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Wild fermented cyser


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#1 Seagis

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Posted 30 March 2009 - 08:57 AM

I was reading over at the LifeBoat about wild fermentation, and I was wondering about something:If I were to attempt a basic cider, with the apple pulp in the bottom and everything, there wouldn't be any real reason I couldn't add 10 or 12 pounds of honey and up it to a cyser, would there? Would the fermentation process be any different than that caused by addition of a smack pack or something similar?

#2 ScottS

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Posted 30 March 2009 - 09:14 AM

The big problem is that you have no idea what sort of yeast you're dealing with.Alcohol tolerance - If you throw a bunch of honey in there, you really have no idea if the yeast will be able to ferment it all. You could do some experimentation to try to figure out that the typical alcohol tolerance of wild apple yeasts is, but I definitely would not assume that it can go all the way to 12-14% like a wine yeast.Flavor - I know that wild apple yeasts make for spectacular cider. I have no idea how they perform on honey. I suspect it would be fine, but you'd have to recognize going into it the fact that you don't really know what you are going to end up with.

#3 Seagis

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Posted 30 March 2009 - 09:17 AM

I figured that might be the case. Thanks for the info, Scott.

#4 BikeBrewer

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Posted 01 April 2009 - 04:28 PM

I think that you'd also want to check into what, if any, nutrients you should add with the honey. You'd also get better results if you fed the honey in a few pounds at a time instead of dumping 10-12 pounds in at once.

#5 japh

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Posted 02 April 2009 - 09:14 AM

This may be a bad idea, I don't know, but how would fermenting the cider and mead separately (mead with package yeast, cider with wild), and then mixing post-fermentation?

#6 ScottS

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Posted 02 April 2009 - 10:41 AM

Hmmmmm....... interesting idea.My thoughts, in no particular order:Cysers are typically too acidic for me to want to drink them dry. That means once you mix them and you end up with something at 9-10% abv, in order to sweeten you're either going to have to stabilize it (which I don't like to do) or add more honey to bring the abv up to the alcohol tolerance of the yeast. I suspect at that point the mead character dominates the cider character to the point that the benefit of wild fermentation is unnoticable.Also... one thing that I do in my cysers these days is throw enough honey in up front to make it finish at the sweetness I want. If you ferment to dryness and then backsweeten, you've blown away a lot of the apple character and the sweetness comes entirely from honey. If you mix the sugars up front and ferment it out, the residual sweetness is partially from the cider and partially from the honey. That makes a huge difference in flavor, in my opinion, and it is far more important to me than any benefit that might be gained by wild fermenting the cider.

#7 BikeBrewer

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Posted 03 April 2009 - 12:58 PM

That's good to know, Scott.

#8 Brewer Pete

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Posted 04 April 2009 - 02:43 AM

Cider brewing from Kevin "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. "With a cyser you'll be in new territory so YMMV with the above.


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