SC - Apples for Cider

[Angus]

> I've been meaning to ask- what kind of yeast should you innoculate your
> cider with, if you want to get good stuff?

A lot of folk seem to like Pasteur Chanpagne, 
some like to use a mild flavored Ale yeast, such as Wyeast 1056.

There are two schools of thought that seem to be at work here. 

Wine yeasts will finish dryer, converting more of the sugar into alchohol, 
more or less necessitating the malolactic conversion, or the result is hard
to drink. But if you like a dry wine, such as champagnes and other wines 
in that family, this is a good end product to strive for.

Ale yeasts will finish out at a lower alcohol concentration, so may produce a 
sweeter, fruitier end result. If you like Auslese, or sweet, fruity wines, you can 
try this.

Many people who make cider will also boost the cider, to sweeten it, until the 
achohol concentrations get lethal for the yeast variety used. 
In wine yeasts that tends to be 14-21% , in ale yeasts that is closer to 8%.

After the terminal concentration any added sugars will not ferment and render 
the end result sweeter. This is done to make the Cider more "appley and sweet"
Usually apple juice concentrate is added to provide the sugars.

It is possible (if the brewer is patient, uses a highly tolerant yeast, like champagne,
rackes it to a clean carboy, and boosts the sugar regularly -- once a month or so), 
to make a semidry wine that will knoch your socks off at 40 to 50 proof.
The thing is a that often in cider you will not taste the alcohol, as the bright acid
notes and other flavors will mask the alcohol taste. This means you can make 
a "Stealth Bomber" Cider. (You don't see it coming, but you feel it's effects!)

You can make this kind of cider, but it requires care and patience. 
It may take as much as a year to finish.


brandu