mjmatteo13

Recipes 

My brother and I have just started fermenting cider. It has been fermenting for a week right now but we think we need to add more sugar. If we take the airlock off to add more sugar, will it mess with the fermentation or will that short amount of time that the airlock is off allow contaminants to get in. Help me out please.

jackfrost

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Why do you think you need bro add sugar...what was your sg and what's your gravity now?

mjmatteo13

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We made a five gallon batch and we put a regular container of honey in there.

jackfrost

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Which is how much. You should have taken a starting gravity. You can still take a gravity test now and ill be able to help you better

Pickled_Pepper

Recipes 

You can still add sugar, people do feed in multiple steps along the fermentation. From what I understand it is supposed to keep the yeasties from stressing too much with a high starting gravity.

So, that said, if you want to add additional fermentable sugars in there now, as long as you are careful with sanitation, you should be ok. My suggestion would be a simple syrup or some thawed apple concentrate. Just leave it in the can, sanitize the outside of the can and then pour it in. Sanitize a piece of aluminum foil to cover the top while you are prepping everything and re-sanitizing the airlock. You'll need to swirl the carboy a little to make sure it's mixed in, but be careful not to introduce oxygen at this point.

But you really need those gravity readings to find out how much you started with, how much you are adding and finals.

Just my opinion of course