Sensory descriptor
Bread dough
A raw, yeasty, faintly sour note from live yeast in suspension, characteristic of unfiltered and bottle-conditioned cider.
Also called Doughy, Raw dough.
- Aroma family
- Fermentation-derived
- Does it indicate a fault?
- It depends on the style it is met in
What causes it
Live yeast in suspension contributes its own aroma directly: the cell surface carries volatile compounds and the metabolically active population continues producing them, including acetaldehyde, low levels of higher alcohols and the sulphur compounds of active fermentation. The perception is the same one a proving dough gives, and for the same reason. It is therefore a signature of unfiltered, bottle-conditioned and freshly racked cider, and it disappears with filtration, with fining and with time as the population settles and dies.
In a bottle-conditioned cider this note is expected and its absence would suggest the conditioning did not run. In a filtered product it means yeast has got through, which is a stability problem before it is a sensory one.
The compounds responsible
Where the molecule is established. Some descriptors in this lexicon name a compound the compound register does not yet hold a record for; those are named in the cause above instead.
Acetaldehyde
The compound sitting one step short of ethanol, which smells of bruised apple and sherry, binds most of the sulphite added to a cider, and is the chemical signature of oxidation.
Higher alcohols
The group of larger alcohols yeast makes from amino acids, welcome as background complexity in trace and harsh and solvent-like in quantity.
Carbon dioxide
The other product of fermentation, which protects a cider from air while it is being made and, dissolved in the finished drink, changes both its texture and its perceived acidity.
The organisms that make it
Where a specific organism is implicated rather than the fruit. Naming one answers a different question from naming a molecule: what is in the cellar, rather than what is in the glass.
What raises it
Processes that increase this character, or preserve it where it would otherwise be lost.
Bottle conditioning
Carbonating cider by letting a second fermentation finish inside the sealed bottle, so the gas is generated where it is going to stay.
Secondary fermentation
Any fermentative event that follows the primary ferment — residual sugar refermenting, a deliberate second alcoholic fermentation, or the malolactic conversion of the maturation phase.
Racking
Moving cider off the sediment it has thrown, which both cleans the liquid and — by taking yeast and nitrogen away with the deposit — slows what is left of the ferment.
Filtration
Passing cider through a porous medium to reach a stated visual brightness, at a real cost in colloidal material, body and aroma.
Where it is usually met
Fruit and styles this character is recorded in. A record here is where the descriptor is commonly found, not a claim that every example shows it.
About Bread dough
Bread dough is a normal characteristic of an entire category of cider and should not be recorded as a fault in it. What it reports is that live yeast is present, which in a bottle-conditioned drink is the point.
It differs from yeast extract, which is the autolysed rather than the live version of the same source and reads savoury rather than raw, and from cider shop, which is the fermenting-room ester profile rather than the yeast itself.
Others in the fermentation-derived family
Solvent, nail varnish, bread, yeast, cider-shop.
Nail varnish
The sharp solvent lift of ethyl acetate above threshold, the commonest volatile fault-adjacent note in cider.
Solvent
A general chemical, thinner-like impression from ethyl acetate and higher alcohols together.
Cider shop
The characteristic smell of a working cider house — ferment, wood, fruit and a trace of acetic lift together.
Fresh yeast
The clean, faintly sulphidic smell of an active yeast population, met in young cider and during fermentation.
Fusel
A hot, heavy, spirituous impression from elevated higher alcohols, felt as warmth as much as smelled.
Lees
A cloudy, faintly bitter, sedimentary character from yeast and fruit solids carried into the glass.
Yeast extract
A savoury, umami, meaty-broth note from yeast autolysis during extended lees contact.
Fermenting vat
The pungent, CO2-lifted smell of a ferment in full activity, met in very young cider straight from the vessel.
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- Which yeast ferments cider — Saccharomyces cerevisiae finishes almost every cider fermentation, whether it was pitched or arrived from the press house. In a spontaneous ferment it is not the first organism present, only the one that survives the alcohol it makes.
- How is sparkling cider made
- What is racking in cider making — Racking is siphoning cider off the sediment it has thrown into a clean vessel, leaving the lees behind. It clarifies the cider and, in traditional practice, is also used to slow a ferment by removing yeast with the lees.
- How do you pour bottle conditioned cider — Stand the bottle upright for a day, chill it, and pour in one continuous movement, stopping when the sediment reaches the shoulder. Some traditions deliberately rouse the sediment instead, and both are defensible.
- What is sidra natural — Sidra natural is the still, dry, unfiltered cider of Asturias and the Basque Country, bottled without added carbonation and poured from a height to rouse it. It is tart, funky and made to be drunk in small measures poured one at a time.
- Where does the fizz in cider come from — Either from fermentation trapped in a sealed container, or from carbon dioxide dissolved into the cider under pressure before filling. The French cider appellations permit only the first, and require at least 1.0 to 1.5 bar at 20 °C depending on the name.
Where to go next
- The sensory model — The thirteen structural dimensions and the twenty aroma families, in full.
- Compounds — The chemistry behind the words.
- Troubleshooting — When a perception turns out to be a problem, this is where it is diagnosed.
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.
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.
The New Cider Maker’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers
Claude Jolicoeur, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781603584739 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against the Open Library union catalogue: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013, ISBN 9781603584739, one edition recorded. That establishes the citation points at a real book in a stated edition, which is what a citation needs and is all it establishes. No copy was opened and nothing is quoted from it. The book itself is in print and not digitised in any open collection; where CiderHQ needs a figure from this territory it uses an accessible research source instead and says so.
CAMRA cider and perry standards
Campaign for Real Ale · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Opened on 2026-08-24. Registered for the consumer-campaigning vocabulary — "real cider", "full juice" — which is advocacy language rather than legal definition, and is recorded as such wherever CiderHQ uses it.