made some apfelwein, not sure if fermentation is going right

hello,


i'm relatively new to brewing, the apfelwein i made the other day is my 3rd batch after doing 2 all grain beer brews.

it bubbled moderately on the 2nd day, but it just stopped on the 3rd, and it's a week in to fermentation now and there are no bubbles or yeast cake.

is this normal?

What kind of yeast did you use, what temperature is it at, etc?

Also, did you make sure your apple juice had no preservatives in it?

I used red star montrachet yeast.

It's been 68-70 degrees

I used store bought apple juice, the only thing it has is apple concentrate, water and ascorbic acid. It was the cheap stuff from walmart.

misteradam said:

I used store bought apple juice, the only thing it has is apple concentrate, water and ascorbic acid. It was the cheap stuff from walmart.

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Wal Mart's "Great Value," brand works, even if the name is a bit of a joke. Apfelwein takes a while, we're talking 6 weeks minimum before it's drinkable, and longer if you actually want it to taste good. Your fermentation is fine, just leave it alone for 6-8 weeks, then give it some time in the bottles to condition. 6 months seems to be the general consensus about when it gets really good.



But I'll let you in on a little secret. I like to drink it young... 2-3 months young.

Ya, the Montrachet doesn't really make a huge krausen/yeast cake so I wouldn't worry about it.


I like it young, too... 5 weeks in the primary, straight to the bottle and drinking after 3 weeks...

thanks, i wasn't sure if no yeast cake was normal at this point.

from the reading i've done, i plan to just let it ride until it looks like clear apple juice again, then drink the last bottle at 2 or 3 months.

Dude, I made mine on 4/23 and it is still bubbling every 10 seconds.... then again I used "light" brown sugar so maybe I just fed my yeast too much.

shiuld be ready to bottle in July?!?

how long should i wait for a yeast cake to form? i know the fermentation started, but it slowed down really early, after a few days, and there is still no yeast cake, and no airlock activity.

all i can do is take a hydrometer reading a few times. i forgot to take one in the beginning.

will it hurt to let it chill for another week if there is no more fermentation happening?

I think you'll find that the yeast cake that forms with Apfelwein will appear as quite a fine film on the bottom of the fermentation vessel until it has dropped entirely clear. There is a lot more in wort that drops out of fermentation then there is in apple juice.

When I racked my hard cider into a secondary after 1 month the volume of the yeast cake at the bottom was probably double that of the volume of yeast I poured out of the Wyeast packet in the first place. Which isn't much!

Yeah, if there's anything resembling a yeast cake in Apfelwein, it's tiny compared to beer.

+1 to that, Llama. You'll barely see it until it starts to really clear out.

misteradam said:

all i can do is take a hydrometer reading a few times. i forgot to take one in the beginning.

will it hurt to let it chill for another week if there is no more fermentation happening?

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I, also, forgot to take an OG reading, too, so all I did was google the SG of apple juice and sure enough someone had posted it for fun. I didn't add any sugar so I figure it can't be too far off, for all intents and purposes.

For your second question, it will be good to let it sit another week.

ah cool that's a relief! thanks guys:rockin: