Introducing Leidel's Cider

Allow me to formally introduce Mitch Leidel and our joint project -- Leidel's Cider.  Over the last year and a half, I have been documenting our cider experiments.  So much so that I added a Cider tab to the blog to separate this work from the lambic work.  We learned a lot about what does and doesn't work when making Brett fermented cider.  Fortunately we had enough success in the pilot batches to start a Cidery this year and take our knowledge to a commercial scale.  Not only is Leidel's Cider the first to bottle a 100% Brett fermented cider, but we will be focusing exclusively on developing this style of cider!

Our first bottling - Hebron.  100% Brett Fermented Brut Cider.

I've asked Mitch to tell you how Leidel's Cider came to be and summarize what we've done so far.  So without further ado, here is Mitch Leidel:

18 months ago, I graduated college and moved back to the family orchard to assume management responsibilities. It was the hope of seeing the orchard again be a functioning operation that brought me back. It had undergone several tough years, and almost ushered our exit from the apple business entirely. My duties were simple and consisted solely of managing our retail operation and facilitating sales of our untended cider crop. The future outlook was bleak and uncertain. 

This took a welcome turn after a conversation with Levi Funk, a family friend passionate about wild fermentation. At the time, he was working with O’so Brewery on some special release beers while starting his own lambic operation, Funk Factory. We found ourselves talking of craft cider’s potential, and Levi brought up Brett fermentation as a potentially unique approach. Thus marked the inception of Leidel’s Cider.

Our first move was to determine if Brett would produce favorable results in cider. To begin our experimentation, we formulated a handful of pilot batches. These included a spontaneously fermented cider, a Farmhouse style cider, 11 different brett ciders, and an old world cider technique called a Keeve.

The juice for these ciders was custom blended by incorporating specific amounts of different apple varieties. In developing a blend, there are three main factors to consider: Brix, pH, and tannin. Brix is a measure of sugar content, pH a measure of acidity, and tannin one of bitterness or astringency. When all factors are in equilibrium, the cider is said to be “balanced”. To ensure this happens, a cidermaker incorporates the necessary amount of different apple varieties to achieve appropriate Brix, pH, and tannin levels. While some blend cider after fermentation, we blended prior to fermentation. Our desired Brix level was ~13, an OG of 1.052. The desired pH was 3.3. Tannin levels, although vital, were not a huge factor in deciding our blend as high tannin apples are virtually nonexistent in our region. Because of this, we used readily available dessert apples such as Haralson, McIntosh, and Wealthy. With each variety accounting for roughly ⅓ of the final blend, it had a pH of ~3.3 and Brix of 12.6, or 1.050 OG.

Everything but the Keeve took about 6 weeks to ferment. We then pulled samples to taste and gauge the initial product. The two barrel fermented ciders (spontaneous and saison) resulted in a fairly lackluster product. Nothing groundbreaking there. The panel of Brett, however, produced some pretty interesting results. We tasted everything, made notes, and scored the ciders. They were given a 5 week aging and clarifying period, and then tasted again, noting our findings. At this point, the ciders we felt had the highest potential were selected and bottled. We wanted to see how these ciders continued to develop in the bottle to determine how to create our flagship ciders.

At this time, the Keeve had completed fermentation and was just finishing a few month period of aging and clarification. It was then primed and bottled. We anticipated this period of bottle conditioning to be lengthier than normal because Keeved juice by nature is low in nutrients that feed yeast. This period however, took quite a bit longer than expected, but the final product had a nice Brett funk and a beautiful clarity. In future productions, we’ll likely aid the bottle conditioning process through addition of yeast nutrient. We would also like at some point to incorporate the Methode Champenoise into this cider to further refine the quality.
After assessing these experimental batches, it was conferred we had a handful of commercially viable ciders. We thus made plans to commence commercial production the ensuing fall with roughly 1,000 gallons of Brett “table” cider and 180 gallons of Keeve. The interim, time was occupied by the administrative work of legally and physically establishing a cider facility. As fall neared, equipment was purchased, fruit arranged for, pressing logistics coordinated, and an endless list of miscellaneous tasks completed. We were still fighting the clock to finish preparations when pressing time came. This paired with pressing over five times the previous years production, kept us quite busy.

2013’s pressing was completed at a neighboring farm that utilized a large continuous belt press. In this style of press, pomace is placed between two vinyl belts that transfer it through a series of steel rollers. The rollers extract the juice which is collected in large trays underneath and then transferred into a holding tank. In all, 17 bins of apples were pressed which yielded about 1,000 gallons.

Unfortunately, this press was unable to logistically press for a Keeve, so we had to resort to other means. We used an electric grinder and bladder press rather than the hand mill and crank press employed in previous years. The electric grinder was far faster than a hand mill, milling 3 bins, or 2,400 lbs., of apples in several hours. This yielded ~360 gallons of pomace which was packed into containers, covered to prevent oxidation, and left to macerate for 24 hours. The next day a 30 gallon bladder press was used to extract the juice. Our final yield was 155 gallons, slightly less than our goal of 180 gallons. Keeving is closer to an art than a science as it is never a guarantee a successful keeve will take place. While we were successful on our first batch, the keeving was unfortunately not successful this time. It is an art we plan to continue learning about though. It wasn’t a loss either as the juice went into freshly dumped 12 year Bourbon barrels, a technique we wouldn’t have explored if not for this circumstance.

For our larger pressing, the blend was similar to last years with pH and sugar levels again being our main focus. A decision to use more McIntosh for aromatics was one of the only tweaks made. The pH was 3.3 and Brix 12.6, or 1.051 OG. All juice was pumped into 4 different 330 gallon IBC totes; each tote was filled with a maximum of 250 gallons, leaving adequate headspace. These totes are quite economical and widely used by those entering the American hard cider industry as well as food production of various kinds. We, thus, decided, to utilize these vessels as fermentation tanks for our first commercial production. 

At this time, our flagship ciders have finished primary fermentation, doing so in approximately 6 weeks, and undergone a several month period of maturation and clarification. In addition, our first ever commercial bottling took place just last weekend with 2,200 bottles of our Hebron cider being packaged. Find your liquor store’s cider section and watch it closely as distribution into Minnesota commences soon. And be sure to check out leidelscider.com or follow Leidel's Cider on Facebook for detailed information on future releases.

Cider Keeve: Day 270

We are just about at the 9 month mark from when I started the cider keeve experiment.  It was bottled at the 6 month mark and so has been conditioning in the bottle for the last 3 months.  As a recap, "keeving" is an old French cider making process that removes nutrients from the cider.  This results in a slow fermenting environment in which I applied lambic yeast/bacteria with the goal of emulating a typical lambic fermentation in cider, and it worked.

When I bottled the cider, I anticipated it would take up to 3 months to carbonate as that is common amongst lambics.  I opened a bottle after about a month and a half, and it was dead still.  Though slightly worried, I gave it some more time.  Last night, as we approach the 3 month mark, I opened a bottle to check on it. The cork was stubborn, but came out with a faint "psht".  No head formed as I poured the cider, but some bubbles did accumulate briefly on the side of my glass.

It is not nearly as carbonated as I would like, but nice to see something form.  I will continue to let this condition, but am thinking about how to correct this for next time.  The critical element in this cider is that there is a lack of nutrients.  While this is beneficial to getting saccharomyces and brettanomyces to ferment in tandem, at the point of bottling, I am afraid that there just isn't enough nutrients to properly carbonate the cider.  Next time I might try adding some yeast nutrients along with the priming sugar.

The cider is a very pretty color and crystal clean when poured in a glass. There is, however, some yeast sediment that accumulated at the bottom of the bottle during conditioning. Because of how crystal clear this is, I think the riddling and disgorging process of Champagne might make a nice finish.  Its a lot of work, but I might consider doing this on part or all of the next batch.

The plan as of now is to fill 2 barrels with keeved cider juice and ferment it the same way this batch was done.  Adding barrel aging and fermentation will certainly be beneficial, but this has to be one of the most labor intensive and expensive ciders to produce.  Custom pressing, risky keeving process, lambic-style fermentation, extended barrel aging, long bottle conditioning time, and possibly adding riddling/disgorging finish....yikes.  At least the final result is worth it!

Aroma:  Smells of apples and pears.  There is a brett funk that is subtle but definitely noticeable.

Appearance: Very attractive appearance.  Crystal clear with some bubbles forming ever so slightly.  I can imagine this would be beautiful with bubbles cascading up.

Taste:  Apple "juice" flavor is very mellow, but the apple skin tannin flavor is more pronounced.  I am pleasantly surprised with how tart it got. Earthy and musty flavors are the biggest contributions from the brett.  As I said earlier, I think Brett brux dominated the fermentation.  I used a Wyeast smack pack this time, but next time I will definitely be sourcing a lambic blend from East Coast Yeast and hope to have a more diverse brett presence.

Palate: Again, the carbonation is still low at this point, so it is not as effervescent as I targeted.  Aside from that, there is a great body on the cider.  It is light and fresh without feeling thin.

Overall: I am very happy with how balanced and funky this cider is.  I am thrilled that the experiment worked and look forward to making some slight refining shifts when we produce a lot more of this.  I think barrel aging will add a lot of complementing aroma and flavor characters, but even as is this is a very nice cider with a lot going on.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it continues to develop in the bottle.

Cider Fermentation Panel: Bottling & Tasting

06/24/13

Last weekend I met the guys at Leidel's orchard for a final taste and to bottle the ciders.  I'm glad we tasted these again as there are some big differences on a few batches.  We purposefully didn't look up our old tasting notes and only compared after we had re-tasted them all and made new notes.  Here are our notes from this session:

1. Brett drie (BSI)
   - some tartness, light, crisp, refreshing, although a bit thin.
2. Brett custersianus
   - sweet, tropical, pineapple/mango, nice body.
3. Brett nanus
   - barnyard and pineapple aroma, tastes strongly of pineapple juice. great flavor, but kind of intense.
4. Brett lambicus (wyeast)
   - not flavorful, watery.  slightly cheesy and tart.
5. Brett bruxellensis (wyeast)
   - very flavorful. pear, melon, citrus and a bit of alcohol.
6. Brett claussenii (WL)
   - pungent aroma, citrus, floral, and dry.  saison-like.
7. Brett fantome
   - pretty good mouthfeel.  complex, tart apple, a very soft blue-cheese like funk (good), nice funky aroma.
8. Saccharomyces paradoxus
   - watery, slight funk and citrus.
9. Brett blend
   - got a lot going on, but not very flavorful as a whole.  funky, fruity, citrus.
10. Brett blend and oenococcus
    - muted flavor as compared to #9.  The acidity was mellowed, and so I see there may be potential value in this addition, but likely only as a secondary fermentation, or partial blend.
11. Brett blend with maltodextrin addition
    - As compared to #9, a bit drier of a finish, thicker body, more robust flavor. a bit more alcohol.

We decided only Drie, Custer, Nanus, Brux, Claussenii, and Fantome were worth bottling.  The plan is to open these bottles over the summer and get a good understanding of each strain and how they may develop now that they are off the traub. For larger production this fall, we will be making a couple blends from the strains we like best.

Some interesting information comes in comparing our notes from the sampling we did a month ago.  The biggest changes were in Nanus and Claussenii.  A month ago Nanus tasted of rotting fruit and cheese.  It wasn't even drinkable, but now it was one of our favorites and had a huge pineapple flavor.  Claussenii was very stale in flavor, but now has a beautiful floral/citrus flavor.  

If you are looking to brew a brett cider, it is important to note that brettanomyces continues working even after fermentation has completed and it may take a couple months to develop the desired flavor.  For those homebrewers who don't want to wait more than a month, I would recommend Wyeast's B. bruxellensis (note: this is different than White Lab's) as it had a great flavor profile in both tasting sessions and is an easy strain to obtain.

On a side note, I also bottled up my Cider Keeve and Foraged Farmhouse the previous weekend.  More on that coming soon...

Bottled Cider Keeve.

Cider Fermentation Panel: Tasting

I met with the guys at Leidel's orchard agian last weekend to check in on the wild cider fermentation experiments.  We took gravity readings and sampled each batch.  Here are the results:

1. Brett drie (BSI) - 1.000
   - orange peal, citrus, tropical fruit, pineapple, tingling feeling on the sides of the tongue. 
2. Brett custersianus - 0.999
   - lemonade like citrus, cherry, white wine, flavor not intense, but pleasant.  slightly watery.
3. Brett nanus - 0.998
   - overripe/rotting fruit, cheesy, not pleasant. 
4. Brett lambicus (wyeast) - 0.995
   - grassy/woody, watery flavor, tingly.
5. Brett bruxellensis (wyeast) - 0.999
   - hay and floral funk with sweet nectarine. 
6. Brett claussenii (WL) - 0.998
   - light citrus, watery, yeasty.
7. Brett fantome (ECY) - 0.998
   - hay funk, green apple tartness, tingly.
8. Saccharomyces paradoxus - 0.998
   - buttery Chardonnay, candy sweetness.
9. Brett blend (drie, claussenii, fantome, ECY05) - 0.998
   - light citrus
10. Brett blend and oenococcus - 0.995
    - as compared to #9, less tart and more alcoholic.  less flavor.  watery.
11. Brett blend with maltodextrin addition - 0.996
    - as compared to #9, smooth/creamy feel and more flavorful.

We didn't bottle as this was the only gravity reading I have and don't know what the FG will be for any of these.  Normally you might think 1.000 is a safe number, but having batches at 0.995 makes me cautious.

The base cider we used was intentionally a neutral and lacking flavor.  This allowed us to more easily pick out the flavor of the yeast only.  As you can see from the Brett fantome batch, we could taste a green apple flavor and know that it wasn't from the base cider, but rather the yeast.   So while this was beneficial, I think its important to note that the base cider wasn't very flavorful and led to some batches tasting "watery".  This might be better stated "the yeast strain didn't produce a very large amount of flavor".  With a different base cider blend, these may still be viable strains for producing tasty cider.

It was very interesting to feel this tingling sensation on the sides of my tongue from some batches.  I have no idea what that is and have never experienced it before.  Future batches are required to see if this is something brett does in cider.

Batches #10 and #11 are worth talking about more.  While we were experiencing some palette fatigue, it was easy to compare them against #9 and see the impact from the addition of oenococcus and maltodextrin in cider.  Quite simply, oenococcus wrecked the brett fermentation while maltodextrin enhanced it.  I was skeptical that maltodextrin would do anything as I knew the brett would eat it away, but it does seem to have helped both the mouthfeel and the flavor.

The favorite batches were drie, custersianus, bruxellensis, fantome and paradoxus.  I already feel like I want to revisit some of these strains, so I am going to hold off final judgement until I taste these a few times.  Also, I'm looking forward to tasting them once carbonated, but it will be a few weeks before I have another chance to get up there and bottle.

Cider Keeve: Day 123

This last weekend was the 4 month mark of the Cider Keeve.  I have checked in on this experiment at the 1 month and 2 month mark.  Here is a re-cap what is going on and what has happened, but you can go back and read those previous posts.

Keeving is an old world cider practice that removes nutrients from the cider.  During fermentation, the yeast runs out of nutrients and dies before it can eat all the sugar, resulting in a sweet cider.  The experiment I am doing is seeing what happens when you use a lambic blend of yeast to ferment the keeved cider and if this nutrient poor environment would allow me to mimic the typical lambic fermentation process in cider.  At month 1, I took a gravity reading and saw the fermentation tracking a slow fermentation characteristic of keeved cider.  This indicated that the yeast was fermenting in a nutrient poor environment, but still left the question open as to what would happen when the nutrients ran out.  Would the Brett continue to ferment or would it die along with the Saccharo?  At month 2, I took another gravity reading and the fermentation was still on track.  There seemed to be some Brett character when smelling the cider, but not much when tasting it.  This indicated that there was at least some Brett activity in tandem with the Saccharo fermentation, but I still didn't know if it would continue fermenting and reach 1.000 or if the Brett would die out.

On Friday evening I had some friends over and decided to check in on it with them.  Upon tasting, it was very clear that the Brett had continued on because there was an big earthy, barnyard flavor and aroma.  The gravity reading was 1.000.  Normally this would mean a thin body, which I feared, but to my surprise there was still plenty of body.  I am going to give this some more time to see how it continues to develop.  It seems like the Brett Brux dominated the other strains, so I'd like to see if any of the other strains will do anything in the next couple months.  I'll likely bottle this around the 6-9 month mark.

I'm very excited about this brew.  Its a whole new style of cider, and I really like the results.  I'm hoping we will do a larger batch this coming fall and ferment it in oak barrels (possibly ones previously used for lambic?).  I'll definitely be using East Coast Yeast next time instead of the Wyeast lambic blend smack pack. The Wyeast lambic blend is fine and served its purpose for this experiment, but I much prefer the flavor profile that results from ECY yeast blend.  It would also be fun to tweak the apple variety blend that goes into the press.

Cider Fermentation Panel: Yeast Pitched

Over the weekend I met with the guys at Leidel's Orchard to do our brett cider experiment.  The yeast arrived safely, the juice was ready, and they had purchased all the carboys/bungs/airlocks needed.

Wild yeast strains from East Coast Yeast

After we sanitized everything, we filled each carboy with 3 gallons of juice.  To ensure that our pitched yeast would be the source of 100% of the fermentation, the juice had been pasteurized at the pack house and then shipped to us frozen.  While we were waiting for the juice to warm up to room temperature, I dissolved 5 ounces of maltodextrin into some juice, and then added it to the juice already in carboy #11. (batch list here)

11 wild cider batches

Later that evening the yeast was added.  The only yeast strain that didn't come from East Coast Yeast was the B. Brux, which came from Wyeast.  24 hours after pitching every carboy except #5 (Brux) was in active fermentation.  #3 (Nanus), #7 (Fantome), and the brett blend batches were the most active.  Giving them a slight shake would almost blow out all the star-san solution in the airlock!

They will be left in that room, which is a steady 60 degrees, for the next month or two.  Unfortunately, the orchard is 2.5 hours from where I live, so I won't be able to check on it regularly, or take weekly gravity readings.  The goal of this experiment is primarily to see the flavor/aroma contribution of each of these strains and to find which ones we like in cider.

Cider Fermentation Panel

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I've been working with Leidel's Apple Orchard on a few hard cider pilot batches.  The past experiments have been more complicated, expensive, time consuming fermentation styles.  We now want to see if we could come up with a "table cider"; something that doesn't require oak barrels nor take 9+ months to ferment and age.

After giving some thought to the different kinds of ciders out there and how we could make something new and interesting, I got the idea of doing a 100% brett fermented cider.  Surprisingly, there is very little information out there on how brett (in general and individual strains) performs in cider.  Even in the homebrew world there are only a few people who have tried 100% brett fermentation for cider.  Most commercial cider operations (and a lot of home brewers) come at cider from the wine world, which hates brett, and so they refuse to even consider it.  So, coming from the beer world, specifically the "wild" beer world, it seems I have a fresh look at the possibilities.

First, we need to get an understanding of how each individual strain of brett performs and the flavors/aromas it creates in cider.  I would also like to get an idea of how brett performs when paired with a malolactic fermentation.  Apple juice has malic acid, which is a harsher acid.  Oenococcus can be used to convert the malic acid to the softer lactic acid.  In addition, I would like to see the impact of adding maltodextrines to a 100% brett cider fermentation.  Maltodextrins are complex sugars that normal brewing yeast is not able to break down and consume, leaving the beer with a fuller body and mouthfeel.  Theoretically brett has the ability to break these complex sugars down, but some home brewers have reported a difference in using maltodextrin with brett fermentation.

We decided to do test batch for all of the individual brett strains possible.  Once again I reached out to Al Buck at East Coast Yeast, who has been so helpful in the past, to supply the yeast.  In addition to providing the brett strains, he recommended a "wild" saccharomyces strain call S. Paradoxus.  I am particularly excited about this as it has the ability to do a partial malolactic fermentation on its own.

So here is the list of the 3 gallon batches we will be starting this weekend:

1. Brett drie (BSI)
2. Brett custersianus
3. Brett nanus
4. Brett lambicus (wyeast)
5. Brett bruxellensis (wyeast)
6. Brett claussenii (WL)
7. Brett fantome (ECY)
8. Saccharomyces paradoxus
9. Brett blend (drie, claussenii, fantome, ECY05)
10. Brett blend and oenococcus
11. Brett blend with maltodextrin addition

I'm really looking forward to this experiment.  I expect it to take a month or two to finish fermentation, but I will make sure to report the results here as soon as I have them.

Cider Keeve: Day 62

This weekend is the 2 month mark for the Cider Keeve so I wanted to check in on it, get a gravity reading, and see how it tastes/smells.  As I mentioned last time, I was anticipating a gravity of ~1.010, and at 1.008 it is going right as I hoped.

Keeved Cider at 2 months.

Now for the big question; how does it smell and taste?  To be honest, it was very hard to judge and the smell/flavor was not like any cider I've had.  The smell had this earthy, floral, and licorice combination with a hint of honey and apple skin.  It reminded me of a mead.  When I drank it, the flavor and body made me think I was drinking a mead or a wine.  My wife said it reminded her a lot of Chardonnay.  There was also a strawberry flavor and a slight tannin note.  It had a very nice tartness; not too sharp, but still pronounced.  At it's current gravity, I find it slightly thick, although if it were carbonated, it might be nice.

My biggest hope in checking in on the cider at this point was to see if the Brett was working in tandem to the Saccharo.  Based on the aroma, I would say yes.  However, it didn't translate much into the flavor...at least not at this point.  So I can't really say definitely if the Brett has been playing an active role or not.  I think it is on track for a keeve fermentation, and will just require some more time to see how flavors develop.

Since we were down checking on this, I decided to check on the Minimalist Lambic, which has been fermenting for over 7 months.  Gravity, as expected, is 1.000.  It smells pungent of typical lambic aroma.  Mostly grassy and barnyard funk.  Some hops and a slight phenol.  The taste was very interesting.  It has a very big funky/earthy/grassy flavor, but then has this lingering void, and then a hop bitterness.  The sourness is there, but not that high.  What is interesting is that its hard to call it "watery" or "one-noted", but it is definitely lacking complexity.  This isn't much of a surprise considering it is fermented with a single Brett strain where lambic traditionally has many many strains.

Cider Keeve: Day 23

I checked in on the cider keeve last night.  I wanted to see how the fermentation was going.  As I mentioned in my earlier post, I am hoping for a slow fermentation that will, in theory, allow the Brett a chance to eat some of the sugars instead of the Sacchro dominating everything.

Upon looking at the carboy, I felt hopeful.  The head had kept at a soft dense foam.  I really don't have a lot of experience with fermenting cider, but it just seemed like the type of head that would result from a slow fermentation.  What has surprised me is the color of the cider.  It was so dark before, and now it is an almost vibrant orange color.

Keeved cider fermenting.

When I tested the gravity, I didn't know what to expect.  All I knew is that I was hoping for a high number indicating a slow fermentation and that the keeving process actually worked.  Today I came across this graph of gravity readings from keeved cider fermentations:

Lambourn Valley Cider

My gravity reading was 1.032.  Fantastic!  I am on track with other keeved ciders, so I now know I achieved a successful keeve.

When I think about the lambics I've done (1 and 2), they were at ~1.010 at the 2 month mark.  I anticipate this cider will be at about the same gravity.  The question is, what will the Brett have done in that time, and what, if anything, will it continue to do in this nutrient poor environment?

(Also, I plan to put some Drie Fonteinen dregs in there tonight to make sure there are stronger Brett strains than the Wyeast ones.)

Cider Keeve

I have been working with Leidel's Orchard up in La Cresent, MN.  They are looking into making hard cider, and after much discussion/research/brainstorming with the owners about the type of product they want to make, our pilot batches include a "Saison barrel", a "Natural barrel", and a "Keeve carboy".  I'll wait for another day to talk about the barrels, but I wanted to post a bit on the keeve batch.

Keeving is a old-world cider technique that has largely been forgotten, but is still done by some traditional cider makers in the UK and France. Simply put keeving releases natural pectin into the apple juice which then coagulates, removing much of the nutrients from the juice. As the yeast ferments the keeved juice, it uses the remaining nutrients, but runs out before it can ferment all of the sugar.  Traditionally, this has been done to create a naturally sweet cider.  For more information on the process, read this.

When I learned about this process and how it works, I thought about how lambic wort is brewed to have a lot of complex sugars that Saccharomyces can't eat, which leaves a portion of the sugars for the Brettanomyces.  I began to wonder if Brett would survive in a nutrient poor environment after the Saccharo died out.  So the purpose of this experiment is to see what will happen if I pitch lambic yeast into keeved cider.

However, this turned out to be a very difficult and laborious process.  I started with nearly 4 bushels (160lbs) of apples.  They had to be sent through a mill and the pulp left to sit for 24 hours (to release the pectin).  The next day we pressed the pulp, but our efficiency was about half that of a commercial cider press (and 10 times the work).  Leidel's Orchard actually spoke with a couple commercial presses keeving, but they were unable to do this process without a major rework of their set up.  I was hoping to get 8+ gallons, so I borrowed a friend's 12 gallon glass carboy to use as a keeving tank.  I only ended up with 6 gallons.

Then the keeving process starts.  The first step is to allow the pectin to coagulate in the cider.  Some modern additives help this process, but it is still a bit of an art.  The carboy was stored in my refrigerator for 10 days where it is cold enough to stall fermentation until the coagulated pectin gel has formed.

Most of the gel that formed fell to the bottom and is sitting on top of the sediment

The next step is to allow fermentation to start and the CO2 bubbles will lift the coagulated pectin to the surface making it possible to siphon out the juice in the middle.  I left it at room temperature for 5 days, which is much longer than I was told to expect, and only had a minimal amount of fermentation start.

Separation of cider and pectin gel.

Pectin gel pushed to the top by CO2 bubbles.

Only about half of the pectin gel was pushed to the top, while the rest stayed on the bottom of the jar.  I would have liked waiting until all of the pectin was pushed up, but I feared fermentation would accelerate too fast and I would be left with a cloudy cider.  Also, as the pectin gel at the top was exposed to the air, some mold was starting to grow.  I decided it was best to siphon at this point rather than risk ruining the whole batch.  As I siphoned, I also strained the keeved juice to capture any particles that might have been stirred up.

5 gallons of keeved cider with lambic blend yeast added.

In the end I was left with 5 gallons of clear, keeved, cider.  To that I added Wyeast Lambic Blend.  It will likely take 9-12 months before I know if the experiment worked, and if its anything like lambic, may take 2 years to really develop.  Apple cider is all simple sugars, and normally the Saccharo would out compete everything else.  My hope is that I've stripped out enough nutrients in this keeve to slow the Saccharo and allow the Brett/Pedio/Lacto to do their work in tandem.