Hi,
I've been making sparkling apple cider with beer yeast and bottling it. I'm having problems with the yeast not settling out but forming "flakes" so that the bottle looks somewhat like those winter paperweights with "snow" inside. It tases fine so I am not worried about contamination. If I refrigerate the bottles, flakes settle near the bottom so that I can pour most of the cider into a mug and drink it without the yeast. I am wondering if these flakes are a known phenomena and if there is someway to get the yeast to form a solid sediment on the bottom of the bottle (champaign yeast (lalvin 11118) settles down well but I don't like the taste of cider made with it). Could cider just have the wrong density for use with beer yeast? I've tried saflager and cooper yeast. The cooper yeast, (which gives the best taste of several yeasts I've tried) was described in the mail order catalog as "settling out firmly", and it didn't form flakes unill after bottling. The saflager yeast formed the flakes in the first fermentation.
Thanks,