What are the characteristics of baker's yeast?

I made apple cider (hard cider) using bakers yeast (instant dried). No problems. Fairly high alcohol content. Took about a week for fermentation to stop. It tasted like a potent dry white wine with a hint of apples. It flocculated perfectly and after fermentation the dead yeast sedimented perfectly on the bottom and the remaining hard cider was quite clear. I'm new at this and I am having one issue. Read numerous articles on washing (mainly beer brewing) and saving yeast. All of them are contradictory. I still haven't managed to save any live yeast after fermentation no matter what method I try. I perform the sugar and water test. Nothing. It's like all the yeast dies once fermentation is complete which might be the case since there is lot more sugar in apples than in say hops hence the alcohol might actually be killing all the yeast at the end. Any ideas?

EDIT since I made my answer you changed from Cider to Ginger beer***

@brodul I have used bakers yeast with a cider in the past and I found the taste of the brew to be ...yeasty in flavor. It was my first cider that wasn't from a kit so it could have been my error, but since then I have used proper cider/Champaign yeast with much better results.

If you want to make a simple cider then it will work and taste will be ok but for better results I would use brewers yeast.