I've been meaning to try Windsor ale yeast, which has just horrible attenuation in beer. But I have not yet used it in cider, so I can only guess how well it works in cider.
There are other ways to get a naturally sweet cider. It involves extreme patience or laziness. Here's how I do it:
Ferment low and slow, like at 50-55 F for 2 months. Rack the cider about every 7 days for the first month. Do this to remove most of the yeast and prevent things from getting out of hand. When gravity hits about 1.015-1.020, then add gelatin to knock out 95% of the yeast, wait 24 hours, and rack again. Typically this will occur after about the first 10-14 days. From this point, keep the cider even colder, as close to 32 F as you can, although temperatures in the 40s or 50s are fine too. Then just leave it alone for at least another month or two. If you are successful in removing most of the yeast, you should end up with a cider that is naturally around 1.010 gravity, with just barely enough yeast left in it to safely backsweeten and carbonate if you desire but of course this is optional. Keep the cider cold so fermentation doesn't take off again.
And that's about it. It's worked for me several times over the years. This year, I got a little too lazy and gravity fell to around 0.994 or something like that. In this case I'll eventually backsweeten and bottle and hope for the best.
If you are in any hurry and just can't wait for months and months, then the above technique will not work at all and you could likely end up with bottle bombs. On the other hand, if you just keg it then that is an advantage over bottling and you don't need to worry about explosions. I do not have any kegging equipment, plus I'm very lazy I mean patient, so it's all good.
For what it's worth, Cote des Blancs is the best cider yeast. US-05 is my second favorite. Many other yeasts kind of suck. But I would try Windsor sometime for the heck of it to see what it does.
Cheers.
Topic: "Naturally Sweet" Cider (Read 5334 times)
