RustyPitchfork

Recipes 

This last weekend I purchased five 5 gallon buckets of un-pasturized cider from a local orchard. Three are going great. Two are smelling like sulfur and/or rotten cider. They had WLP540 Abbey IV and White Labs WLP028 Edinburgh Ale pitched as well as Wildflower Honey from Northern Brewer.There isn't really any airlock activity. They are all brand new fermenter buckets. Just wondering if this is normal?

As well my buddy told be he's been racking off after a week or so, that he retains a slight amount of natural sugar and doesn't get super high in alcohol... thoughts?

agent44

Recipes 

The sulphur smell can be a lack of nutrients for your yeast, I usually add some yeast nutrient to all my ciders. You may be able to add some now, one week is only half way through your primary probably, if you have none on hand, I think you can boil some bread yeast and add some of it to your brew and I know raisins boiled and broken down can be used as a nutrient, but you may want to wait to hear from one of the cider pros, I've only been making cider for a few months now.

RustyPitchfork

Recipes 

I added two different types of yeast nutrient to all the batches except the wild yeast batch. Both the Wyeast nutrient as well as some JD Carlson Yeast Nutrient.