Cider and yeasts?

When making cider, does it really matter what yeast you use, even if you make a starter?

I imagine using a Belgian yeast strain might produce different flavoUrs than using a neutral American strain...

If you’re not fortifying the apple juice, I would think most (all?) strains could finish the juice down to 1.000

That being said I use Nottingham because I like the results and it is economical.

It certainly matters in the sense that different strains will give you different flavours, but you can get good results from a lot of different strains.

For my palate, the best ciders are fermented spontaneously and have a lot of brettanomyces character. So you could pitch a saccharomyces strain of your choosing (I’d go with something Belgian and convenient, like Belle Saison) and pitch the dregs from a few different bottles of lambic. That gives you a bit of the funk characteristic of traditional ciders, though it’s not quite the same as spontaneous fermentation.

It depends a bit on your tastes, but I can’t think of any strains that would give particularly bad results, apart, maybe from Hefeweizen strains, and there would be no point in using lager strains. Apart from that, fire in.

"Does it matter?" Of course. Just like it matters what strain you use in a beer. They’ll essentially all work but give yo different flavor profiles.

I’ve had really good results just utilizing the bugs that live on the apples. I took a gallon of cider and threw in a bunch of apple skins from the same orchard and let it go. When it was done I saved the dregs and have continued to brew cider with it.

made a cider recently with the white lab’s english cider yeast. Turned out really well, lots of apple in the nose.

"For my palate, the best ciders are fermented spontaneously"

I’ve had good luck with EC1118, epernay and lavin 47. But after reading this, and with more sour beers experience, I’d like to try the spontaneous, peels added or wild technique. The thought makes my mouth water.

I use redstar champagne for a super clean and dry cider (refermenting in bottle for carb). I also did a few batches with the roeselare blend with lactose added, let it go for a year and it was fantastic.

Originally posted by cheap
"For my palate, the best ciders are fermented spontaneously"

I’ve had good luck with EC1118, epernay and lavin 47. But after reading this, and with more sour beers experience, I’d like to try the spontaneous, peels added or wild technique. The thought makes my mouth water.

Thanks for all info!
Of course I understand the flavour profile might differ with each yeast, but i meant more like is every yeast usable...
Planning on using different yeast (specially wild and funky) and different apples...
The apple peel sounds very interesting! Will be trying that too!
Thanks all!

I like to use beer yeast more than wine or champagne yeast, as it seems to retain more apple character. Windsor or other English strains work very well, though I also use American strains (1056, US-05).



Swirl the fermentor gently to help degas as the CO2 may inhibit complete fermentation, since the cider is not a great environment for beer yeast. Nutrients can help as well.

I agree about nutrients, if you’re using straight saccharomyces, especially beer saccharomyces. But if you’re using a funky, mixed-culture, it might be an advantage not to. If your saccharomyces fermentation is incomplete, it will leave more sugars for brettanomyces (and perhaps other things) to ferment.