Using Yeast

[Music] hey everyone i'm steve from number 12 cider and this is my partner colin hey we're here to talk a little bit today about yeast yeast is something that we use to make cider it's one of the most important components right absolutely we've talked about steve from the beginning on these videos that there are two main factors that determine how your cider is going to come out in the end one of them of course is the apple varieties that are chosen which is important and the second one may be equally as important some people might think even more is your selection of which yeast you're gonna use yeah and a fun experiment if you haven't done it at home already is you take the same juice and you you ferment that juice in three or four different containers with three or four different yeasts and you'll be shocked and amazed if you haven't already done this and how different those products turn out right we've done that and i'd recommend that for anybody who's beginning this process you will really understand the difference between yeast so one thing to know is that yeast exists in the environment it it's on us it's on the apples it's in the the pressing room and it's in and sometimes it's in your equipment if you haven't sanitized it well enough but but basically uh there is a way to ferment cider without adding yeast that we call that a wild ferment or a natural ferment and that would be very specifically all those yeast you mentioned on the skin on your pressing equipment in the air in your facility that would be the yeast that would take over fermentation it can be some of the greatest cider you'll ever have because you get a lot of interesting other things other organisms in there that add flavor and complexity but in many cases it can also become some of the worst stuff you've ever had and so if you don't want to take that risk with a wild ferment we recommend doing a cultured yeast uh or a store-bought yeast that would uh kind of control that process a little bit more yeah and there's a little bit of our philosophy coming through here with a wild ferment again i too have tried fantastic wild fermented products but in general with a wild ferment you're letting nature decide what you used to use to make your cider and uh with yeast being as important as it is for the outcome we just believe very strongly in choosing what yeast makes our cider right right and all of these yeasts we have on on display here and then some these at some point were used either in wine fermentation or in some cases cider fermentation they were found to be really delicious and great yeast for that that purpose and someone captured that yeast at any given time cultivated it and now we have it being mass produced on this level but these are things that were proven from history as being great cider producers yeah and you know that's i'm glad you mentioned that colin we do have a collection here today that we'll go over briefly of yeast that are typically used for cider and wine you can use any yeast right you could use a bread yeast couldn't you sure yeah sure you know the the question is is that going to make a good cider for you i've heard uh of and we've experimented with beer yeasts that is to say yeast that were cultured for the purpose of making a great beer and generally we haven't favored those over time some people might some people might you can try that and if and if it makes the perfect cider for you then go ahead and do it now maybe colin since you're kind of uh the expert in uh yeast here you're watching a lot steve you want to go over a little bit some of these yeasts that you've chosen as your favorites sure yeah and and all the yeast when we when we make a new cider we always think about what do we want the finished product to be and many of these yeasts will add certain flavor profiles or aromas uh and what we we will often do is say okay we would like something tropical in this case and every one of these yeast companies will have information either on the packet or on the website that suggests to you what flavor profiles they will add or what aromatic qualities they'll add to the finished product uh and so we can in some sense you could almost design a cider with some of the characteristics that you like insider based on what you used to use uh so in a very um this firsties yeast here called ec1118 or 1118 it's a champagne yeast a wonderful product for kind of fermenting all the way to dryness giving you that beautiful kind of dry product not not leaving a lot of sweetness or fruitiness something like lavender 71b that's a great for lowering acidity so if you have a very tart cider you want to lower it in the process you can use that you got another wine yeast there i've got a couple of cider yeasts here a yeast to white labs and some of these add fruitiness some of them add residual sugar some add maybe a grapefruit note some might add a tropical essence to it so it's a lot of fun playing around with what you're going to use yeah and before you before you've experimented with these and and formed your own opinion you have to do what colin suggested read the label read the website uh see what the the company that provides the yeast indicates uh is going to be the characteristics of a product made with that yeast another reason to read the label colin is for how to how to use the yeast right absolutely every one of these might be a little bit different and you want to follow the manufacturer's guidelines on that so for example some of these yeast probably most of them are going to require some type of nutrient maybe the cider's not going to provide enough of the zinc calcium uh potassium that the set that the yeast needs and you might have to add some uh you know one of these maybe uh simple yeast nutrient blends from uh home brewers place but uh yeah so check the manufacturer also temperature is a big part of this every one of these yeast will have probably a different optimal temperature range and if you're above or below that optimal temperature range you're going to be stressing your yeast out which could lead to off flavors off aromas things that you don't want yeah to use a phrase that colin likes to use you're when you're making cider with a yeast you're a yeast farmer right and i didn't come up with that i've heard that read about it other people have two but uh that that just emphasizes the importance of following the instructions using the yeast according to the manufacturer's instructions so you have a great final product in terms of your cider so we brought a couple ciders here today that we'll uh close with right sure got something called barrel 44. yeah that's uh that's a tap room favor here at number 12. this is a bourbon barrel aged cider made with uh this is the champagne yeast the lavender ec1118 uh and the reason we chose it for this product was we wanted something that wouldn't offer a lot of additional characteristics just a clean dry base product which we then put into bourbon barrels and then it picks up a lot of that bourbon character uh from the barrel so we want that kind of clean slate with the yeast to then bring in some of the bourbon qualities of that uh barrel aging so how about here's to that cheers to that that's fantastic all right happy cider making good luck

Channel: Number 12 Cider

Views: 3,331

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Id: zS-4bfDKjQA

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 09 2021