Keeving

[dave45]

Anyone had any success with keeving a natural cider?

Last autumn I made two separate 2-gallon batches into 4 demijohns, tried the process - and only one out of four of them "keeved"... after racking off that was about 2/3rds of a gallon. The other three DJs fermented out as normal The keeved DJ is still ticking over slowly in my outhouse... no idea how it will turn out but the process seems to be a real black art.

[Green Aura]

I'd never heard of it before so had to investigate, of course. It seems they produce it commercially in France, so it must be manageable. Anyway, I found this article interesting and informative. I hope it helps.

http://draftmag.com/what-the-heck-is-keeved-cider/

[MKG]

I'd never heard of it, so thanks for the article, GA. I'd be very interested as to how it turns out, Dave, although I can't see myself being that patient with a cider.

[dave45]

Well I have tried Breton and Normandy ciders (in the champagne bottles) and they have been generally rather excellent. My homebrew ciders have been.. OK but far too dry. I think the problem is that making cider and trying to keeve it out of random apples is a bit high-risk. The batches I tried to keeve were a mix of Golden Delicious and Bramley (both late ripeners) in different ratios. And half of one 2-gallon batch keeved, the other didn't (same juice, same conditions) ....

I have about a dozen different apple trees in my garden, some of which I don't know the names of... all ripen at different times. I did research a proper Lancashire variety and came up with Golden Spire (dessert/cider apple) and planted 8 of them, trained espalier-style as a hedge... well the espalier was a bit hit n miss, but the apples crop well ... as more tasteless than supermarket GDs whereas my "GD" apples are quite acid although small.

and after all that I still prefer beer to cider... until I can come up with the right combination of methods to make the perfect cider

[dave45]

e.g. if you get some cider to keeve - can you blend it with more juice and get that to keeve too? or does any blending kill the process?

[MKG]

It's a fascinating process, but I have noticed one thing - apparently no yeast is introduced, so it appears to be a completely natural fermentation and therefore comes with all the usual warnings (ie success may come down to where you live).