My First Wild Yeast Cider- Need opinions..

[DirtyHands]

My First post, been reading various posts from the site for information and advice. But at the stage where i think i need to post to get some feedback on next steps.

I'm a very amateur Brewer.

I live in a great apple region with a cheap supply of apples and juice on hand so wanted to make a cider (my favorite drink is magners) so was looking to get a brew going intime for xmas.

2 years ago i made a batch using champagne yeast which came out ok, good clarity nice fizz but was too dry and winey in flavour. Not the Cider flavour i'm used to.

This year I am trying a wild yeast batch to get a more natural flavour profile.

I collected a quantity of windfall apples and made three different starter cultures. I was actually surprised at the difference in odour from the three.

I froze the apple juice to make the yeast present dormant, then quickly warmed it and added the active starter that i thought had the best profile.

Inital SG was 1.046 and its been fermenting nicely for 2 weeks at a steady slow rate. Ambient Temp around 17c

I racked from the initial bucket to a carboy, mainly to reduce the headspace and remove the yeast sediment. Sg was 1.016 and had a great flavour and sweetness, retaining a lot of the apple flavour that was missing from my previous attempt.

Its currently fermenting consistently at about 1 bubble per 9 minutes, i'm not expecting a rapid ferment because of the lower temp but also the nature of the wild yeast compared to commercial.

So thats where i am at, things seem to be going well.

My plan going forward is to wait two more weeks or a drop in fermentation before checking the SG. I'm expecting the alcohol to stop the wild yeast so expect 1.004 to 1.008 Final SG. If the flavour profile (sweetness) is ok I plan to bottle at that point.

If its a little dry i'm going to do a small test batch with apple conc to see if the yeast is still active If the yeast has been retarded by the alcohol i'll mix half the batch with Conc and bottle both. By then temp here should be Low enough to help stop further fermentation.

I've not got the equipment for filtering and i'm fine with a flat cider.

Just wanted to Post My thoughts and get some advice.

 

[TAPPAR]

My natural cider fermented out pretty dry actually. I didn't do a final SG reading but it was pretty similar final sweetness compared to my ale yeast ciders, although I didn't add any sugar like I usually do. I bottled when the airlock wasn't showing much activity (although more then 1/9 min) and I did get some a decent carb to my bottles, I bet if you mix it with the AJ concentrate you will get a decent carb.

 

[dinnerstick]

no way your wild yeast are going to stop at 1.008. if you want something like a commercial semi-sweet cider you're still going to have to backsweeten this batch, or stop fermentation with other means, sorry!

 

[DirtyHands]

Ok Thanks Guys,
I've back sweetened with Conc AJ and temperatures have dropped low enough here for me to bottle.