Glossary · Equipment
Keeve
Also written kive, keever. Each is a name for the same thing, which is why none of them has an entry of its own.
Definition
The open vessel in which juice is held while it forms its brown cap. The word is also used as a verb for the process itself, which took its name from the vessel.
- Subject
- Equipment
- Also written
- kive, keever
In more detail
A keeve is open or loosely covered, because the cap must be able to rise and be observed, and shallow enough for the operator to draw the clear juice from beneath it without disturbing the layers. Traditional keeves were wooden tubs; modern equivalents are open-topped plastic or stainless vessels with a tap set above the sediment line.
Where this is covered properly
The glossary defines; these pages explain. Each is described in its own words.
Related terms
Terms that belong to the same part of the subject, or that this one is routinely confused with.
Fermentation
Keeving
A pre-fermentation clarification in which pectin in the juice is gelled into a floating brown cap, taking nutrients and yeast with it, so that the clear juice drawn from beneath ferments slowly and stops with sugar remaining.
Fermentation
Chapeau brun
The brown gelatinous cap of pectate, solids and yeast that floats to the surface during keeving. Its formation is the visible test that keeving has worked.
Equipment
Vat
A large vessel for fermenting or storing cider, historically an open or loosely covered wooden tub, now more often a closed stainless steel tank.
Fermentation
Racking
Transferring cider off its sediment into a clean vessel, leaving the lees behind. It is the basic maintenance operation of the cellar and the traditional method of slowing a fermentation.
Where to go next
- Cider glossary — The whole vocabulary, by subject and A–Z.
- Comparisons — Terms that are only really clear when set against the thing they are not.
- Search — Finds terms by their aliases and by their spellings in other languages.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Institut Français des Productions Cidricoles (IFPC)
IFPC · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
The French technical institute for cider production. The authority for the French cultivar classification families, for keeving as an industrial process, and for the pectin and nitrogen chemistry that keeving depends on.
The Science of Cidermaking and associated technical writing
Andrew Lea · reference work · passage verified 2026-08-24
Written by a food chemist who worked at Long Ashton on apple phenolics. Unusual among specialist cider writing in that it is primary-research-adjacent: the author is describing work he did, and cites the literature. This is why it is registered at tier 1 for chemistry while a general cider book is not.
Hereford Museum of Cider collections and interpretation
Hereford Cider Museum Trust · museum · retrieved 2026-08-24