william_shakes_beer

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I have been brewing beer for 2 years. I decided to try a cider this weekend, and decided to pitch Nottingham, since I have a sample in thr fridge that I harvested from a split wort starter. Obtained some sweet cider from a local orchard (no preservatives, pasturized by heating) boiled and cooled, pitched the yeast and put it on the stir plate. 24 hrs later, nothing. Not a bubble, not a cell in site. I will turn off the stir plate overnight and see if there is anything that flocculates out, but since there is no color change, no yeast smell and no krausen, I'm pretty sure there is no yeast partying . Have I missed something? Should I thin the cider down? Everything I have read tells me that Nottingham will ferment cider just fine. Glad this is only a starter and not a 5 gallon bucket sitting there!!! I have never had a starter fail before now.

b-boy

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My experience with nottingham in cider its that it is a very slow starter. It starts slow and takes forever to finish.

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william_shakes_beer

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How long should I expect to wait for a starter to ... er ... start?

b-boy

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My bad. I misread your post. I thought you had a starter you pitched. Sorry about that. I'd give it a little longer anyway. How old was the yeast you were using?

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william_shakes_beer

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The yeast was harvested from a split starter. It was white and clean in the storage jar.

b-boy

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I'd let or go for another 12 hours. Cider doesn't give you much krausen. I'd just pick up a few packets of dry nottingham yeast and toss that into your cider. I love cider with nottingham. Gives it a nice 'beery' character.

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william_shakes_beer

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Update: I gave the starter another day on stir plate at temp and it is merrily fermenting the starter must. Another cider newbie question.

I am fixin' to purchase my sweet cider today. It comes bottled by the orchard that presses it. The ingredients listed on the jug are "juice from apples" end of list. Their web site states that "The apple cider is then run through a flash pasteurization process, where it is heated to 165 degrees for 8 – 10 seconds, to kill bacteria, while maintaining the beneficial enzymes that are in natural cider. The apple cider is run back into cooling tanks, and chilled back down to 35 degrees. After cooled completely, it is bottled into ½ gallon, & gallon jugs in an automatic bottling and capping machine, ready to sell at our markets". I'm used to doing a 1 hour boil for wort. Do i need to do anything to sterilize this product before pitching my yeast? Do I need to kill the "beneficial enzymes"?

hwilshusen

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No boiling necessary or desired. It may leave a "cooked taste" according to some people. The boiling for beer is mainly for the hops. Just do normal sanitizing of equipment.

CRock303

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^ Agreed, at most you just need to get it up to temp for a bit to pastuerize it. Boiling does a few things to to cider and none of them are beneficial. It cooks the apple flavor and sets the pectin in the juice so it will be almost impossible to clear. If you haven't added yeast nutrient I would do that and repitch yeast.

jcam91

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If they pasteurized it themselves it's as easy as poor cider into fermenter, add starter. Now stop and let yeast do their job.
:cheers:

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