did I do this right?

I thought I would try my brewing and start with some hard cider. I did a little research and made up a recipe:

5 gal cider pasteurized with no preservatives from orchard
2 pounds light brown sugar
2 pounds sugar
7 half cinnamon sticks
jar of honey
pack of champagne yeast

I mixed all the ingredients in a sanitized bucket and pitched the yeast. After a day there has been no bubbling from the air lock. Did I mess up by adding cinnamon this early?

I once made the mistake of just dumping a whole jar of ground cinnamon in my 5 gallons of cider at the same time I pitched the yeast in my foolish early days.... Ended up with a gooey cinnamon mess that I had to throw out, but fermentation was definitely NOT critically inhibited by all the cinnamon. I'm sure that's nor what would be stopping fermentation.

What's the temp?

Fermentation can take anywhere from 24-72hrs to get started. Using a yeast calculator like mr.malty will help get proper yeast pitching amounts which will help with the slow starting fermentation. That being said you will most likely be fine. Just wait it out. That cider is most likely going to be very dry and champagne like due to amounts of sugar added into it. If you want it sweet you will have to back sweeten with either an unfermentable sugar or use regular sugar and pasteurize when it gets carbed to your liking. Or sweeten to liking and pasteurize immediately if you want still cider or are going to carbonate In a keg.

Look like it is fermenting away now! It is bubbling nicely. So next thing I was wondering is when should I stop fermenting? when it stops bubbling? And do you have to do a secondary ferment or can you just bottle it? Im anxious to try it.

Give it a week or two then check the gravity with a hydrometer. In a few more days check it again if you get the same readings the. Your fermentation is over and would be safe to bottle. If the readings change. Wait a few more days and check again. Bubbles in the airlock mean nothing but bubbles in the airlock. Airlock a will bubble due to a large range of variable. Temperature, barometric pressure, bumped the carboy/bucket knocking co2 out of suspension etc etc. airlock activity is no gauge of fermentation.

Sooo....I bottle some and put them in the fridge and then bottled about 3.5 gallons and primed with 1.5 cans of AJC. Do you think I will have to pasteurize them? And FG was around .999

You will definitely need to pasteurise them or at least keep them in the fridge otherwise you will get bottle bombs. Read the thread and open one in a few days to gauge how carbonated it is. For future reference it is a lot easier to control spice additions if you rack to a secondary vessel and use a muslin cloth bag

oldmate said:

You will definitely need to pasteurise them or at least keep them in the fridge otherwise you will get bottle bombs. Read the thread and open one in a few days to gauge how carbonated it is. For future reference it is a lot easier to control spice additions if you rack to a secondary vessel and use a muslin cloth bag

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How long does carbonation usually take? I did put some in a plastic soda bottle to judge it.

Usually 2-3weeks to get where you want it to be.