Fermentation stopped at 1.040???

Ok, I made a 1 Gallon batch of cider using Steinburg's Wine Yeast from The Beverage People in Santa Rosa. They said that the yeast would leave a little left over sugar but I didn't expect it to stop fermenting at 1.040! I didn't get a SG but it's definitely around 5-7% abv. I'm priming a test bottle to see if it will carb.

Give us your recipe so we can figure out your OG. If you bottle at that high of a SG you have some serious risk of bottle bombs if you don't handle it right.

1.040 isn't a little sugar, that's ten times what you would use for priming.

How long has this been fermenting? My blackberry wine 'stuck' at 1.033 for a week, then restarted and hit 0.991 a month later.

The original recipe was:
1 Gallon apple juice from concentrate. No preservatives.
2 Cups dark brown sugar.
1/2 Cup honey.

It was started a week and a half ago with half a week of no activity. I'm aware that fermentation can stall only to resume later with no warning. I just bottled the one bottle and it's in a safe place for that very reason. I'll move it to the fridge after a week.

A week and a half is far from done, or at least most likely. You definitely need to give it plenty of more time. I estimate your OG at around 1.098 which is quite high for a cider, more in the apple wine area. While at 1.040 you are sitting at 7.7% you still have plenty to go as I said. I'd imagine you would still drop to around 1.000 with out stabilizing or cold crashing. That would leave you around 12.9% which will take some time to mellow but should be pretty tasty.

Degass the must by stirring with a spoon; the CO2 in solution is poisoning the yeast, and stirring will also rouse the yeast back in suspension. Then, add 1/2tsp of yeast energizer/nutrient .

I've decided to just cold crash it then clear with some good old powdered sea creatures. I'll let you know in a month or so how it turns out.

That sounds like a bad idea man. Even if you cold crash it, there are going to be enough live yeast in the bottles to make a huge mess. You could sorbate it to keep the fermentation from going any further, but you wouldn't get any carbonation.

It would be normal to have a high finishing gravity if you started with an extremely high starting gravity, but at that point you'd be looking at ~15-18% alcohol, not the 7-8% you're seeing now.

Oh, you misunderstood. I only bottled the one as a kind of experiment and was well aware of the risks. I've already cold crashed the rest of the batch and racked into a secondary with some sparkolloid to help it clear. I'll be making a sweet still cider.

I drank the bottle I had reserved and there was definitely an apple taste under the raw taste of the alcohol, but it tasted really dry for something 1.040.