Results from juice, yeast and sugar experiments

[CvilleKevin]

Hi Folks – Last year I decided it was time to come up with some new cider and cyser recipes, so in addition to 20 keg batches, which were mostly made with ole trusty Nottingham ale yeast, I did roughly 80 single gallon batches with different yeasts, juice and sugars. I saved a liter each of the better ones (36 total) and drank them with friends last month to see what was worth replicating for this year. For anyone who is interested, here are the results:



The goal – I try to make ciders and cysers that are semi-dry to semi-sweet – ie from 1.002 to 1.008 when they finish out. That’s a good bit dryer than the commercial ciders I like (woodchuck granny smith, woodpecker, original sin), but not so dry that it tastes like a white wine (or jet fuel).

Juice – I used fresh juice from a couple of local cider presses. One has the option of UV pasteurization, the other just sells unpasteurized.

Some people say that unpasteurized juice tastes better. It depends. I did several keg batches where the guy at the press filled a couple of carboys right before the juice went through the UV, and a couple right after the UV. The only difference was the UV. The UV changes the color a little bit, but the taste was exactly the same.

Once the juice ferments, it’s a different story. The pasteurized juice ferments faster, the results are more consistent, and you can drink it in a few weeks. If you cold crash it, it is quite drinkable in about 10 days. Since you don’t have to sulfate it, it doesn’t stink up your brew cellar as much. Finally, if you use Nottingham, S04 or a lager yeast and add sugar, enough of the yeast will stay close to the bottom that you can stop fermentation before the sg bottoms out just by racking a couple of times, which is a lot less hassle than cold crashing.

Using pasteurized juice does have disadvantages. It doesn’t get the nice clear finish of unpasteurized juice. And it often overwhelms the airlock with krausen and makes a mess, because there is no sulfate slowing the initial fermentation. But mainly it doesn’t keep as well. I didn’t realize this before last year, because previously everything I made would be drunk up by February. However after a few months the pasteurized stuff gets vinegary. Without exception, all of the batches that we tasted last month which were made with pasteurized juice had a noticeable vinegar taste, even though they tasted fine back in the early spring. All of the unpasteurized stuff was fine.

The unpasteurized juice tastes really sour during and after fermentation – even when it has a relatively high final sg - and it takes several months to mellow. But it still tastes great almost a year later and in many cases improved. Unlike the pasteurized juice, I havent been able to stop the fermentation by using a bottom fermenting yeast, extra sugar and racking (at least not so far), but cold crashing still works.

The type of apples makes a big difference. You have to start with a good blend or the final result will taste crappy, no matter what yeast and sugar you use. I had the best results with blends that were based around Staymans and Winesaps as the main juice, with Granny Smiths to give it some extra tartness and Golden Delicious, Yorks or Pink Ladys for sweetness. I’m sure there are lots of other combinations that work, but these are what’s readily available in Central Virginia.

Yeast – the best ones so far (for the juices I used)

Nottingham – This has been my favorite yeast for several years. It works well for sweet ciders and cysers with pasteurized juice, although not so well for unpasteurized cyser. It cold crashes well with any juice. With just juice, no sugar, and cold crash around 1.004, it is outstanding. If you use sugar and bump sg up to at least 1.060, then you can stop fermentation with pasteurized juice by racking. You have to do either rack or cold crash to keep it from drying out all the way, as it tends to strip out the flavor if it goes all the way dry.

Safale S-04 – This is becoming my new favorite. It has a little fruitier taste than the Nottingham. It cold crashes well with any juice. If you use sugar and bump sg up to at least 1.060, then you can stop fermentation with pasteurized juice by racking. With unpasteurized juice, if you don’t cold crash and just let it ferment out to dryness, it leaves more of the apple taste than the Nottingham. It also works better for unpasteurized cysers. I haven’t tried a pasteurized cyser with it yet.

Saflager S-23 – This lager yeast has a similar flavor profile to Nottingham. It doesn’t do as well with unsweetened juice, but is good if you add sugar to bump the sg up to about 1.060. This is one that definitely improves with age. It was one of the best that we tasted last month. It cold crashes well.

Safale US-05 – This yeast imparts an interesting taste to the cider which reminds me a little bit of a pale ale. It works better with pasteurized juice – with unpasteurized it tends to knock out some of the body.

Yeasts I’ll probably try again

Wyeast 3068 – So far I’ve just used this with pasteurized juice, with and without extra sugar, cold crashing both batches. It has a nice smooth taste and lots of body, but not much tartness. However, mixed with juice that is fermented with WLP300 (which fermented out a little too tart) it was outstanding. I’m planning to try it with unpasteurized juice this year to see if that imparts a bit more of a bite.

Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead Yeast – I tried this one with pasteurized and unpasteurized juice, with and without extra sugar, all of them cold crashed. All were good, although the best was unpasteurized with sugar.

Wild yeast – I did several experiments with wild yeasts. Generally, they tasted pretty good until the sg dropped below 1.020 and then they started picking up nasty flavors. Cold crashing keeps them stable for a little while, but not for long. But they do pick up some interesting tastes.

Yeasts I probably wont use again, but still were OK

WLP002 – I’ve just used this with pasteurized juice, with and without extra sugar. It tasted nearly the same as using Nottingham, which is very good, but they were similar enough that I would say its not worth the extra hassle and cost of a liquid yeast

WLP300 – I’ve just used this with pasteurized juice, with and without extra sugar. It was very slow to start fermenting. It had a nice body and flavor but a really sour finish, even though I cold crashed it. Mixed with the Wyeast 3068, it was really good though.

Windsor – So far, I’ve just used this with pasteurized juice. It finishes out really sour, but has a fruity taste. I kinda liked it but none of my friends did. Adding sugar before fermentation makes it taste worse.

Coopers – So far, I’ve just used this with pasteurized juice with no sugar added. It ferments out more tart than Nottingham and has a woody taste which I wasn’t crazy about, but some might like. If you like Blackthorn dry commercial cider, you’ll probably like working with Coopers.

Lalvin 1118 – I used to use this yeast all the time back in the day until a friend turned me on to using Ale yeast. It ferments very fast and very dry. With unpasteurized juice, the only way I could ever get decent results was to let it dry out and then back sweeten with the original juice. I’ve been able to get OK results with pasteurized juice by cold crashing, but you really have to keep an eye on it because it drys out fast.

Yeasts I don’t particularly recommend

Wyeast 4766 Cider Yeast - Tested with pasteurized and unpasteurized juice, sweetened and unsweetened. Of these, only the sweetened unpasteurized juice was drinkable, and just barely

WLP720 Sweet Mead - Tested with pasteurized and unpasteurized juice, sweetened and unsweetened. Of these, only the sweetened pasteurized juice was drinkable, and just barely

Safbrew WB-06 - I’ve just used this with pasteurized juice, with and without extra sugar. They were both really bitter.

Lalvin-1116 – I just tried this with pasteurized, unsweetened juice. It left a real bland, butter taste.

Red Star - Cotes de Blanc – I just tried this with pasteurized, unsweetened juice. It left a real bland, buttery taste.

DV10 - Tested with pasteurized and unpasturized juice, no extra sugar. Both were drinkable but somewhat bland.

Safbrew S-33 – Tested with pasteurized and unpasturized juice, sweetened and unsweetened. All tasted pretty crappy. Basically sucked all the flavor out of the juice.

Sugar

I experimented around with different combinations of cane sugar and dextrose. I found that both leave an aftertaste, with the dextrose a little more of a beery taste and the cane sugar a little more winey. Of the cane sugars, the darker sugars leave more of a butterscotch taste. I got the best results with a mix of 2/3 dominos organic cane (which is a light turbinado) and 1/3 corn sugar and adding whatever is needed to get the sg to 1.060 to 1.065. I found that going above 1.065 causes the finished juice to lose the apple taste.

For cysers, I add 3lbs of honey to 5 gal. I warm the honey jar up a little in a hot water bath so that it mixes easier. For some reason, the honey causes pasteurized cider to finish a lot more clear that with sugar or on its own.

I also tried using agave nectar on a couple batches. The result tasted like diluted and alcoholic agave, which was interesting, but not what I was going for. It tasted like the yeast fermented out all of the apple sugar (and taste) and left the agave sugar behind.

[bord]

Wyeast 4766 Cider Yeast - Tested with pasteurized and unpasteurized juice, sweetened and unsweetened. Of these, only the sweetened unpasteurized juice was drinkable, and just barely

I wonder if you could elaborate on this one. I use 4766 for my ciders annually and don't have any complaints if I keep fermentation at or below 70 degrees. Am I missing something?

Fascinating post. Thanks for sharing your experience!

[Denny]

Wyeast 4766 Cider Yeast - Tested with pasteurized and unpasteurized juice, sweetened and unsweetened. Of these, only the sweetened unpasteurized juice was drinkable, and just barely

I wonder if you could elaborate on this one. I use 4766 for my ciders annually and don't have any complaints if I keep fermentation at or below 70 degrees. Am I missing something?

Fascinating post. Thanks for sharing your experience!

I agree with you. I just started drinking some 2 year old cider made with yeast, juice, acid blend, and tannin, and it's the best cider I've ever made.

[CvilleKevin]

The 4766 with sweetened unpasteurized juice came out like a dry white wine with a big sour note. Drinkable, but not as good as the better ale yeasts. Perhaps in another year the sour note would have mellowed but I dont have enough kegs to let them sit for years. The pasteurized juice came out a little sweeter, but no body - regardless of whether sugar was added before fermentation . Unsweetened unpasteurized juice had a bad mediciney aftertaste

I suspect the difference is the juice. All of the 4766 trials were with the same juice that was a mix of staymans, granny smith and golden delicious. Temp was 55-60. I didnt use any additives, just the juice. sg of juice started at 1.059, some of which I bumped to 1.066 with a mix of turbinado and dextrose

[ew1usnrr]

Hello, CvilleKevin.

Thanks for publishing your results. The photograph is great. Have you ever used Munton's standard dry ale yeast? I tried it in comparison to Nottingham and thought that the Munton's tasted just a little bit better.

The time variable puts another twist in this. You could taste the ciders at one month three months, one year, and two years and see which yeast tasted best after each interval.

You could probably develop a plan to choose a yeast based on when you plan on drinking the cider, though that sounds like too much trouble. The obvious choice (at least to me) would be whichever yeast tastes best the soonest.

[CvilleKevin]

I havent tried Muntons yet, but I have some and am going to try it this week when I get new juice. I'm glad to hear it compares favorably to Nottingham

[Jo Diesel]

I am glad someone has tried Muntons. I plan on using it today in a batch of fresh pressed, not pasturized, cidar.
Thoughts of 5lb brown sugar, after 2 weeks in primary, bottle in wine bottles with a stick of cinimon and a little ginger

[staticxxx]

did you notice any banna/clove flavors with the 3068?

[ew1usnrr]

Thoughts of 5lb brown sugar, after 2 weeks in primary, bottle in wine bottles with a stick of cinimon and a little ginger

Here are my thoughts (for what they are worth). A cup of sugar weighs 8 ounces and will raise the gravity of the cider by 20 points. Apple cider to begin with has a starting gravity of about 1.045 - 1.050. Assuming a 5 gallon batch, 5 lbs (10 cups) of sugar would raise the gravity to 1.090. That would make apple wine at about 12% alcohol. It would be strong and take a year to age. You could reduce the sugar to no more than two and a half cups and keep it as a 6% or 7% cider that you could drink fairly quickly. Just the juice by itself fermented without extra sugar can be light and refreshing and still have as much alcohol as beer.

Brown sugar can have a strong tatse. If you used 2 cups white sugar and a half cup of brown sugar, you will still get some color and flavor from the brown sugar without it dominating the cider.

[CvilleKevin]

I agree with ew1usnrr - brown sugar is going to give you a really strong butterscotch taste and 5lbs is way too much. It might not even be able to ferment out

staticxxx - there was a banana flavor with the 3068 when I racked it from primary to secondary, but when it finished out it was gone.

the most banana flavor I got was from letting a batch of cider ferment out with the natural yeast. It tasted really good when I racked it, but after fermenting for another week the taste went from apple/banana to musty socks/dried yellowjackets

[CvilleKevin]

Jo Diesel - One thing I can say about the Munton's ale yeast is that it ferments out really fast. I pitched some exactly a week ago in a batch of fresh unpasteurized juice that I bumped with a bit of sugar to 1.060. I tasted it two days ago and it was pretty good - a lot like the nottingham, but tonight I checked sg and it was at 0.998 and overly dry. The nottingham and S04 are still at 1.014. I cold crashed the Muntons, which was still going pretty strong and I'm hoping to salvage it, but I really wish I had caught it yesterday instead of today

[CvilleKevin]

Building on last year’s experiments, here is what I’ve learned so far for this year (10 keg batches and 17 experimental gallon batches):



Juice – Mark from ABS Brew clued me in to why the pasteurized juice did not keep as well as unpasteruized. Two reasons. First, potasium metabisulfite does not just kill the wild yeast. It is also a preservative. Second, UV pasteurization reduces ascorbic acid, which also acts as a preservative. This is also why the unpasteurized juice is much more tart when it finished fermenting.

Based on that info, I tried a few batches of unpasteurized juice, with and without adding the K-meta. They have been going about a week and I checked them yesterday. SGs have dropped from 1.060 to 1.014, so they still have a way to go. At this point, the batches without the K-meta taste much better. They have a natural apple taste and would be quite drinkable right now, although I am planning to let them go another day or two and cold crash around 1.004. The ones with the K-meta have a tart candy apple taste that is very familiar – I expect these will be quite good in a few months, but now, not so much.

I’ll be starting some more keg batches in a couple of weeks and will definitely cut back on the K-meta – maybe use half the recommended dose. I’m also planning to start a new round of single gallon experiments to see if there is an optimal amount of K-meta to add to kill the wild yeast without turning the must sour. I was planning to use k-meta to stop fermentation on the keg batches which are currently in primaries, but now that I know the effect on the taste, I’m going to cold crash instead.

Yeast – I tried several new yeasts. Juice was unpasteurized Stayman, Empire and Golden delicious, with a bit of Granny Smith. All were fermented at a temperature range of 60-65 degrees. All of the new yeasts fermented out much faster than the Nottingham and SO4 ale yeasts, which I used as a control. After 7 days, the Nottingham and S04 batches were all at 1.014. Keep in mind that gallon batches tend to ferment out faster than 5 gallon batches, so add a couple days if you are doing a 5 gallon batch. I added K-meta to the juice 24 hours before pitching the yeast, so its going to be a month or two before any of these are really good, but here are first impressions, in order of potential:

Lallemand Munich wheat – Cold crashed 7 days after pitching yeast. SG was at 1.002. Has a good apple taste, with a bit of clove and k-meta tartness

Brewform Lager – Cold crashed 7 days after pitching yeast. SG was at 1.004. Good apple taste, with some interesting flavors I cant quite put my finger on – still dominated by tartness of k-meta

Enoferm ICV-D47 – Cold crashed 6 days after pitching yeast. SG was at 1.010, but the taste was very dry and smooth. The k-meta taste wasn’t as prominent.

Coopers Ale – Cold crashed 7 days after pitching yeast. SG was at 1.004. Not bad. I tried this yeast before with pasturized juice and was not impressed, but with unpasteurized it is pretty good.

Saflager W34/70 – Cold crashed 7 days after pitching yeast. SG was at 1.000. It was a little too dry for my taste, but may improve after k-meta wears off.

Lalvin 71B – Cold crashed 6 days after pitching yeast. SG was at 1.000. Overly dry, but has a decent finish

Munton Ale yeast – Cold crashed 7 days after pitching yeast. SG was at 0.998. I should have caught this one sooner. I tasted it at 6 days and it was pretty good, but at 7 days it had lost a lot of flavor.

[darkerpower]

i vote this for a sticky I suspect I'll be referring to this for some time.

[Jo Diesel]

Amended my recipee to 1 cup sugar , 1 cup brown sugar and 6 gal fresh cidar. started 1 week age, disolved sugar in warm cidar and pitched muntons yeast. fermented at 58, as per thermometer on carboy. Tried monday and was tasty but not very strong. Plan on taking to Holloween party on Saturday and will let know how it is. Should be pretty good by now.

[SoCal Brewer]

Thanks for the post CvilleKevin. I will be referiing to it for awhile and also trying some different yeast from your experiment.