Each year, during fall harvest and apple season, we get asked a lot of questions about making hard cider at home: What is the best yeast for fermenting hard cider? What difference can different yeasts make to the flavor of a hard cider? Can I use an ale strain or only wine and champagne strains? To help answer those questions, Northern Brewer team members Chip and Dan set up a taste panel for a batch of hard cider that was split six ways and fermented with six different yeasts including three newer SafCider strains from Fermentis; Cote des Blancs from Red Star; and two ale yeasts -- Safale US-05 and Nottingham from Lallemand.
Check out their tasting notes video and the yeast selections below as you plan for your hard cider making: We Compare Six Hard Cider Yeast Strains
Featured Yeast Strains
- Red Star Cote des Blancs
- Fermentis SafCider AS-2
- Fermentis SafCider AC-4
- Lallemand Nottingham
- Fermentis US-05
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View all Hard Cider Yeast and more comparison notes.