Yeast for Cider ?

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Samuel Adams

Well-Known Member
Joined
20/10/10
Messages
442
Reaction score
70
Location
Shailer Park
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
JDW81 said:
..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.
 
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.
 
Bribie G said:
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?
 
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.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top