Cider has slowed down to one BPM in airlock. Time to secondary?

Hi all,

I have 4.5 gallons of fresh part fresh cider and pasterized cider. Used campden tablets on the fresh cider and added yeast to the whole batch.

8 days and the airlock is finally slowing to 1 minute 30 a beat.

Its also looking like the top 4 inches are clearing.

I assume this should go into the primary in the next couple of days.
Should I add anything extra to it in secondary? Anything else I need to know about the next stage?

Thanks. This is my first batch of cider........

Obvious typo. I meant add to secondary... lol

Time to rack. Give it 3-4 weeks to clear. If you want a sweet cider, you'll have to kill the yeast and add a little more juice at that point.

Wont adding juice start a fermentation?

Or thats what the campden tablets are for before hand?

Should I add the campden with the juice after 3 weeks of secondary?

So racking to the secondary adding campden tablts right away or at the end of three weeks?

and then bottling with juice added to the 4.5 gallons?

Dont I need a 3/4 cups of corn sugar to carbonate when bottling?

If you ad campden you cant use priming sugar to carbonate, all the yeast will be dead. If you want it sweeter use lactose sugar to your taste it is unfermentable.

OK if I add a can of apple jouice etc then I shouldnt need to add priming sugar as the sugar from the juice should carbonate right?

Thats if I dont use the campden tablets......

Wow, OK racked it into secondary.

Made sure there was hardly any sediment put into the secondary.

Tasted pretty good sweet apples with a kick but still yeasty.
Its about 11 days old so far.........

even though it appears not to be fermenting, should I still ad this k-sorbate that people talk about?

I'm pretty sure you dont want to be killing the yeast about now, my limited knowledge could be wrong, but as far as i knew you were supposed to add campoden and sorbate at the end of fermentation :?

Your fermentation has slowed, but it's not done. The yeast are still alive. IF the SG is low enough, and the ABV is where you want it, then its ok to add the K-sorbate (if you want a still cider, that is). Best thing to do is just let it be for a while, like for a month or three.

Cant I add canned concentrate and just add priming sugar in a few weeks and bottle? Once the fermentation has stopped with k-sorbate?
I just want to know if I need this stuff in the first place.

I know I dont want exploding bottles.

And I never took the original gravity so I have no idea what stage its in.

I know stupid me.

I

no worries, just sweeten it until it tastes good =)

And about the sorbate and bottling, when you add sorbate it kills off the yeast. When you carbonate in bottles what happening is the yeasties are still producing a very slight amount of Co2. Because it has no where to go (its stuck in a bottle) it gets absorbed back into the drink, hey-presto, carbonation!

Bottle bombs happen when the yeast produces to much Co2, either bottling to early or to much sugar added at bottling stages are the 2 main causes that i know of.

So, back on topic. If you go and kill your yeast then they wont be alive to produce Co2 = no carbonation.

Now, i dont know if this is done, but i had thought of putting a wee spot of yeast back into the bottles just before bottling along with a bit of sugar. I'm not sure how much of each and experimentation could be pretty dangerouse, worth a thought though

Hope that clears some things up.

*edit*

woo, 50 posts xD

BTW, what kind of yeast did you use?

I used a cider yeast from WYeast. It was the smack pack type.

Im not sure of the exact number it was.

So I dont really need to add any sorbate then, as that will kill carbonation in the bottle?

I want to add concentrate to the secondary to sweeten it as its a little alcoholic right now but I dont want to start a long fermentation again.

Sorry about all the questions.

no offence mate, but your asking the same questions over again =/

if you read back, people have told you to add lactose to sweeten it as it doesnt ferment. If you cant get that, use splenda. It wont taste as good, but does the same job

LewisM wrote:
no offence mate, but your asking the same questions over again.

if you read back, people have told you to add lactose to sweeten it as it doesnt ferment. If you cant get that, use splenda. It wont taste as good, but does the same job

Click to expand...

I gotta agree with LewisM, but maybe we haven't been explaining it in a way that you are getting what we are saying.

Mind you, I'm still trying to figure out what kind of cider you want to achieve :
If you want a still/flat cider, do you want it sweet or dry?
If you want a sparkling cider, do you want it sweet or dry?

Don't add anything to your cider until you decide what you want it to finish like. What you add/don't add depends on what you want your finished cider to be like.

For still cider, you'll want to kill the yeast. For Sparkling, you don't want to do that.
For sweet cider, you'll want to add some sweetening agent. For dry cider, you don't add any sweeteners.

Yeah sorry about that.

I want a sparkling cider. So I assume I just add priming sugar maybe 3/4 cup in warm water to the carboy and then rack into bottles.......

Thanks for youre time.

For sparkling cider, you don't want to kill the yeast, so do not add any K-sorbate. Let it ferment out, racking it every month or two until it's totally clear. It will be dry. If you want it sweeter, add lactose or Splenda to taste, make sure its well mixed. Do the same with the priming sugar. Then bottle. If you find it isn't "appley" enough for you, you could add a can of apple juice concentrate instead of priming sugar.

Hope this makes sense

wow, ok so dont bottle it in two weeks? But rack into another secondary?

Unless you want to bottle but would have alot of yeast and stuff that hasnt settled?

This might take longer than I had hoped. I was hoping to make this for thanksgiving.

It is 12 days old.

Two days in the secondary.

If you think its clear enough, and if the SG is stable, and you don't mind crud on the bottom of your bottles, you might be able to bottle then....why not just leave it in secondary, syphon off a few pitchers at thanksgiving(if it tastes ok), then leave the rest for a while? Leaving it to bulk condition for a few months will give you something much smoother and softer on the palate to drink.

Again, just my opinion.