A few beginner questions (potassium sorbate/starter, sugar, carbonation)

[brewinginct]

Hi, this is my first attempt brewing cider, and there are a few things about the process that I'm not sure about.

I have decided to use commercial cider for my first attempt, so I can get the whole brewing process down without putting the time/money into juicing a lot of apples, only to screw the cider up with some small first time mistake.

I bought a gallon of cider from a local orchard, and according to the label, the only ingredient is "100% fresh pressed cider". The label also says that it is pasteurized, but it doesn't say anything about potassium sorbate.

Is it safe to assume that if this cider is from a small local orchard with fresh pressed ciders, that they probably didn't put any potassium sorbate into it? Or should I create a starter, let it do it's thing for a day, and then pitch that into the gallon of cider? Is it better to make a starter regardless of potassium sorbate or not?


My second question regards sugar. The recipe I'm using calls for two cups of sugar, one brown and one plain white sugar. Apparently this helps increase the alcohol content, which is what I'd like to do. My question is if two cups sounds right? Would this would be added to the cider before I pitch the yeast? And if I wanted to make my cider carbonated, would I add a third cup of corn sugar at the end of the second fermentation, right before I bottle it? Just wondering because that sounds like a lot of sugar, and I'd prefer a cider that wasn't very sweet.

Thanks for your help!

[Ó Flannagáin]

I'm not sure about cups, 2 cups would be about how much weight? 1/2lb? I add about 2lbs of sugar to 5 gallons of apple wine.

Wish I could help with the sorbate, not sure how all that works though.

[brewinginct]

Thanks for the reply. Yesterday (Sunday) I ended up making a starter for the yeast. I'm planning on pitching the yeast starter into the rest of my cider tonight (Monday)...I figure 24 hours is enough time to the yeast start doing its thing, especially if some people don't even bother making a starter. But before I do that, I have a couple of questions about how my yeast starter

For the yeast starter, I heated up a pinf of cider to 140 degrees, mixed in a cup of brown sugar, let it cool down to 75 degrees. Poured that into a sterilized growler, agitated that, threw in the entire packet of yeast, agitated that again, then topped it off with a rubber stopper and 3 piece airlock, filled approximately a centimeter below the line with vodka.

I've got to say, the yeast starter isn't producing as much activity as I was expecting. At first, it looked like the yeast had sucked down half of the vodka I had put in the airlock; then an hour later, the vodka was at the line I had originally filled it to. Why would that be?

There are the occasional bubbles that will come up if i tap the growler or airlock, a few small bubbles on the inside of the airlock, and there's definitely some white foam that I can see on the walls of the growler. But there isn't a constant bubbling going on in the airlock, and because the growler is brown glass, it's hard to really see what's going on inside.

Is that a normal amount of activity? I realized today that the yeast packet may have called for the liquid to be a higher temperature than 75 degrees to rehydrate it. Also, I have the growler in my basement, where it's about 65-70 degrees. Could the cool temperature of the basement affect how quick the yeast becomes active?

One last question, when I prepare the cider that I will be adding the starter to tonight, should I heat it up to 140 degrees? I figure there may be a chance that the remaining gallon of cider was exposed to something because I opened it yesterday and some air obviously got into the gallon jug. Or is that overly cautious?

[davebl]

I wouldn't worry much about the starter. Just because you don't get a lot of krausen or airlock activity, doesn't mean its doing its job... which is actually replicating yeast, not fermenting. So your start is probably in the first stage of yeast fun (I'm sure someone more versed in biology could jump in there).

When I make cider, there is no heating at all. I buy 100% natural apple juice, with no preservatives. I also make sure it says pasteurized. I dump everything into a carboy, sprinkle some yeast, and away it goes for a month or two.

[blacklab]

Brewinginct:

Welcome to the site!

I wouldn't worry about the level of activity, you're going to want to let a cider sit for 1-2 months at a minimum anyway. I have one sitting in a bucket that's been there since February.

Regarding the sugar content vs. sweetness: adding sugar would only have an impact if the amount of sugar you add creates enough fermentables that the alcohol capacity of the yeast you are using is exceeded and it goes to sleep, thus leaving 'extra' sugar in the final product. Two cups is not going to do that. You didn't mention what type of yeast you are using, but most beer yeast is 8-9% alcohol tolerant and champagne/wine yeast is up there around 12-13%. I've added two pounds of sugar to 5 gallons of apple juice and not exceeded the yeasts ability to metabolize it. So I wouldn't worry about the sweetness aspect.

I have no clue about the potassium thing. On sanitation, you started with pasteurized juice, so I wouldn't worry about native bugs. Should be fine.

[brewinginct]

DAVEBL: The fermenter started bubbling a lot more later in the day today. Thanks for pointing out the difference between fermenting vs replicating, hopefully the yeast multiplied enough to really eat convert the yeast now. And I'm going to check with the local orchard to see how they pasteurize their cider; if there's no potassium sorbate, then next time I'm going to skip heating the cider before using.

BLACKLAB: I asked the homebrew store guy for champagne yeast but he insisted on wine yeast. I'm not sure which brand or specific type it was. If you read below, I mention the initial specific gravity reading I got. Leads me to believe I might end up with something around 10-12%?

Tonight I added the yeast started to the cider.

First I heated up the remaining cider until it was a low boil, added a cup of brown sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of yeast nutrient, and then left that out to cool down to 75 degrees. For those who haven't tried, it takes a lot longer for almost a gallon of cider to cool than you'd think; approximately 3 hours in my case. Towards the end I put the pan inside another pan filled with ice/water, which obviously helped it cool down a lot. I would definitely recommend doing that, to save time. Also by chilling faster and leaving it out in the open for less time, I assume that it has less a chance to become exposed to anything that might contaminate it.

After it was down to 77 degrees (couldn't wait any longer), i poured the plain cider/sugar into my one gallon glass carboy, put the cap on, and shook it to help it to aerate, as I've read that's helpful for the yeast. After shaking that, I poured in my yeast starter to the rest of the cider, along with 1/8 teaspoon of yeast nutrient (I added 1/3 teaspoon of yeast nutrient total).

From there, I capped the glass carboy and shook it again. Next, I poured that mixture into my hydrometer tube and checked the temperature; still 77 degrees. I ended up with an initial specific gravity of 1.074, and initial alcohol percentage of 10% (adjusted for temperature).

Is that a normal initial specific gravity reading? I was expecting something at least .02 higher, as I was going for a higher alcohol cider, and I had added two cups of brown sugar to only one gallon of cider. Also, the homebrew store guy insisted I use wine yeast instead of champagne yeast; I didn't write down the name of the yeast, but will wine yeast yield less alcohol?

Thanks for the help so far!

[Tankard]

hey brewinginct, welcome to the site! Glad to have ya here.

[DrunkenSatyr]

I would not worry about the P.S. but i doubt you will have a clear cider due to the boiling process sets the pectin's. Will not hurt the cider but it will be cloudy. As for the sugar, almost any will work and you can really add what most people would think is an insane amount and it will still taste great!

Wine yeast will normally hit about 14% so I don't think you will ever see a difference other than it won't be so overly dry as a champagne yeast would be.

.02 is nothing in 1 gallon. Add more boiled sugar now and it will still be fine

[brewinginct]

Tankard: thanks for the welcome, this place seems like a great resource

Drunksatyr: I'm definitely going to buy some pectic enzyme and see if I can't clear out this cider a little bit. Next time I'm going with the campden tablets. And as far as adding sugar, that's good to know that it's an option and that it's not too late. But at the same time, it seems like the higher the alcohol percentage, the longer it will take to age/taste better, so for this first batch I won't mess with upping the alcohol percentage



It has been four days since I initially pitched the yeast. The cider has looked great as it's been fermenting, and I don't see any signs of bacterial infections.

Today when I looked at it, I noticed that there was a layer of sediment at the bottom of the carboy, that was a slightly lighter color than the cider itself. I'm assuming this is the yeast that has finished eating up the sugars. There is about one bubble in the airlock approximately every 5 seconds, and there is still some active fermentation in the cider itself (small bubbles are rising in the cider as if it were carbonated).

How can I tell when it's time to rack for secondary fermentation? I know that gravity readings on consecutive days is the most exact way, but I'm only brewing a gallon of cider, and I don't want to waste too much cider by taking readings unnecessarily early.

Based on the activity I described, does it sound like it's ready for secondary fermentation? It's only been four days, but I did use an entire packet of wine yeast, so maybe the large amount of yeast ate through the sugars that much more quickly, since I'm only doing a gallon of cider? Should I wait until the rate of bubbles rising in the airlock is slower, more like one bubble every 30 seconds?

Also, I understand that the length of secondary fermenation is a personal preference, in that the longer you rack, the smoother the cider becomes. But could I also age the cider in the bottles with the same effect?

I plan on carbonating the cider by adding dextrose sugars before I bottle; if I put the cider in a glass carboy for a secondary fermenation of 2-3 weeks, and then add sugar and bottle and age for another month or so, would I achieve the same effect as if I were to just leave it in the secondary glass carboy for that whole period? Or is aging aging, and leaving it in the bottles with the sugars will produce the same quality product?

[Ó Flannagáin]

Id give it two weeks before racking. I personally don't even use a secondary for ciders. The sediment is yeast.