Author: Matt Del Fiacco

One problem many home cider makers face is that fresh juice isn’t always accessible, so some rely on store-bought juice as a substitute. While this definitely works, certain practices are often recommended in order to compensate for some of the differences between store-bought and fresh-pressed juice.

Fresh-pressed apple juice contains a plethora of yeast, bacteria, tannins, acids, and nutrients, all of which play a role in the final product. On the other hand, in addition to primarily being made from apples with low tannin and high sugar content, store-bought juice goes through a centrifugal and heating process that strips much of the character as well as most of the nutritional content from the juice. This can be fine for regular drinking of the juice, but when it comes to fermentation, yeast purportedly require the nutritional content to perform effectively.

I love pressing my own apples every year for fresh cider, but seeing as this is a seasonal event, I’ve found myself relying on store-bought juice in the interim to keep the cider flowing. The absence of nutrients in store-bought juice is something of concern to some cider makers, but I’ve sampled many ciders that were made from such juice without nutrients added that turned out just fine. Interested to see just what impact nutrient additions have when fermenting store-bought juice, I tested it out for myself!

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between hard ciders made with store-bought juice with yeast nutrient either added or withheld.

| METHODS |

With a goal of emphasizing any impact of the yeast nutrient, I went with a very straight-forward recipe– no back-sweetening or acid additions, just juice, nutrients, and yeast.

Simmons’ Cider

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 5.2 gal 60 min 0.0 IBUs 19.9 SRM 1.049 0.998 6.8 % Actuals 1.049 1 6.5 % Fermentables Name Amount % Apple Juice - Store Bought 48.057 lbs 100 Miscs Name Amount min Type Fermaid O 2.00 tsp 7 days Primary Other Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature Bubbles (A40) Imperial Yeast 93% 62°F - 70°F Download Download this recipe's BeerXML file

Preparation for this experiment consisted primarily of driving to the grocery store and picking up 10 gallons of generic juice that contains only a small amount of ascorbic acid. My first order of business on brew was dissolving my yeast nutrient of choice, Fermaid-O, in a small amount of juice.

A refractometer reading showed the juice was at 1.049 OG, which is consistent with past batches I’ve made using store-bought juice.

Because I wanted to observe any differences in fermentation activity, I used glass carboys for this experiment, adding the dissolved nutrient solution to just one.

Next, I added 5.5 gallons/21 liters of juice to each fermentor.

I then pitched a pouch of Imperial Yeast A40 Bubbles into each batch.

The filled carboys were placed in an area in my basement that maintains a steady 64˚F/18˚C. Checking on the ciders 12 hours later, I noticed batch with nutrients added was showing visible signs of fermentation while the cider without nutrients was not.

It wasn’t until after another 12 hours, 24 in total since pitching the yeast, that the batch made without nutrients became active. By the 4th day, the nutrient dosed cider continued to ferment along while the one without nutrients appeared to have slowed down.

I let the ciders ferment for a total of 2 weeks before taking hydrometer measurements that indicated the batch with nutrients finished slightly lower than the one made without nutrients.

At this point, I racked the ciders to sanitized serving kegs.

In samples taken while kegging, I noticed the cider fermented with nutrients was dramatically clearer than the one fermented without nutrients.

The filled kegs were placed in my keezer, burst carbonated, and left to cold condition for 3 weeks before I began serving them to participants. At this point, the ciders seemed equally clear.

| RESULTS |

A total of 21 people of varying levels of experience participated in this experiment. Each participant was served 2 samples of the cider made without yeast nutrient and 1 sample of the cider made with yeast nutrient in different colored opaque cups then asked to identify the unique sample. At this sample size, 12 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to identify the unique sample in order to reach statistical significance, though only 9 (p=0.24) made the accurate selection. These results indicate participants in this experiment were unable to reliably distinguish ciders made of store-bought apple juice either with or without yeast nutrients.

My Impressions: Out of the 5 triangle tests I attempted, I chose the unique sample just once. Nothing about these ciders stood out to me as different, which is a bit startling given the obvious clarity difference at kegging. Likely because I didn’t adjust these ciders in any way post-fermentation, I felt they were a bit flat, though very clean and refreshing. The A40 Bubbles yeast left behind a bit more apple character compared to other yeasts I’ve used, which was very pleasant.

| DISCUSSION |

In order to ferment effectively, yeasts need nutrients, and while many of these nutrients are present in the apples used to make hard cider, they tend to be stripped out during processessing of store-bought juice. An easy way to make up for this is to add exogenous nutrients to the juice prior to fermentation. Interestingly, participants in this experiment were unable to reliably distinguish between ciders made of store-bought juice that were fermented either with or without a yeast nutrient addition.

Despite the apparent lack of a perceptual difference between these ciders, there were some objectively observable differences. First off, the cider made with yeast nutrients not only showed signs of activity earlier than the batch made without nutrients, but also fermented a bit longer. It’s possible this was an indication of yeast health, which may also help to explain the fact the yeast nutrient cider had a lower FG than the batch made without nutrients.

These results are validation enough to keep me using yeast nutrients when making cider from store-bought apple juice, regardless of non-significant sensory results, as I prefer quicker clarification and better attenuation. Plus, yeast nutrients are relatively cheap and super easy to use, adding little additional time to my already brief cider brew days. Then again, I certainly wouldn’t worry about fermenting a cider without nutrients or recommend people start doing it themselves if they’re not interested. After all, neither tasters nor I could tell these experiment ciders apart, and I thoroughly enjoyed both.

If you have any thoughts about this cider experiment, please do not hesitate to share in the comments section below!

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