French keeved cider

[Mark Warnett]

Morning all

We make keeved cider, and like most others here in UK, we finish the fermentation in bottle, using thick glass for safety.

Breton and Normandy keeved ciders are also sometimes like this, but often commercial keeved ciders are in thinner glass and carbonated. While the quality varies, the median is (in my opinion) high. Presumably some pasteurise and some sterile filter, however i haven'tnoted significant impact on flavour in many samples.

How do these cider makers stabalise the cider so its sufficiently safe to bottle? I've spoken to some, but the language barrier meant i didn't reach any firm conclusions!

Kind regards

Mark 

[Patrick McCauley]

I have heard that they will test the YAN and even count the number of yeast cells under the microscope, and centerfuge/filter the cider to reduce the yeast number if it's too high. Can anyone else confirm this? I assume that this is how they can bottle with confidence, though I've definitely had a few gush when I opened them.

Pat McCauley

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le vendredi 14 février 2025 à 06:51:40 UTC-5, Patrick McCauley a écrit :

I have heard that they will test the YAN and even count the number of yeast cells under the microscope, and centerfuge/filter the cider to reduce the yeast number if it's too high. Can anyone else confirm this?

Yes, some do that, but not all of them. Many simply rely on experience...

For my part, I used to count cells with a microscope, but it isn't that easy and I stopped. My main criteria is fermentation speed and I adjust by making a racking when FSU is too high or I add a micro dosage of DAP when FSU is too low. I do get some variation in sparkling level, but it is almost always OK.

 

[Brent Miles-Wagner]

Hey Mark,

One method is  "Le test de fermentescibilité," which we cover here (on page 8, in Swedish, but I'll give an english translation of the relevant chart) as part of cider fact sheets written for the Swedish Juice and Cider Producers Association. This part was written by François-Jan Raimbaud, who is a cider consultant for the Normandy Chamber of Agriculture.

The test "involves an accelerated fermentation process and aims to predict the behavior of the cider during in-bottle fermentation." Basically you sterile filter two samples, inoculating one and leaving it in an incubator for two weeks, and leave the other sample as a control in the fridge. At the end of the test you calculate the difference in S.G. between the two samples and draw conclusions.

[Patrick McCauley]

I do think that Claude's book has the best explainer on this, where you tabulate the fermentation speed through his FSU calculation. Even with that, it can be a bit more of an art than a science when it comes to guessing exactly where the cider will stop fermenting in the bottle. My early-mid-season ciders will generally get more carbonated than my late season ciders, despite treating them exactly the same. I'm a bit more cautious with these, since they almost always have enough carbonation, and are more likely to have too much carbonation for my liking. So, I'll wait even longer to bottle these, usually later in the summer, or bottle them at a lower gravity. My late season ciders tend to have less chance of a runaway, in-bottle fermentation, and almost always get a nice sparkle, and retain a decent amount of residual sweetness over many years. I do wonder if testing the YAN would reveal the differences in these two general outcomes I've been getting. Testing doesn't make sense at my scale, since I'm just a guy making cider in his basement, and other than the occasional over or under-carbonation of certain ciders, it's not a big issue for me.

Pat McCauley

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le dimanche 16 février 2025 à 07:18:04 UTC-5, Patrick McCauley a écrit :

I do think that Claude's book has the best explainer on this, where you tabulate the fermentation speed through his FSU calculation. Even with that, it can be a bit more of an art than a science when it comes to guessing exactly where the cider will stop fermenting in the bottle.

Yes... Experience, intuition, observation. And the fact we are dealing with living organisms - when there is life, it is always more difficult to predict the behaviour.

Other factors that come in play are

- Temperature, even if we apply the temperature correction formula on FSU, this is not always accurate.

- Clarification, a hazy cider will ferment more in bottle while if the cider is perfectly clarified at bottling, very few yeast cells will make their way into the bottle.

 

[Bennie]

Hy Brent,

it's impossible to open the 2 links.

Bennie

Op zo 16 feb. 2025 09:10 schreef Brent Miles-Wagner <brent.ne...@gmail.com>:

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[Bennie]

Sorry Brent,

Problem solved.

Bennie

Op zo 16 feb. 2025 09:10 schreef Brent Miles-Wagner <brent.ne...@gmail.com>:

Hey Mark,

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[gareth chapman]

I have been using Claude's method successfully for several years together with taking trial bottles at each racking in doors into a warmer environment to try and estimate the endpoint of fermentation as a backup against unnecessary racking.
I have applied Claudes method so successfully that my last four keeves have all been bottled at 1020 SG and fallen to 1015-1014. I sampled the one from four years ago this weekend and it still sits at 1015.
Here's hoping for  another years success.