Glossary · Fermentation
Pied de cuve
French. Kept in its own language here rather than translated into the nearest English word, because the nearest English word is usually cut on a different axis.
Definition
A starter made from the must itself: a small parcel of juice allowed to begin fermenting spontaneously, then added to the main tank to give the native population a head start.
- Subject
- Fermentation
- Language
- French
In more detail
A pied de cuve is the middle path between wild and inoculated fermentation. It keeps the indigenous yeast community rather than replacing it, while ensuring that the main volume is not left with a long lag phase in which acetic bacteria and film yeasts can establish.
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
Wild fermentation
Fermentation by the yeasts already present on the fruit and in the press house, without a cultured inoculation.
Fermentation
Yeast starter
A small volume of juice fermented in advance to build an active, acclimatised yeast population before it is added to the main batch.
Fermentation
Inoculation
Adding a selected yeast culture to the juice to conduct the fermentation, usually after rehydrating dried yeast or building a starter.
Microbiology
Microbial succession
The orderly replacement of one microbial population by another during fermentation, as rising alcohol, falling sugar, falling nutrient and falling oxygen change which organism can compete.
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.
Peer-reviewed literature on cider fermentation microbiology
Various journals · peer-reviewed literature · registered as competent for this subject
Covers the microbial succession of spontaneous cider fermentation, the role of non-Saccharomyces yeasts in the early stages, malolactic conversion by Oenococcus and Lactobacillus species, and the organisms behind the principal spoilage faults.