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That recipe sounds off.. 55 is a little low, probably low 60s to start is better. Water bath for couple days of good fermentation then take it out to ambient temp to finish. Any reason for not pitching all the yeast? It's better to pitch it all, and not have to wonder if it was enough.

If it starts out at 1.2xx OG, then you are gonna have a hard time getting something drinkable. You may get lucky and get some good alcohol production but you may also have it peter out with 100 gravity points left too.

Fermaid k and DAP are what I generally use. Google those for great information as to why it's important to use nutrients. It sounds wrong but honey to yeast is like cardboard to humans, very little nutritional value. Happy yeast = happy brewer.

I may be wrong but if you get enough sugar in the airlock, that may create a path to allow infection to work its way in if there's a suck back. I'm hoping that "left as is" still means you cleaned up a bit!

To my knowledge, that type of yeast is always a top fermenting yeast. And there will be yeast that will settle out and some in suspension, but the temp on bottom of carboy isn't gonna do much if the top is 78+ where most of the yeast are gonna be when it matters most.

If you back sweeten with honey, think about using a higher quality choice. You generally don't need much, and it will have much more substance than the ultra filtered honey that is barely honey anymore.

I would suggest a higher level for water bath, as you will need less ice cubes to cool the ferment and not risk having "too-cold" spots. Never used the danstar but the liquid yeast option is generally much better for a hef. Might not be worth the money for just a gallon tho...

The sliced apple probably isn't going to add much more than a chance to infect the batch. Some people will add brown sugar, some will add cinnamon, etc. If you think the combination of the two batches wouldn't create swamp water flavor-wise then it should be ok to combine them. After they both...

If it was significantly hot when you poured it in (180 f is safe temp for liquid) that would usually sterilize a surface anyway. So it's hard to say without knowing much, but it's probably fine given the lack of any evidence to the contrary.

Does lemonade concentrate even have real lemon in it? One thing that comes to mind is adding lemon zest to secondary or even adding some lemon itself. I guess the big thing to keep in mind is that sometimes taste can change drastically after something ferments. How do you lose a cup of mead...

If you know what gravity you should be around, you can just mix in honey until you hit the right spot. Little easier than calculations.

Did you put a bunch of sugar in it too? Most cider by itself will start out around 1.050 or 1.060. The current gravity is on the sweet side, but I'm sure it's technically drinkable. I would still wait a bit myself

Uv radiation can have an effect in wines, I would guess cider too? From what I read, they guess it has something to do with a sulfide compound... obviously it's not gonna skunk as bad or as quick as beer, but it's a good policy to leave in dark as much as possible.

If soda bottle is rock hard, you might've waited too long. Introducing heat might lead to explosions. Maybe not but exploding glass isn't cool. The big issue is if you pop a top on one of your bottles then you may have gushers already. This happened to me once and I had to open all bottles, let...

You might think about preserving and stabilizing before you bottle, or pasteurizing after you bottle. It's most likely the start of the vinegar process, if you had good sanitation. And in that case it don't matter if you still have sugar left cause vinegar bacteria "eat" ethanol.

Ok based on my experience, I think if you bottled now you probably wouldn't even need the drops. Bottle at 1.016, pasteurize at 1.012 ish, should give you good carbonation and still maintain a semi sweet profile (assuming you didn't want bone dry). What you gotta still do is bottle 1 or 2 in a...

Acetobacter type bacteria are common in cider. That's how vinegar is made of course. The stabilizing and preserving may help, you might wanna just bottle pasteurize before it goes too far. Keep your tongue on it and if it ever starts to go downhill then you'll know it's time to move.

What was your trouble? Using an auto siphon can really make that step a breeze. -It somewhat depends on what yeast you used. -how much sediment is still in the mead? Mead is pretty darn hard to really screw up if you keep it simple. My best advice is, in the end, don't worry too much because...

Average beer-level carbonation is achieved at about 6 points gravity drop. That's the simple answer. It's a lot more in depth than that, but yea.

Shape of vessel I know can affect nuances of fermentation, I would assume that vessel material can conceivably have some effect as well, but it's probably tiny enough to not matter in homebrewing. I love buckets for primary, and glass for aging.