Home Winemaking Yeast Selection
If you’re making wine from commercially available wine kits, you’ll have everything you need to make very good wine. Even the yeast is provided for you in the kit. I’ve found that Lalvin EC-1118 strain of yeast is the one that is most often included in both premium and lower quality kits.
EC-1118 yeast is a very good all purpose wine yeast. Originating in the Champagne area of France, it is used to make a wide variety of juices because of it’s high alcohol tolerance, ability to withstand a wide range of temperatures, and it’s neutrality to flavor and aromas.
Perhaps though you are considering experimenting with other types of wines like making your own from fruit in your garden, or even frozen fruit from the grocery store, you might want to learn more about the types of yeast strains available to you. It has been shown in several studies that the strain of yeast used to make a wine can have positive affects on the flavors and aromas in the resulting wine.
There are many different characteristics in a wine yeast that you might want to know about when selecting your yeast for your next wine. For example, you might want a wine that doesn’t fully ferment to “dry” (zero or almost zero residual sugar), but instead want a wine that has a hint of sweetness to it. In that case, you’ll want a yeast with a lower alcohol tolerance. It is the yeast that turn the sugar in a juice into alcohol, and the higher a strain of yeast can tolerate alcohol, the more sugar it will consume.
Another factor is the yeast’s temperature range. Some like the aforementioned EC-1118 strain have a wide range of temperature (45° to 95°F) in which it can live, grow and reproduce while other strains such as Scott Lab’s ST strain can only tolerate a temperature between 60 and 68°F. But there are other advantages of the ST strain, as long as you can keep your fermenting wine in that temperature range.
In a recent study by the Australian Wine Research Institute, it was shown that even using two different strains of yeast (which is called “co-inoculation“) may also be beneficial to increasing the flavors and aromas in a wine. At the same time, the winemaker has to be careful that the two strains will not compete against each other, resulting in a “stuck fermentation” – where the yeast seem to become inactive. In that case, it’s good to have a packet of EC-1118 on hand as it is often used in such cases.
Yeast generally is available in the retail market in 5 gram packages. This is enough to innoculate 5 gallons of juice. Larger packages are available but are usually only used by professional winemakers. Sometimes though, you might be able to work something out with a local winery if they are using a yeast that you are finding difficult to obtain through a retail store.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with yeast! You might want to consider smaller batches of wine, ie. 1 gallon as opposed to 5 gallons when you are experimenting. If it doesn’t turn out the way you want, it’s a smaller amount you have to deal with.
More information and resources about yeast may be found here.
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