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White Labs Sweet Mead yeast
Ok, through a random course of events I have managed to make a deal with a friend who lives on an orchard for 5.5 gallons of fresh apple juice. This will be my second batch of cider and I just wanted a little feedback on my proposed recipe.
Starter:
White Labs Sweet Mead Yeast
5g Go-Ferm (I know it's not strictly needed)
1/4 Gal purified water
1/4 Gal apple unfiltered juice
Must:
5 Gal unfiltered juice treated w/ campden tabs
4 Lbs brown sugar
4 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 Tsp ground cloves
1 Tsp ground nutmeg
1 Oz pectic enzyme
5 g Fermaid-K added 1/3 through the ferment
Other ingredients:
Sparkolloid fining
Corn Sugar for priming
I'm looking to create a slightly sweet cider.
Looks nice to me.
I've tried to make sparking, slightly sweet cider many times & it always ends up not a sweet as I would like. Maybe the White Labs yeast is the trick. Have you always used it?
Do you really need to pretreat the juice with campden tablets?
Doesn't that impede the pitched yeasts performance?
I understand that it's kind of standard practice in winemaking to use camden tablets to kill off potential wild yeasts. It's supposed to be fairly short acting & then the yeast of choice takes over.
The yeast I used for my last/first batch was Red Star Champagne yeast and it produced a very dry cider that I back-sweetened once fermentation was done then left in a growler on a shelf for three days to carbonate. Then I stuck in the fridge for a week to mellow and stop the production of the yeast. I finished the last of it off last night with a splash of Bushmill's Black Bush added for flavor. The oak taste from the Bushmills gave the cider a lot of depth with no burn, only warmth. I'll have to experiment with that.
As for campden tabs, the way I understand it they stop most wild yeasts from activating but cannot kill a large healthy starter. Also most commercial yeasts are more resistant to those types of chemicals than wild yeasts are.
I have no idea how well the person I will be getting the juice from maintains and cleans his equipment so I will be taking no risks that I can avoid. I'll give him a fermentation bucket that has already been cleaned and sterilized with instructions to treat the juice with the campden tabs.
I'm currently brewing an experimental 1 gal batch with Safeway apple juice concentrate, honey, and a little bit of the previous batch that I over sweetened as a starter. It didn't bubble so I added some Steinburger wine yeast WY29 which is supposed to leave a little more sugar left over. For the next 1gal experimental batch I'll try some ale yeast and malt to see what happens.
There are so many wild yeasts and bacteria on apples that campden tablets in my opinion are a must (in must.) The campden tablets contain sodium metabisulphite and will kill off the wild yeasts and bacteria but must be used properly. Dose your must with the tablets or metabisulphite and loosely cover with a cheese cloth or towel for at least 24 hrs. prior to pitching your yeast.
How about just lightly pasteurizing the must? That way you don't have the sulphites in the end product, which some people are allergic too.
My buddy and I recently pressed apples ourselves with an old grape press.
We pasteurized rather than use the sulphites and things seem to be coming along well without signs of wild-things growing yet.
I quite prefer a natural fermentation for my ciders (e.g. don't do anything after pressing and let the fermentation start on it's own). Or if I'm adding sugar to the cider to boost the gravity, I just add a bit of the WLP720 sweet mead yeast. Either way, though, if your OG isn't high enough the cider will dry out completely leaving behind no residual sweetness. My last cider had a FG of 0.996. Of course, course you can back sweeten with frozen concentrate apple juice and balance with an acid blend to taste, which makes for a wonderful cider btw.
I did an experiment a couple years back with cider that I added campden tabs to and then yeast (WLP720) along side a cider that I just let ferment out on its own naturally. The naturally fermented cider had a much nicer flavor profile. The cider that I sulfited and added yeast to was super dry and almost tasteless. My only suggestion with a naturally fermented cider is to take taste samples every month or so after the main fermentation has subsided. This way you can then stop the development of the "wild" character in the cider when it reaches the point you desire. Again, stopping this development can be accomplished by adding campden to the cider to kill off anything that remains.
I realize that some people are allergic to sulfites, but some people are also allergic to gluten and they just don't drink beer. Of course making cider can be done naturally without sulfites or other forms of pasteurization. Just give it a shot! Cider is the easiest thing to ferment successfully.
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