A Deviation Of Sugars

About a month ago I was thinking about all the cool things I could ferment and wondering about them, which eventually led me to a simple, but potentially fun shift from beer: organic apple juice and yeast.

I hand picked the yeast Lalvin EC-1118 after reading some of the of the description. A key factor was it's tolerance of up to 18%, so my hope was that it would consume all the sugar in the apple juice with ease. So off to the store I went and bought 3 gallons of organic apple juice was poured directly into the carboy (skipping any wort boiling process), followed by my hand selected yeast.

Now this concoction is actually cider; and I am not a cider fan, but it was simple and fun to try. Plus I had my glass carboy lying around unoccupied, which actually gives a cool view into the process as it's taking place.

A view inside

Initially it was quite cloudy it was working away, but as the fermentation was finishing the yeast fell to the bottom.

Layer of retired yeast at the bottom

Due to the lack of anymore activity, I decided it was time to bottle this weekend, which meant I was going to taste it as well. Not surprisingly, it tasted like cider. The surprise was its champagne like characteristic. Frankly this should not have been much of a shock due to the fact that Lalvin EC-1118 is primarily used as a champagne yeast. However it will certainly be interesting to see how it compares to champagne after the carbonation has occurred.