Cider Left Out Over Night

[Shaun Burnett]

Hi, 

I found an interesting wild apple at SG 1.100 (in New Zealand) so decided to give that a go with a wild ferment: after a slow few weeks in the bucket, I tested the SG last night (1.022).  I also taste tested it and it was sort of orange tasting with quite a tart finish... but this morning after being in the glass over night it had lost the tartness and the orange-type flavour had decreased and the whole thing was now semi-sweet caramel flavour.

What's happened to cause this (positive) change over night while exposed to air?

It didn't taste vinegary.

Thanks

[William Basquin]

The semi-sweet caramel flavour sounds like the result of malo-lactic fermentation (exposure to oxygen) to me.

My guess is that you got lucky in not attracting fruit flies, but if you want to try this again,

you could exclude fruit flies by securing a couple layers of cheese cloth over the glass with a rubber band.

 

 

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[Shaun Burnett]

Just an update for people reading this in the future... that odd change in my cider was somehow related to rouge yeast / bacteria.  All of my cider that year ended up tasting strongly of burnt orange peels and cigar ash trays once they fermented to dry.  Terrible.  Undrinkable.  This year I'm steering away from wild ferments and don't have anything like that happening so far.  Fingers crossed.

[Nick MacLean]

Interesting, and thanks for the follow up all this time later. Out of curiosity, what was the pH and TA of your wild apple? Any perceptible tannins or notable aroma characteristics in the raw juice?

Sorry your wild ferment didn’t work out. I only ferment wild with my apples, sometimes with or without small amounts of sulfite. As far as drinkablility, I love all mine (except the ones that pick up acetobacter from poor oxygen management on my part). I’ve found a lot of domesticated yeast ciders I’ve had loose the apple character and taste more like yeast or wine. However, my guess is most of that is due to commercial cider makers not aging their cider at all. Maybe it comes down to the wild yeast in your area? I’m in the forest, but there are quite a few vineyards and cherry orchards around, so maybe I’m blessed with a good local yeast population.

Those flavors you describe are interesting, especially the orange peel. Cigar and burnt makes me think it’s probably some phenolic compound or quinone from Brett type yeast. The orange is really interesting to me. Most of those citrusy type aroma molecules are long chain alcohols, aldehydes/ketones, and esters or even terpinols. As far as I know, the suspect precursor molecules aren’t usually present in apple juice. When you processed or tasted your apple, was there anything about it that struck you as greasy or fatty, like say the skin? The only other thing I can think of is the very high SG. I imagine 1.10 stressed the heck out of you average wild yeast, especially if the juice was naturally low in N.

Very cool, and thanks again for sharing.

Nick

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[S & D Burnett]

Hi Nick,

The PH on the apple I mentioned was 3.4, but ultimately all my ciders that year went the same way.  I ruined a whole batch (27 x 5L carboys) of test ciders, across a number of different apples.  This year I’ve upscaled to 45 carboys to test even more local apples and I’ve got much better organised with my sanitation routine, hence everything is fine so far.  It was such a shame to waste a years worth of effort, but I leaned my lesson! 

Thanks for your insights.  Very interesting reading. 

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[Nick MacLean]

That’s and impressive apple! I’ve never had any of mine go over ~1.088, and I’m in a quite arid region.  That’s a bummer about all your ciders. I can see why so many operations go with cultured yeasts, it’s just too risky to loose it all. At least you learned quite a bit!

I’m very curious to see how that apple ferments with cultured yeasts. Your basically in wine territory. You may want to add some supplemental yeast nutrients as most apple juices don’t have as much as grape juices. It may also take more aging to settle down and become palatable. I could see a 1.10 cider at pH 3.4 or a tad lower aging very beautifully over a few years. 

Thanks again for sharing.

Nick

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