Can You Use Regular Yeast for Wine?

The short answer to the question “can you use regular yeast for wine?” is yes.

Yes you can use regular yeast to make wine.

But that question is also so loaded with complexity that those complexities are worth exploring.

What Is Regular Yeast?

So first of all, the question around what regular yeast is demands explanation.

Any yeast that comes in a package can be considered regular yeast as

pretty much every yeast in a package is a strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is the most commonly used yeast for beer, wine, and bread.

If you are wondering “can you make wine with active dry yeast?” that answer is also yes.

Many wineries and breweries work with active dry yeast because it is more shelf stable and has an expiration date much further out than live and active wet yeast.

The difference can be as much as two years.

Test Your Yeast

 

But what this conversation really comes down to is a clear understanding of what yeast really is and how it functions.

Yeast is a single celled organism that has been around for hundreds of thousands of years as far as we know.

A member of the fungus family, which was the first living organism on earth, yeast has been able to survive and thrive in a variety of environments, from cold to warm, dry to humid.

It can reproduce both sexually and asexually and aerobically and anaerobically. It really is a wonder life form that has delivered delights to humans since even before we were humans.

It’s true.

Wine and Yeast

Anthropologists have found tribes of monkeys that intentionally wait for fruit to ripen and fall from the tree and then ferment before eating it, clearly preparing for the euphoric effect of fermented fruit.

Other tribes have been found to tap palm trees for their sap and collect it, then leave it out to ferment for days before drinking it.

Drunken monkey weekends are actually a thing.

So it stands to reason that our shared ancestors likely figured out the value of fermentation and had their own variation on wine long before we split off and evolved into humans.

It is no wonder then that wine sits in our recordings on cave walls as the nectar of the gods.

Of course, we did not always know about yeast.

Ancient Egyptians hailed the turning of grape juice to wine as a miracle.

And it does seem miraculous when you think about it.

Wine is the simplest example of the fermentation process.

For millennia, people (and monkeys apparently) have crushed grapes or other fruit, left it out for several days, and returned to find wine or cider.

What they did not realize, but we know now, is that yeast is pretty much everywhere all the time. It is in the air, on virtually every surface, and even in our bodies.

So when fresh fruit is left out in the open air, yeast is already on the hunt for sugars.

Once it senses those sugars in the crushed fruit juice, it gets right to work doing its one, very important, job: to convert those sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Along the way, it also creates several hundred micronutrients, acids, and other chemical offshoots.

After a couple of weeks, we have wine.

Now, over time, vintners have learned to rack wine, filtering out all the sediment and allowing wine to undergo secondary fermentation, which levels off any off flavors, smooths out the texture, and allows any remaining yeast to consume leftover dead yeast cells and other sediment, offering a clearer, and drier wine.

Throughout history, wineries have relied on the “native” yeasts in their environment to provide the fermentation necessary for the production of their wine.

Still today, many orthodox vintners, particularly those interested in organic wines, will insist upon using only native yeast, that is yeast that is naturally occurring in the region and prone to ferment at will, in order to exemplify and amplify the local terroir of the grapes.

Commercialization and Yeast

Of course, with the rise of industrialization and commercialization, wine makers took to ordering “wine yeast,” bakers order “baker’s yeast,” and brewers order “brewer’s yeast,” creating categories and divisions where, some would argue, it is not really necessary.

To be clear, there are thousands of strains of yeast, and hundreds of strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae alone, and some are better for beer, while others are better for wine, and still others are better for bread.

Why?

Well, bread yeast tends to only ferment to about 8% alcohol, so while it can be perfectly acceptable for both bread (where the alcohol burns off anyway) and beer (where the alcohol content rarely goes above 6%, it is unusual to find a wine with such a low ABV.

Can you use baker’s yeast to make wine? Sure!

Should you? Maybe not.

Unless you are making a very low alcohol content sparkling wine.

It is, in the end, a blessing and a curse to have yeast commercialized.

On the one hand, it has made many of us more rigid in our procedures, which can cramp creativity.

On the other hand, it has allowed us access to a larger variety of yeast, which makes us more likely to experiment.

The key, of course, is to do both.

Sure, build routine and procedure around the winemaking process, but also allow for alternative outcomes and options when it comes to exploring the possibilities of what wine can be.

Perhaps, rather than using baker’s yeast for your wine, you could allow the native yeast in your region to ferment your wine.

While baker’s yeast will get sluggish and even stuck at around 10%, wild yeast will open your eyes, and your heart, to a whole new world of winemaking.

Cheers!

Passionate about the wine making process? So are we! If you’re interested in finding out how you can use our technology to control fermentation and monitor your yeast, save work hours and improve the cost-efficiency of your business, drop us a line at [email protected] or check out our product page:

Also, you can now get access to a fully functional demo account to test our Web App. Completely free of charge and with no commitment to purchase.

Sources:

  1. https://www.winespectator.com/articles/can-any-yeast-make-wine-56810
  2. https://www.leaf.tv/articles/what-alcohol-proof-is-homemade-wine/

 


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