![]() In northern New England, where we are closer to Quebec, there is some cross-border influence, and many cider makers in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire leave their cider sweeter, fruitier, and lighter, and bottle condition it with added priming sugar.Ĭider is one of the reasons I became a homebrewer in the first place. If it is packaged, it is usually still or only slightly carbonated. New England farmers tended to make English-style cider (and still do, in the main), fortifying it with various sugars, honey, maple, and the like, letting it ferment on its own naturally (with the possible addition of raisins to inoculate the juice or “must” with a suitable “wild” yeast), and leaving it to age in casks. The cider I make is marked by both the English and French traditions. I limit myself to these three influences mainly because that’s where my cider-making picks up. Indeed the province of Quebec is another major producer of hard cider today, most of it similar to the French style, light and sparkling but varying in dryness from sweet and fruity to champagne-like “sec.” Those same apples, and those of Brittany as well, were also brought to the New World by French explorers and settlers in Quebec. Norman hard cider is distilled and aged to produce the wonderful apple brandy known as Calvados.Įnglish cider apples are in all likelihood descended from Norman apples brought over by William the Conqueror in the 1060s. Méthode champenoise bottling procedures (fermenting in the bottle) are used, especially in Normandy and Brittany, France’s most renowned cider-producing regions (and arguably the best in all Europe). In my experience, and I’m sure I’m making a generalization to which someone will object, I have found British cider to be strong and still, basically an apple wine of 8 percent to 10 percent alcohol by volume, with a very strong apple aroma and fruity flavor.įrench “cidre,” on the other hand, is lighter, sometimes sweeter and sometimes quite dry but almost always effervescent. But even there we find a number of distinct style variations, depending on which country we find ourselves inhabiting. Today, outside the United States “cider” generally means hard cider. “Sidre” came from Latin, which came from Greek, which apparently came from the Hebrew “chekar,” meaning “strong drink.” So perhaps the English term cider should only apply to fermented or “hard” cider. The word “cider” comes to English, like so many food and beverage words, from medieval French. But just what is it? What differentiates it from mere “apple juice”? After all, technically, unfermented or “sweet” cider is only fresh-pressed apple juice. The word has mythological overtones, especially in rural areas where it is or was made. ![]() In the case of beer yeast, the popular strains have been cultivated for hundreds of years to hone their specific attributes being the beer flavour produced, attenuation (how well the sugars are fermented by yeast), and consistency.Cider. The difference between the two kinds of yeasts is their cultivation.Įach has been grown for the attributes they bring to the final product. You can totally use baking yeast for brewing, as both yeasts (beer and baking) are different strains of the same species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae.Ī good question to start with is, what is the difference between baker's yeast and brewer's yeast? Many craft brewers would probably shudder violently at the thought of using a yeast that's normally used to make bread but let's have a look at the idea. Yeast is a wholly active part of the fermentation process, which is hugely relying on all kinds of factors to go right and a good yeast will make a good beer better. The real question is should you use bakers yeast to make beer? So I did some research, and it turns out you can use baking yeast as it is an ' active dry yeast'. Can I substitute active baker's dry yeast for brewer's yeast? I'd heard of beer a craft brewer made from yeast found on his hipster beard, so why not use bread yeast?
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