Cider Musings: Wild or Natural

We have probably all heard the idiom “You say toe-mah-toe, I say toe-may-toe”. Is that like saying a wild ferment and a natural ferment? Are they the same or do they mean different things? What about commercial yeast? As these errant thoughts started swirling in my head, I thought this is the perfect topic for a Cider Musing. I can opine on the subject but maybe also help bridge the divide that I sometimes see in my cider ethos. It’s a divide that usually centers around yeast and the concept that some yeast must be better than another. In fact, I must admit that I am a little guilty widening this divide with my push for non-Saccharomyces strains. 

What is a wild ferment? What is a natural ferment? I don’t think there is a clear definition. It’s like so many other questions about cider. The answer is that it depends. I don’t think there are clear definitions or correct answers. There are interesting ideas and sometimes confusing answers. I thought I might share some of my thoughts and ideas on the subject. As always, I would love to hear yours as well, so leave comments or send me questions.

First, what is wild? As it relates to plants and animals, wild is defined as growing in the natural environment, not domesticated, or cultivated. I use this because yeasts are a living organism. The real question I what is the natural environment and does that mean that a wild ferment is a natural ferment? While most ferments are completed by Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, the yeast you find on most apples and pears is not Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It is a number of non-Saccharomyces strains from genera like Lachancea, Pichia and Candida. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a yeast found in human environments. In making cider, the juice picks up this yeast from the equipment and surroundings where the apples are processed. Should we define these Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains found in this environment wild? Is this its natural environment? Unlike apples, we haven’t yet been able to identify the origin of Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast. It appears to have adapted and prospered around humans. Is it like a dog or a wolf? We find it in the fermentation process used in making food and that goes back thousands of years. Yeast used to make beer is a great example of yeast that has obviously adapted. So if a fermentation has Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast in it, most all do, can it be wild?

What about natural? The definition of natural means that something exists in or is derived from nature. It is not made or created by humankind. Is wild yeast natural? Is all yeast natural? What constitutes being created by humankind? Is commercial yeast, yeast supplied in packages, natural? While there are some genetically modified yeast, most commercial yeast is simply a wild strain that was isolated and cultivated. If you can still find that strain in nature, does that make it natural? If it’s natural, is it also wild? Humans didn’t make it, they only harvested it and cultivated it. Is the apple you harvested not natural because you cultivated the tree? If you graft a scion onto a rootstock and grow apples, would you consider the apple not natural? Is a roadside apple wild and a tree in an orchard not?

If we peel the preverbal onion, or in our case the apple, can cider even be wild or natural? I don’t see much cider being naturally created in the wild. Most apples simply would fall to the ground and become food for animals. New trees spring up when the seeds are dispersed and the natural propagation of apples continues, which seems natural and wild. Can cider be either or both? Humans encourage the juice to ferment whether yeast is directly added or not. Processing the apples into juice inoculates yeast that is not naturally found in the environment where the tree is growing. Does this make the ferment wild or natural?

Besides making my head hurt a little, my musings made me consider what is important in cider making. Ultimately, it is about the end result. You should make cider that you enjoy making and drinking but be considerate that others may not have the same taste and definitions that you do. The goal is to create unique and quality ciders regardless how we define them. Let the quality of the product be the focus and not how it’s labeled.

I believe that regardless of what yeast you use to do that, you need to understand the process. Recognizing where yeasts come from, how they work, and what they can and cannot do is what will help you to make better cider. As for what we should call fermenting with yeast found on the apples and equipment versus when you inoculate, my musing didn’t help me resolve this conundrum. I was calling ferments where no additional yeast was inoculated as wild. My thought was that all yeast are basically natural. But, I’ve talked myself into and out of that argument at least three times since I started writing this article. Ultimately, pretty much every cider is inoculated with yeast that are outside of what you would find in the wild and natural environment. It’s just a question of whether that yeast is known or unknown. Maybe we should be using the informal definition of wild, which is to behave in an unrestrained manner. That definition could accurately portray the unknown nature of a cider created with the addition of yeast.

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