Nottingham, not fermenting

over 24 hours ago i pinched about a table soop of Notingham dry yeast into a gallon of plain apple juice from concentrat... and even twenty-four hours later nothing... used the rest of the package on a five gallon i batch of the same type of juice just about 2-3 hours ago and normally see fermentation atleast start with in a 12 hour periode... the tempature has been held at 62F for the last 24 hours and nothing in the one gallon container and nothing in the 5 gallon container which is only 2-3 hours old... not really concerned yet but something doesnt seem right... the dry yeast was refigerated for 24 hours prior to adding it then put back into the fridge after opening for and additional 24hours in a sealed baggie... just wonder if anybody who has more experience with this yeast (my first batch with it) could tewll me more about it i would be greatful... bought it under recamendation from the thread at the top of the cider forum about the test batches so i have already read that... Almost went with US-05 which i also bought under same recamendation, ended up using the notingham... although i read a post on another site which has dubted it "Nothingham" and i was kinda discouraged by that post... i think it has somthing to do with the high ammount of vitmin C in the juice, which is just sams choice brand apple juice you buy at walmart... Any information will be helpful... i will check when i go to bed in about an hour at 11:45 EST...Thanks

You know whats funny is i just threw a quick stright juice batch togather today because i didnt have time for a real complex batch because i have exams for college starting tommrrow i hope this isnt a bad omen or somthing

Also if anybody has any helpful hints on strong ABV, and HG yeast which might hit between 18 and 20 i would be very very greatful... still working on that brewing above or at 20% project... actully the goal is 21% because its 42Proof... I plan on calling it "Meaning of life cider" after the douglas adam's hitch-hickers guide to the galaxy... so any tips would be helpful... unless i suddenly find a life between now and completion which will then it might take a backseat... im pitiful i know:rockin:


Cheers

give it about 72 hours before you start to worry, the slow start could be because of a few things; lack of simple fermentables, pitching the yeast right out of the fridge, try to warm it a bit somewhere around 70 deg

I have never had any troubles with Nottingham yeast

and if treated correctly Lavin EC-1118 yeast is good to 18%+ but it will take some time to get there

Cheeto1977 said:

give it about 72 hours before you start to worry, the slow start could be because of a few things; lack of simple fermentables, pitching the yeast right out of the fridge, try to warm it a bit somewhere around 70 deg

I have never had any troubles with Nottingham yeast

and if treated correctly Lavin EC-1118 yeast is good to 18%+ but it will take some time to get there

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Yup did those things, and the one gallon which has now reached about 40 hours or so is starting to ferment, i would guess that its merely all the vitmin C the juice is treated with.... it says on the bottle that an 8oz serving has 5 times the ammount of daily required vitmin C considering the daily requirement is 20mg then that is every 1oz has over 12mg of asorbic acid... that seems like a shide load in my opinion... probably gonna make the end result really tart... i would hope for dry as well though... i dont mind tart cider, but it sees a bit unessary to have so much Vitimin C

I moved it inside from the breeze way wheres its about 5 degrees warmer and thats the best i can do... but the one gallon batch has started slowly, i expect that both will get really going with in the next 24-36 hours

I have used EC-118... i do expect a long running wait for the final result. it is the current yeast used in the experiment, i am gonna do research this morning and also study some more for exams...

cheers

did you wake up your yeasts before? When using dry yeast i wake it up in about 50 ml of warm NOT HOT water for more or less 20 minutes, and get my first bubble sometimes within the first 6 hours after pitching!!!

also, did your juice contain preservatives? If so, you may have found the culprit...

nope, just vitimin C as a stablizer... which is to say they put a 100mg in every 8 oz... the 5 gallon has started to show limited signs after about 48hours... and the one gallon is showing limited but constant fermentation... i am thinking it is a by product of having so much acid in the juice to start with, 100mg per 8 ounces is a molar strenght of 2.8 molar concentration per liter (yeah i took a chem final firday)... thats pretty high cosidering that yeat likes a slightly basic enviorment.... and this just provesi do math better when drunk...well im not drunk but im owrking on 3 pints up and im hoping for 4 before the night is done

I am not worried, but things are progressing slower then i thought it would... slower then any other batch i have ever done infact... except maybe my 1.128 monster which took well over 4 days to start regualr fermentation after inital pinching, but thats to be expect... but this juice is just 1.050 in gravity... i am guessing it would have taken right off if not for the highly acidic enviorment... this ladiesand gentalment is why they do not sweeten apple juice with aspertame... ok im done, turn me over so i can cook on the other side

Cheers

Apple juice isn't particularly acidic, and Nottingham should ferment it just fine. I am guessing you didn't use a whole package, so it'll take a while to get going. One package of yeast is good for 1-6 gallons, so if you pitch a whole package you'll be all set.

apple juice it self isnt perticularlly acidic but i bought store bought which had added vitimin C after the fact... a very large ammount, 100 miligrams per 8oz serving ... I used about a table spoon(3-4Grams) in the 1 gallon jug and the rest(8-9Grams) in the five gallon fermenter (i only own five gallon fermenters so doing a six gallon batch requires a 1gallon jug to be started at the same time)

It has started and is down from a 1.050 and a 6% potential to a 1.020 and roughly a 2 percent potential in just a week... i expect that by next weekend the FG of 1.000 or lower will be reached and i can cold crash and bottle and let sit...

Other than the slow start up i am quite happy with the time table, i have not done a staright juice batch since i was a kid and used red star bread yeast. It tasted alright then but i prefered somthing with more of a kick and began to add brown sugar to boost ABV and switched to useing RedStar Champage yeast (I could buy it at the local market without looking to suspicious at the tender age of 15, i would say my mom sent me out to get yeast for making bread and that i didnt know the differnce between the two types). For two years i used Redstar Champage yeast to make cider then when i hit 17 the local market was bought out by a spartan store and no longer carried the champage yeast, so i switch to Mijer brand bakers yeast which had many of the same properties as the red star (the bread yeast not the champagne yeast) and didnt leave a bready flavor in the brew with proper care. I used that until i moved out (3 years later, after comunity college) of the house and into an apartment with a buddy who brewed under aged as well and he used muttons and other beer yeast which i often used instead of bakers yeast because of a better result... so this is like going back down memory lane, sorry for the auto-biography of my brewing history, but hey its my roots man

Cheers

I'm relatively new to cidermaking, but I do have about 50 gallons under my belt so far. I have found that given my cellar temp (around 60-62 F), all of my yeasts (so far, EC-1118, Cote de Blanc, S-04, Weihenstephan, Wild, Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale, some random sourdough, and Nottingham) have taken anywhere from three to ten days to really get going. All of my fermentations at this temperature have been a lot slower than most recipes I've been reading online, with primary fermentation taking 3 to 4 weeks. This is quite different than my experience making beer, where the yeast generally takes off in 24 hours and finishes in 5 days.

That said, everything I've tasted so far has been good-to-fantastic (even the wild yeast batch is excellent, perhaps the best of the bunch at this stage), and I'm currently more interested in the science and results of cidermaking than beer. I especially like Normandy-style very dry ciders and would love to be able to reproduce that yeasty funk they have. So far, the yeasts have all been too "clean." I'm not quite as fond of the soda-pop-tasting ciders like Woodchuck and Mackeson's.

pulykamell said:

I especially like Normandy-style very dry ciders and would love to be able to reproduce that yeasty funk they have. So far, the yeasts have all been too "clean." I'm not quite as fond of the soda-pop-tasting ciders like Woodchuck and Mackeson's.

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Well from the sounds of it your using pretty stright off shooting yeast and you will get a very very clean taste... Black thorn is a good cider if your looking for a non-soda poop type cider, and wood chuck makes a dryer and more triditional cider they simply call 402 but you have a point that the Granny Smith and the Amber have a rather simply taste to them which is definatly outclassed by the more complex ciders... I would sugest if your looking for a more triditional Normandy style yeast... Notthingham is a english style cider yeast while a Normandy is obviously more of a (main land) European style which the two schools of cider makeing are vastly differnt... The english version focusing more on body, clarity, and sustainablity... while the Normandy style is more focused on production, ABV, as well as color and a more organic kind of style... both of these contrast hugely with the ways of making cider which are practiced in North America... if you like the Normady taste and profile then i would sugest looking for a normandy style yeast im sure there aer some on the internet... or try useing a wheat beer yeast... or a haevier yeast with losts of sediment and messy fermentation for that "funk"... thats about all i know... i have made in my 6 years of brewing over 300 gallons of brew... i dont pretend to know jack about cider or even how to make it... I had never used nottingham before and am quite happy with it now... good luck with your future batches

Cheers

BrewinJack said:

The english version focusing more on body, clarity, and sustainablity... while the Normandy style is more focused on production, ABV, as well as color and a more organic kind of style...

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I'm not sure what you mean. My impressions between the differences in styles (and I like both), using Aspall and Etienne Dupont as reference points, is that English styles tend to be flatter, with an ale yeastiness; while Normandy ciders are much more effervescent and a little more champainines/wineness in the yeast. I don't see how English ciders focus more on clarity (both French and English ciders I've sampled had a range of clarity) or how Normandy focus on ABV (most of the French ones I've had actually have a lower alcohol content than their British counterparts.)

What I do notice, though, is that in the best examples of both the French and English styles, there is a bit of a wild funk in the nose and taste of the cider. If I use an ale yeast straight (like I said, I've used Irish, Nottingham, S-04) or a champaign/wine yeast straight (EC-1118 or Cote de Blanc) they ferment out nice and clean...perhaps a little too clean for my tastes. My batches with wild yeast have more the taste I'm looking for.My next experiments will be to not sulfiting and just pitching straight yeast into unsulfited cider, or perhaps saving the yeast cake from the wild batch cider and throwing fresh juice over it while pitching with a cultivated yeast as well. We'll see.