Wild Fermented Cider

[Cavestock]

In January, 2016, I came across an inflated gallon of store bought preservative-free apple cider. I racked it into a clean carboy, air locked it, and let it ferment. The result was surprisingly clear tart cider, that was reminiscent of Pinot Grigio, and very drinkable.

I kept the yeast cake, and racked 1.030 pils wort on top to keep it alive.

Recently, I took this starter, and added it to a gallon of preservative-free cider, and within a week it formed a thick, bubbled pellicle.

This is strange to me, because it didn't happen with the first batch. After two weeks, gravity has dropped 8 points, and it smells good.

Does anyone have any idea what's happening? I'm planning on forgetting about for about a month, and then check its progress.

 

[GrogNerd]

wish I could help, I have no experience with wild yeast, but am definitely interested in the outcome. good luck with it!

my understanding is a pellicle will form in the presence of oxygen, hopefully the smarter folk here on HBT will correct me if I'm wrong

the local yeast guy did hook me up with some yeast he harvested from a bottle of Basque cider, and that stuff was definitely not saccharomyces

fermentation looked like this.

 

[Sasper]

Not an expert but I would assume that initially the cider fermented with a wild yeast strain that was obviously vigorous and clean tasting could be sacch...who knows,and you probably drank it or stored it cold long before any of the brett or bacteria could take hold when you made a starter with the dregs the original yeasts cell counts were probably going down due to alcohol toxicity and ph as bacteria and brett counts were increasing because they favor those harsh environments. Then when you made the next batch of cider with your pitch you had a big starter of the souring bugs for it and it domineered.

 

[Cavestock]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. It's just so crazy that the yeast that produced such a clear, to style cider the first time took such a funky turn!

The pellicle has since fallen out, I'm planning on doing gravity reading in about a month. It dropped 9 points in the first 2 weeks.

 

[Cavestock]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1468875850.962782.jpg Racked to secondary over the weekend, after a month in primary. What was left I kept in a small, half-gallon jar.

There is a fine pellicle on the surface in this pic.

Smells great, tasted great. Gravity dropped from 1.048 at the beginning, to 1.027as of 7/16/16.

My plan is to let it be for a month, and do a reading... I might pitch this smaller sample in a Lambic style grain bill and see what happens.

 

[Jim311]

Maybe you just had such small quantities of bugs in the very first batch that it never formed a pellicle?

 

[Cavestock]

Maybe. It's just weird. I've never seen anything like it.

 

[Cavestock]

Newest gravity reading: 1.023. Slow progress for leaving it alone for a month.

Smells great, tastes tart! I can still see it's fermenting, as Co2 bubbles not too infrequently rise to the surface....

 

[Cavestock]

No gravity change in a month! Still tastes great.

 

[Cavestock]

Still no change.

At this point, I'm tempted to let it sit for the year, and then bottle. But, I am open to suggestions -wild fermentation is so unpredictable!

 

[Cavestock]

Bottled with scant amount priming sugar. Time will tell what we have...