Sensory descriptor
Yeast extract
A savoury, umami, meaty-broth note from yeast autolysis during extended lees contact.
Also called Marmite, Umami, Savoury.
- Aroma family
- Fermentation-derived
- Does it indicate a fault?
- It depends on the style it is met in
What causes it
When yeast cells die and their own enzymes break down their contents, they release amino acids, nucleotides and peptides into the drink. Glutamate and the 5′-nucleotides are the compounds behind umami taste, and the sulphur-containing amino acids contribute a meaty, broth-like aroma. The process takes months and accelerates with warmth and with agitation of the lees, which is why traditional bâtonnage-style stirring in cider produces it faster than leaving the lees undisturbed. It arrives together with the body-building mannoproteins released from the same cell walls.
Moderate autolytic character adds body and savoury depth and is a deliberate objective of extended lees ageing. Prolonged contact at warm temperatures pushes it past savoury into a stale, meaty note, and raises biogenic amine levels at the same time.
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.
Amino acids
The largest usable nitrogen fraction in apple juice, and the raw material from which yeast builds both its own protein and most of the aroma compounds a cider carries.
Beta-glucan
The bacterial exopolysaccharide behind ropiness, which turns a cider oily and thread-like without changing how it smells or tastes.
Glycerol
A syrupy three-carbon alcohol yeast produces as a side reaction of fermentation, which adds weight to a dry cider and is the raw material for one of its more obscure faults.
Biogenic amines
Amines produced when bacteria decarboxylate amino acids, associated with long lees contact at high pH and low sulphite, and a reason bacterial activity is managed rather than simply tolerated.
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.
Lees ageing
Deliberately holding a cider or perry on its fine yeast deposit so that autolysing cells release material that changes texture and foam behaviour.
Tank maturation
Resting cider in stainless steel or a lined vessel, where the point of the container is that it contributes nothing and admits almost no oxygen.
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.
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.
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 Yeast extract
Yeast extract character is the cider equivalent of the autolytic development sought in traditional-method sparkling wine, and it is pursued deliberately by producers making bottle-fermented cider in that idiom.
It should be recorded separately from bread dough and fresh yeast, both of which come from live yeast. Autolysis is what happens after the population dies, and the aromas are quite different.
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.
Bread dough
A raw, yeasty, faintly sour note from live yeast in suspension, characteristic of unfiltered and bottle-conditioned 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.
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.
- How is cider matured
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.
Servicio Regional de Investigación y Desarrollo Agroalimentario (SERIDA)
Principado de Asturias · research institute · retrieved 2026-08-24
The Asturian regional agri-food research service, and the technical authority behind the Asturian cultivar classification and the analysis of sidra natural. SERIDA’s own site has not been opened; what CiderHQ has read is SERIDA’s varietal characterisation as republished by the Consejo Regulador of DOP Sidra de Asturias, which credits it explicitly. The Asturian measurements therefore cite the Consejo rather than SERIDA — citing the body that did the work, at a document CiderHQ has not seen, would be exactly the kind of borrowed authority this register exists to prevent.
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.