On Sunday, we stopped at Maltose Express in Monroe to pick up some yeast for our next batch of hard cider. It was a rainy day and the store was fairly quiet. Another shopper was picking up some yeast, also for making hard cider and we fell into a good discussion about different yeasts.

Tess, a co-owner of the store, recommended the cider yeast. She said she’s made lots of hard cider using that yeast and that she typically adds brown sugar to her cider to boost the sugar content. The new hard cider brewer was going with the cider yeast. I talked about some of the different yeasts I’ve used, including a champagne yeast, a Belgian Trappist yeast and how I was starting my next batch off with an Oktoberfest yeast. The folks behind the counter seemed intrigued, but perhaps a bit skeptical of using various beer brewing yeasts for cider, but I’ve been pretty happy with my results so far.

My next stop was at Beardsley Cider Mill to pick up six gallons of fresh cider. Another person was starting off on their hard cider making adventure and was heading over to Maltose next. He was a beer brewer and we chatted a bit more about different yeasts and sugars and so on.

Dan takes a different view from either Tess or myself and advocates using a fruit wine yeast. Either that, or just going with the natural yeasts on the fruit. With that, I’ve spent a little more time reading up on various yeasts and trying to come up with my own thoughts about the pros and cons of different yeasts.

Natural Yeast

There is plenty of yeast around us all the time and when you get fresh cider there is probably enough good yeast in the fresh cider so that adding yeasts isn’t necessary. The advantage of going natural is that you’ll be using local yeasts which, in theory I guess, are the ones that thrive best on the local fruit. The downside is that it is much more of a crapshoot. You’ve got less control over what you get.

Champagne Yeast

For our first batch of hard cider, we used champagne yeast. Champagne yeast thrives in a wide temperature range and can be used for making very high alcohol content cider (17% ABV). With this, you end up with a very dry cider, much like a white wine. The batch came out fine, but it wasn’t really what we were looking for, so we’ll probably not use Champagne Yeast again.

Lambic Yeast

Traditionally, Lambic yeasts are natural yeast for Belgian beer brewers. Wyeastlab which sells the yeasts we’ve been using markets a Lambic yeast that is essentially a mix of wheat beer yeast, sherry yeast and a few other micro-organisms. I was very pleased with the hard cider that we created with the Lambic yeast. It was a bit more cloudy than other ciders we’ve produced but it had a very nice flavor. It is a less strong yeast only going up to about 12% ABV and seems to prefer slightly warmer rooms. Unfortunately, Maltose doesn’t regularly carry Lambic yeast, so I haven’t made another batch. I may special order some next year and try another batch.

Trappist Yeast

Early this season, we made a batch of cider using a Trappist yeast. This yeast is very similar to the Lambic yeast in terms of the alcohol content and temperatures it will tolerate. It produced a very frothy brew which we added some maple syrup to for the second fermentation. This stuff came out really well and we’ll probably make at least one batch like this every year.

Our next batch was made using pear cider. We also used the Trappist yeast for this, which again was very frothy. However, we’re not adding maple syrup to this batch. We’ll probably try another run of hard pear cider next year, but may experiment a bit more.

Oktoberfest Yeast

The batch that we have fermenting now is using an Oktoberfest yeast. This yeast only produces 9% ABV and prefers a cooler temperature. It has been interesting to watch because the cider turned fairly brown as the yeast started working. The foam on top is brown on top and white underneath. It isn’t as frothy as the Trappist yeast. Since we’re still in the middle of the first fermentation, I don’t have any additional thoughts on this yeast yet. It is normally used for lager beers, and people have asked if we will lager the cider. We probably won’t, but we are brewing it at a cooler temperature.

Right now, we are looking at trying to get two more batches of cider done this year. Our next batch will be from a special pressing at Beardley’s Cider Mill of heirloom apples with a little bit of quince thrown in. I haven’t decided what to use for this yeast, but I’ll probably look for a yeast that tolerates cold well and leaves as much fruity flavor as possible. So, I may go for a Chablis or Rudesheimer yeast.

That will take us till mid to late November when I hope to kick off the final batch for the season. The apples at the end of the year are likely to have much greater sugar content and I’m thinking I might experiment with Eau de Vie yeast. The problem with this yeast is that it wants higher temperatures and I don’t think our house will be that work at that part of the year. Tolerating a slightly cooler temperature is Zinfandel yeast, and we might try that instead.

So, that’s my current take on yeasts. I would love to hear what you’ve used and your thoughts about the different yeasts.