racking-what am i doing wrong

my cider has been brewing for about a month now, dropping at about 1.4 points a day. i racked off the lees to a secondary a week ago at SG=.020 and the SG has been frozen at .020 ever since.
is this normal? will the fermentation pick up over time? and if so how much time? i want to bottle at .010, will i ever make it?

im using safail S-04 yeast, primary brewed at 58F. secondary at 65F

What was your OG? Did you use any nutrients?

LeBreton said:

What was your OG? Did you use any nutrients?

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OG was .069, no nutrients

58F is a bit low for S-04. A lot of the yeast might have settled out and what was in suspension probably wasn't very active. I would have left it on the primary yeast and warmed it back up and suspended/stirred the yeast to get it moving a little faster. The temperature you have it now is on the high side and it should like that better. The problem is, you’ve racked it away from a lot of the yeast mass and it may take a while to get going again. I almost never rack to a secondary and definitely not before the primary is done fermenting out completely. You could try getting a yeast starter going or getting some yeast active and pitching it to see if it will start pulling it down.

04 usually takes my ciders to about 1.004.

SenorPepe said:

04 usually takes my ciders to about 1.004.

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Same here Pepe. I bet it's still in there working, just probably slowly. I'd give it a couple of more weeks and check gravity again.

The yeast is probably just picking back up but you should also probably add some nutrient. Often when these things stall a nice shot of nutrient will give it a kick-up.

Not 100% sure but i could have sworn I read on here some where that when using store bought apple juice and s-04 by racking it you can get it to stop fermentation after its been going for awhile

Generally I thought that was in reference to cold-crashing. "Getting it to stop" will all depend on how much sugar and/or nutrient is left and whether you can get all the yeast out of there and at what temperature you store it. All you need is one little yeast cell to grow into a culture under the right conditions, it's just how long it takes to get there.

Racking and keeping it in the upper 50's will slow it to a crawl, but it won't stop it. You need near freezing temps to crash it completely...and even then...if you warm it back up, it starts fermenting (slowly) again. At least in my experience with S-04.