Issues with backsweetening arise if u bottle cause the yeast is still active and it will eat the backsweetening and u get bottle bombs. If u keg you don't get these issues and can do a variety of things. Bur I assume u bottle so the jeg info isn't much help to u.

Have a read of the sweet cider threads. Heaps of info

 

[Scruffy]

And remember, time is your friend. You think it tastes weird going into the bottle? Wait 6 weeks...

it comes good! Unless you've done summat bad...

edit... typing pished...

 

[Scruffy]

Have to type some more, ...now drinking a scoop of the twenty odd litres of that Coles cheap brand apple juice, put down with 12g of Craftbrewers American ale yeast - which is prolly S-05 (or 1056 in liquid). Nothing else added apart from TIME (oh and enough boiled DME and molasses to make the Starting Gravity about 1085) - leave the Fekker about 8 weeks - then at least a month in the bottle with 150g Dex per 20l cider... Maybe you could bung in some dry Nelson or summat)
Passable, espeshially if you've drunk meths beforehand and you're not bovvered who you shag next.
Fek I lurves the soider!


Experiment - it's not real beer, so no one cares!