First time making cider and I have some questions. I sterilized a 5 gallon bucket yesterday at approximately 4 pm est and added 3.5 gallons of pasteurized cider with no preservatives and added 1 packet of yeast with 1.5 cups of sugar. The bucket was kept in my basement over night where I'm unsure of the exact temperature. Today (24 hrs+ later) the airlock was not bubbling at all so I moved it upstairs approximately 70 degrees F. My question is how long should I wait on the airlock to move? Is something wrong? Is this batch wasted? What should I do now?
So I talked to a guy the other day that said champagne yeast can ferment past the desired level because of its ability to withstand high alcohol concentrations. I took a reading today just to see where it was at and the reading didn't really seem to move at all... I did notice a crack in the top of the hydrometer and was wonder if this affected anything at all or if I just am not taking the reading correctly to start with... My airlock has been popping now for a couple days so I'm sure its doing something. Just looking for a little direction here as to when I should consider stopping the fermentation. I pitched the yeast on October 5th. Airlock has been going since the 7th I believe.