Lalvin Wine Yeast EC-1118 10pk

Made good wine

Good solid yeast. It's my go-to when making Mead.

Perfect for home wine makers

Yeast for making homemade wine half of the packs worked half of the packs did not work. Quality just wasn’t there even with the price.

excellent yeast for a high ABV. Good taste as well.

This yeast showed up fast, well-packaged and fresh. I use it to make a 12-14% dry honey mead that only gets aged 2 months maximum before being consumed.This yeast is a very fast starter. It makes a robust kreuzen (yeasty head) at first but then it gets heavy and drops down at about 36-72 hours. That is when the fermentation really goes fast. At 70 degrees f and with good nutrition this really makes the air lock sing with bubbles!It finishes dry (in a 12-14% scenario) in 2-3 weeks and it flocculates to a nice clarity at that point. I add bentonite clay to accelerate clarity just because we drink the mead very young, no aging. I have never had this yeast stall out or slow start.I have used this yeast with synthetic nutrients and it peaks very early. Now, I brew with natural nutrients and it is very steady. Either way it is still a fast starter, consistent producer and a fine finisher. In fact, I love the way this finishes with a high floral trait/tag when you use a raw and unfiltered honey. When I uncork my EC-1118 mead made with raw honey it smells like a bouquet of flowers, but it will get you drunker than Cooter Brown.This is the only mead yeast for me since I brew at about 65-80 degrees f and do not age my meads much. Compared specifically to D-47: D-47 would give some off flavors near 80 degrees f fermentation and it needs to be aged longer.I sincerely hope this helps you! I write reviews to help people be wise with their money/time/energy/efforts. If you found this review helpful please hit the "helpful" button.Thank you!

My latest foray into huge DIY projects is brewing my own cider. It sounds like an extremely daunting task, but after watching a couple of youtube videos on people making their own, I figured that it wouldn’t be the most difficult of tasks. I opted for pre-pressed cider for the first run, and flavored it with maple syrup and a little cane sugar for sweetness. Exactly one week later, I prepared my second batch, and this time I included a bit of the Lalvin’s Wine Yeast, honey, and a little bit of cane sugar. One week after that, I went for cane sugar, Lalvin’s Wine Yeast, and my favorite Citric Acid Powder - Ultra Fine Pure Powdered Crystals - Natural Preservative Food Grade Quality (16 oz), Nature’s Candy. Winter soon turned into (less winter? definitely not spring) and it was time for me to bottle my different ciders. Honestly, this next part is going to sound a bit like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but I tried the first batch, whoa way too sweet for me (but my teenage stepsister adored it) the second batch was better, but a little lackluster for me, and the third was absolutely delicious. I think it was the combination of the wine yeast, which gave it a bit of effervescence, and the citric acid, which gave it a little kick. The third batch was very well balanced, and I absolutely loved it. In terms of the ingredients, they’re all very easy to reuse, obviously cane sugar, honey, and maple syrup are all household items. and the citric acid is honestly the best household cleaner I’ve ever used, and you can also use it in tons of food stuffs. As for the wine yeast, I’m actually going to give making my own wine a try, although I’m a little more concerned with how the results are going to be for that one. Anyway, I definitely recommend it, and I think it works perfectly for its purpose.

I use this yeast in mead wines and it works great.