Yeast for Cider ?

[Samuel Adams]

What yeast do you prefer & how were your results with each yeast ?



I'm about to have a go at some cider after seeing apple juice on sale at coles (and all you bastards inspiring me).
I have 18L of juice; 4 x 3L apple & 2 x 3L apple & berry.

I have safale S04 on hand and wondering if it will be ok for the job.
I have searched around and most people are using champagne yeast or a cider kit yeast.

 

[Fossey]

That will be fine. Ale yeasts retain flavours that champagne yeasts strip out (not that I'm against champagne yeasts, I use EC-1118 a lot). I've made a couple with Safale, Nottingham and am going to try a low temp Saflager brew too.

 

[mikec]

Most white wine yeasts are also fine.

 

[Rodolphe01]

I've used Wyeast 1968 slurry from an English bitter feat. hop debris from EKG dry hop, cider was very good. I'm sure a fresh pack of S04 would be fine

I back sweeten by cider in the keg with fresh juice, so see little point in drying it right out with champagne yeast.

I have used the wyeast liquid cider yeast with great success too.

 

[Samuel Adams]

Should I expect S04 to get the FG down to 1.000 ?

 

[JDW81]

Should get pretty low, as most of your sugars in cider are simple, and hence easily fermentable. You'll probably be in the 1.000-1.004 range. Unless you've added some malt extract, which might give you a bit more body and a sightly higher FG. Give it a good couple of weeks and let you hydrometer guide you.

 

[Samuel Adams]

Ok cool, only thing I might add is some dex depending on the OG

 

[fletcher]

..Give it a good couple of weeks and let you hydrometer guide you.

i could never let it sit for a good few weeks for my last one mate - despite your very true and generous advice telling me it was in my best interests for the taste.

i think because i've got such a small set up at home, it would have taken up all the space for other things fermenting!

sorry for being off-topic OP! Ive used us-05 only which ended up stalling/slowing at 1.012 and i ended up drinking a lot of it straight from the fermenter as it still had some sweetness. tasted amazing.

 

[Bribie G]

I've been using the kit yeast from a Black Rock Cider kit, gets it very dry. I just received some wine/cider yeast from ESB that I'll be trying today. One thing I like about the Black rock yeast is that it drops to an almost jelly-like layer at the bottom of the FV so you can literally get every last drop of cider into the keg.

 

[fletcher]

I've been using the kit yeast from a Black Rock Cider kit, gets it very dry. I just received some wine/cider yeast from ESB that I'll be trying today. One thing I like about the Black rock yeast is that it drops to an almost jelly-like layer at the bottom of the FV so you can literally get every last drop of cider into the keg.

do you crash chill it also mate?

 

[Bribie G]

No it just sits at ambient (currently 18 in the garage) till the previous keg blows, then rack it into the keg and gas immediately. The current batch was sitting so long I literally had to scrape the yeast cake out with my finger nails.

 

[boonchu]

Try wlp 775 works really well and can be repitched several times