Right yeast for sweet cider, e.g. Thistly Cross

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Do_you_realise

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Hey,

I've picked up a variety of Apple juices from my local supermarket and looking to try a 5 litre batch of still cider as an experiment. I'd like to try to emulate Thistly Cross, a Scottish cider which is one of my favourites - mostly because it's very sweet and almost like drinking the best apple juice ever...but it's ridiculously alcoholic at 7.2%!

All the literature on their site states that they use champagne yeast which was a total surprise because I'd always read that champagne yeast lead to incredibly dry ciders. Yet their site says nothing about back sweetening (which I'd rather try to avoid as it's a major faff for a first cider attempt!)

What would you guys recommend? Is there a middle ground yeast which will give a similar flavour but without being so aggressive as champagne yeast? I'm also interested in finding a yeast which leads to cider which doesn't need months and months to age before being drinkable. Sweet and quick, basically! Cheers :)
 
There are three main ways of getting the result you want.

The easiest is to use 150g total sugar per litre, ferment until dry, then backsweeten to taste with a non-fermentable sweetener. This option allows you to make a sparkling cider.

Another option is to use 170g (or more) total sugar per litre, and add potassium sorbate and sodium metabisulphite when the SG reaches 1.010. This is more complicated as it means watching the SG like a hawk. This option does not allow you to make a sparkling cider, as the yeast is killed before bottling.

The third option is the French method of keeving, which removes nutrients (but not sugars) from the cider. This option also does not allow you to make a sparkling cider, as the yeast runs out of nutrients before bottling.


Either way, if you want your cider to be >5% and still sweet you will need to add extra sugar. Simply adding table sugar will strip away the apple flavour you want to keep, so your best option is apple juice concentrate. Two 500ml bottles of concentrate should be enough for a 5L batch, although they will probably cost about £4 each.

Re. maturating time, the yeast isn't the only thing to control. You want to focus your attention on tannin and acid, as these can make cider take a longer time to mature. Both are normally considered essential for cider, but if you're aiming for a very young, sweet drink you might get away with adding any. That said, using 1L of concentrate per 5L cider will give you more acid than if you used 5L of carton juice. Some yeasts, like Vintner's Harvest MA33, will munch their way through a lot of the malic acid in the juice, so I'd go for one of those.
 
Tim's pretty much covered it.

My last batch of TCs took about 18 days to ferment and were lovely after 8 weeks conditioning. Drinkable well before that but they continue to improve.
It only really takes a long time to mature if you're waiting for MLF, or there's lots of excess acid or tannin that needs to fade. Like wine, most of the maturation chemistry happens in the first 8 weeks. Since you're sweetening, this will cover minor faults and make it drinkable even younger - but do keep a few bottles back to see how time makes it even better.
 
How about trying a cider yeast with sweetener? I've used a couple of packets as experiments, 1 packet in a demijohn was very sweet as you can imagine but it was a raspberry cider (fresh raspberries) so not too bad just not to my tastes. I've also done 1 packet for 20l of just apple juice/tannin/nutrient which showed 1.006 on the hydrometer when finished, haven't bottled that yet but tasted ok from the trial jar after 10 days fermenting, not exactly sweet but not bone dry!

Have to say though my favourite out of all of them so far is oldblokes 500ml cranberry juice per gallon with plenty of time to mature :thumb: Reminds me I need to get 5 gallons on of that :D
 
Tim, thanks I'll probably use the yeast you suggest, seems like an ideal starting point for a young drinkable cider. I'll probably avoid the juice concentrate as part of the point of this was to determine whether I could make a cider to my/my girlfriends tastes at a cost which was significantly cheaper than just buying it and which justified the effort.

With that in mind, will table sugar really remove apple flavour? What if I used brewing sugar?

Also your suggestion to add all my sugar at the beginning and then kill the yeast just before the end of fermentation - can I not just allow fermentation to finish, kill the yeast and then sweeten to taste right at the end? It seems like it would more easily allow me to get the sweetness right.

Are the artificial sweeteners ok taste wise? I've used them in my tea in the past and can imagine the flavour being just as horrendous in cider.

I'm also confused about tannin - depending on where I go on the web, advice seems to flip flop between either adding it artificially (stewed tea...is that right??) and trying to get rid of it. Should I worry about it or just ignore it for my first batch?

One last thing, I was originally just going to mix my varieties of Apple juice together and pitch the yeast but it seems it is slightly more complicated than that. With that in mind, does this sound about right to start me off:

5L apple juice (I will use 2L morrisons cloudy, 1.5L morrisons value and 1.5L of this fancy cloudy brand I can't remember the name of)
750g brewing sugar
1tsp Yeast nutrient (tomato purée??)
1 sachet Vintner's Harvest MA33
Potassium sorb ate + sugar (brewing sugar?) to taste

Thanks again
 
The concentrate costs a bit more than standard AJ but I reckon it's worth it - you get more apple in the volume and the acidity is bang-on (I find some AJs a bit too acid). It's still quite a bit cheaper than buying commercial cider. Factoring in yeast, tannin, nutrient, adjunct juices, etc, the finished product is still only about a quid a bottle

Any added sugar will mask the apple behind the overall sweetness (and/or alcohol level). There's precious little apple in standard juice.

Fermenting right out then stabilising and sweetening is the way I'd go, it's probably easiest; but Tim was laying out all the options.

My last comparative test found everybody preferring the ones with just a bit of artificial sweetener. It wasn't enough to make the cider sweet, barely medium, but it took the edge off the dryness. I used Morrrison's own brand which has a bit of maltodextrin in, which I figured would help with mouthfeel and body. At 4tsp/demijohn there wasn't enough for it to impart noticeable flavour of its own - other sweeteners might be different, especially if you use enough to make a properly sweet cider

You want some tannin, to give a little bite, or it comes out somewhat wishywashy. Apple juice and dessert apples don't have enough, if you work with "real cider apples" you might get too much but you'd blend those apples with some others to balance it. I used to use a mug of very strong (but not stewed) tea but now use powdered tannin so there's more space in the demijohn for apple juice


Your recipe could likely do with something other than AJ to broaden the flavour spectrum, about 500ml per demijohn of something like cranberry or blueberry. Won't taste of what it is when done, but fills out the flavour a lot: AJ alone can be a bit thin and 1-dimensional. You could use tom puree but proper nutrient isn't expensive. I wouldn't put that 750g sugar in, the juice will give over 5% anyway which is quite enough for the amount of apple you get in there. And get at least a bit of tannin in there somehow
 
Thanks, will consider adding some concentrate and maybe some cranberry juice then. Will any cranberry juice do (assuming no preservatives)?

Where do you buy apple juice concentrate at £4 per 500ml? I can only find it on specialist websites and it costs a lot more than that.

Cheers.
 
Amazon sell 6x500ml bottle packs for about £24. It would mean getting a lot of concentrate in one go, so you need to be sure you'll use it all.
 
Do_you_realise said:
Thanks, will consider adding some concentrate and maybe some cranberry juice then. Will any cranberry juice do (assuming no preservatives)?

Where do you buy apple juice concentrate at £4 per 500ml? I can only find it on specialist websites and it costs a lot more than that.

Cheers.

Amazon have at least one supplier listing 6x500ml at 24.55 - didn't check if that included p&p though
I get mine from my local hippyfood shop, if I order a slab of 6 (or, like my last escapade, the 5l polycontainer) they do me a discount as they know it's in and out the same day so can afford to cut their margin.
Do a few runs with standard AJ then try one with concentrate and see if you think the difference is worth it. You might not!
Standard: 4l AJ, .5l cranberry (plus a bit extra AJ as demis are actually more than 4.5l, or maybe that's space for your tea if you don't use poweder tannin)
Concentrate: 635ml (ish) Suma, .5l cranberry, top up with water. This will be much more appley and also about 1 to 1.5% stronger

I've used Morrison's cranberry which IIRC is technically a "juice drink" not a juice, but it doesn't have sulphites or sorbates
 
Cheers oldbloke.

I think your post may just have made something click for me - where Tim was originally talking about adding concentrate ("Two 500ml bottles of concentrate should be enough for a 5L batch"), is that INSTEAD of fresh apple juice? If so I assumed it was as well as! That cost isn't actually too bad then if that's the case.

But yes I'll try it without first - as I said this is just an experiment in what's possible on the cheap and with readily available ingredients.

Thanks again.
 
1l concentrate is equivalent to about 7l standard AJ.
I had an Excel sheet to look at various options - trying to up the apple without going silly on the ABV
For a while I did 500ml conc, 0.5l or 1l AJ, .5l other
Last run was around 635ml conc, .5l other, came out great, around 5.8%
If you used a whole litre of conc in a 1 demi run it'd come out about 8%. I like mine a bit weaker, so I can have more of it before I collapse
 
Sounds like I might need to pick some up if I make this again, cheers.

Right - I've got all my ingredients together now including the Harvest MA33 yeast and a 500ml bottle of cranberry juice "drink" (that's all they had at the local Sainsbury's, hope it's ok). I had the foresight to take them all out of the fridge last night to come up to room temperature and plan on pitching tonight - get my girlfriend involved (as she'll be drinking most of it) and hopefully she will see how simple it is and catch the bug.

My question now is: what temperature? I have two places in mind: one, the kitchen, remains around 16/17 celsius fairly constantly (with the exception of when we're doing some particularly long cooking where it might bump up a few degrees for an hour or so). The other is my office which can range from 17 to 24(!) depending on the time of day - the heating tends to go crazy in here as it's also the room where the boiler cupboard is. I may turn the radiator down to try to curb the spikes a bit in the morning and evening.

Few remaining questions:
  • Which of these two room options would be best for a cider with the MA33 yeast?[/*:m:1gs0a2x6]
  • Also there's a contradiction on how much sugar to add - I re-checked the sizes of the bottles I've got. If I use 3.25L of cloudy juice, 500ml cranberry juice and top up with the value apple juice, how much brewing sugar should I add? Should it be dissolved in water? If so, how much water?[/*:m:1gs0a2x6]
  • Third and hopefully final query, I am just using a sterilised 5L water bottle from Tesco as FV for this batch, with a redneck airlock (leaving the lid on loosely and covering in sanitised plastic food bag and elastic band!). Can I fill it to the brim or should I leave some room? [/*:m:1gs0a2x6]

Cheers.
 
I don't know the cold tolerance of MA33, however 16-17C is a bit low for some yeasts so the office is probably a better choice. The thermal mass of the cider should blunt the effect of the temperature spikes, especially if wrapped in some kind of insulation like a towel. The towel is probably a good idea anyway as it will block out any harmful light.

Re. the sugar, it really isn't a good idea to add any extra as it will dilute the flavour of the finished cider. Unless you have some apple juice concentrate, you have to choose between stronger flavour and stronger alcohol. You cannot have both.

Start with 4L of apple juice, then add 1L more after a week.
 
If you want a higher strength, then you'll need to add some sugar (or concentrate) for the yeast to convert to alcohol, as normal juice will only go to about 5% or 6%, and you said you want it at about 7%.
the warmer temp of your two choices will be the best, though try to make changes so that it doesn't get near the top of that scale.
you definitely want to leave an air gap at the start - say 1 litre less than final volume, as the initial ferment will be vigorous and if you have a full FV, then you'll overflow, and have a right mess (and the higher the temp, the quicker it'll go and the messier it'll be)

it is possible to make very cheap cider, but it will taste like very cheap cider that you might buy from an offy in 2 litre pop bottles. Fizzy, sweet and chemical tasting not much like apples. your brew might end up like this, but I'd recommend trying lots of other ciders to see what is out there, and then attempting to make something that matures for longer, and has the taste of apples, and yes it might not be as cheap as the value cider, but it'll taste nice, and you'll have made it yourself. generally the price should come out less than somthing similar comercialy available.

eventually you might end up making something nicer and cheaper than you can buy. Then you know you're doing well.
 
Thanks for that. I actually decided against the additional sugar - I should have specified in my initial post, but nailing the flavour is more important to me than the percentage.

It went in the cupboard last night at 20C with just 3.25L cloudy apple juice, 500ml cranberry juice and half a cup of tea for tannins, plus some yeast nurtient, and while I wouldn't say it could be described as 'vigorous' there is some movement and froth on top, so hopefully that's a good sign!

Cheers.
 
Looking good so far. The cranberry juice has given it a strange orange/pinkish hue... very interesting looking if nothing else!

I was planning on adding some additional apple juice around now but there probably isn't much room left in the FV.

How long does a "TurboCider" usually take to ferment out? Any ideas what should I expect to hit as the FG with this yeast?

Thanks.
 
I find TC takes 10 to 20 days depending on the exact recipe, temperature, etc.
I never measure the FG - it clears, and I go by that. No use if you've used a cloudy juice of course!

Next time, if you want 7.5% without swamping the apple with alcohol, use an AJ concentrate (Suma most easily available, from hippyfood shops)
750ml Suma + 500ml OtherJuice + water to the gallon will give 7.5%ABV and 50% more apple than using ordinary juice.
 
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