First Cider

I made a cider following a recipie I found on here.

Except I followed the recipie wrong and thought that the potassium sorbate and potassium metasulfate were some sort yeast nutrient so I added them right before I pitched the yeast. It fermented, slower than a standard beer, but still fermented, I thought it was just a cider thing, a slow fermentation. I just checked it yesterday and it turned out at about 6%. This is my first cider, so im not sure what ciders ar supposed to be at, but that seems to be about right to me. I cold crashed it last night and I plan on kegging and backsweetning it today.

So this somewhat shows that k-sorbate and potassium metasulfate will NOT stop fermentation, but only slow it down.

I do have a few questions though:
1. What is an average cider alachaol percentage?
2. If I do things correctly next time, can I just cold crash it and not add the potassium sorbate and potassium metasulfate then keg it?
3. The cider I have had in my life has never been hard, and always served hot like hot coco, but hot cider. It had some nice spices and stuff which made it very nice to drink. Can I put some cinnamon sticks in the keg and basically dry hop with cinnamon to give it some flavor?

So its been between 37F and 38F for about 2 days now, i was planing on kegging it tomorrow evening. Is that enough time (3 days) for the 'cold crash' to take effect?

Oh and i answered Q1 for my self, seems about 6-12 percent, normal at about 8 percent though.

so my current questions are...

2. If I do things correctly next time, can I just cold crash it and not add the potassium sorbate and potassium metasulfate then keg it?
3. The cider I have had in my life has never been hard, and always served hot like hot coco, but hot cider. It had some nice spices and stuff which made it very nice to drink. Can I put some cinnamon sticks in the keg and basically dry hop with cinnamon to give it some spice flavor?

Click to expand...

And
4. how long should cider be 'cold crashed' for, and what is a good temp to do this at?

Thanks for your guys help!

Well still with no answers...

I kegged it today. It went smoothly, except for when i was pouring in the half gallon of apple juice to back sweeten it. It seemed like there was either a bunch of sediment or a clump of mold sitting in the bottom of the jug... im hoping it was sediment, but highly doubting that it was, well it ended up in the keg, i didn't really see it until it was out of the jug on its way to the bottom of the keg.

Now i just need to carb it and hopefully drink it.

Here is a picture from when i took a gravity reading, right before the cold crash.

Well it turned out to be mold. I took the most powerful flashlight i have and checked out the inside of my keg and lurking in the bottom was this monster of destruction!

Its just a tad smaller than the size of a ping pong ball. I also sucked up a few smaller chunks that were in there. I couldn't see anymore in the keg so i hope i got all of it.

This mold came from a bottle of apple juice that i had poured 1/2 in to the fermenter and saved the last 1/2 gallon for back sweetening. It was refrigerated for about a month and apparently grew mold.

When i transferred it to the 2ndary for the cold crash it was 6%, then it bubbled a little as it came down to temp, then i added the moldy juice, then siphoned about 1/2 gallon out, so its probably at about 5.75% or so? Hopefully that amount of alcohol will prevent the future growth of mold?

So... is it still ok to drink?


The lack of replies is a little disappointing.

you really started off on the wrong foot there with that sorbate. it stops yeast replicating but doesn't kill them, so they can still be active but in relatively small and unhealthy numbers. the 'metasulfate' (sic) is metabisulfite, won't get in the way of your yeast too much at low concentrations. surprised you got that much alachaol (sic) actually!
2. you can indeed crash and not add the sorbate/sulfite, no problem as long as you used a yeast that is pretty dormant at fridge temps, like an ale yeast. with a champagne yeast i'm not so sure. you should be aware of the potential for that cider to continue fermenting if raised to higher temp, for example if you bottle some from the keg and then give it to a friend. that's potentially dangerous
3. i never understood the need to link 'mulled cider' ie hot apple juice with spices added, to fermented cider, which is a wine, often dry and tangy. raisins are nice in a spiced carrot cake, but i don't put carrots and cloves in my white wine. but anyways people on here talk about it all the time, so i guess it's done. if you want to be extra safe you can boil the spices in a tiny bit of bottled juice for a minute and then chuck them in, but i haven't done this. then you can dry 'hop' with them. on that topic why don't we all just start calling every process of adding one thing to another 'hopping'! i'll dry hop my bath with one of those soapy bubble cube things that my girlfriend likes, and cold hop my iced tea with some ice!! i say, if it's not hop then it's not dry hopping. whoops, rant. nothing personal, sorry about that
4 cold crashing, just get it as cold as you can without freezing. my tap fridge is my only option other than the great outdoors, and it sits around 10C, not super cold but works fine with ale yeasts. just leave it until it's clear, depends on the yeast strain, yeast amount/activity, volume of cider, but it should fall clear in a day or two
good luck with your next batch

Thanks for the reply dinnerstick, i appreciate it. And yah i didnt know what else to call it besides that. I do think you had the correct term with mulled though.
I was really surprised that it fermented at all as well!

So does anyone have an opinion on the mold issue? I was planing on taking this to a little get together at my friends house this friday...
Thanks in advance!