Yeast Question, possible stuck fermentation, Apfelwein

Hi guys, I attempted to make a batch of Edwort's except with cider instead of juice. It was pasteurized unfiltered cider from a local apple farm. I'm thinking I might have a stuck fermentation but I wanted to get some other opinions if possible. I made it on Monday, I had a problem where I got impatient (always a killer I know).

What happened was, the cider had been kept in a cooler, and rather than let it warm up to room temp I decided to heat a couple gallons in the brewpot and mix it with the cold. After dumping in the cider I realized that I wasn't going to be boiling anything and had forgotten to sanitize the brewpot. So I decided to heat the 2 gallons up to pasteurization temp and cool it back down in an ice bath. This was successful and I ended up with a batch of cider and corn sugar at about 75 F. At this point I added the yeast which was rehydrated Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast (all the LHBS had available). I kind of forgot to vigorously oxygenate.

I had no activity for the first 24 hours, over the next two days I vigourously shook the carboy several times. The only thing now is there is a very small ring of bubbles at the top of the carboy and I've never had the airlock bubble that I can see. I'm not sure if it's fermenting or it's stuck. Is it common to not have airlock bubbles? Does anyone know what this yeast looks like when fermenting, should I expect a krausen or airlock activity? Should I repitch do you think? It's now at about 100 hours since pitching. Do you think my antics with heating and cooling the cider had anything to do with it? Any help would be appreciated, thanks a million! Also for information I'm using a 5gallon glass carboy with a carboy cap and one-piece airlock filled with cheap vodka.

I started a mix of 4 gal. apple cider and 1 gal. apple juice last week. Both were store bought, and pasturized, but contained no absorbic acid or preservatives. I added 5 campden tabs on Thur. night.

Fri. night I siphoned 1.5 gal. into a sanitized pot, heated to 120 F. desolved 2lbs brown sugar in it, and then poured it back into the fermenter (6.5 gal bucket) I then stired it vigorously to mix and airate.

At this point It was 84 F. with a S.G. of 1.062. I sprinkled 1 pack of Red Star Pasteur Champagne on the surface. I alowed it to float for 5 min. then stired another min. Then covered with airlock.

I added the yeast to the fermenter because I read that too much sugar would hinder the yeast and I had just added 2 LBS. of sugar to the 1.5 gal. in the pot. Also I didn't want to wait for the pot to cool down that long.

Anyhow, I was getting 1 bubble/min. in the airlock the next morning (say 14 hours from pitching) and 4 bubbles/min. at 24 hrs., 1-2 bubbles/Second at 72 hrs.

Hope this helps.
__________________________
Primary: Apple Cider
Secondary: Empty (the cider is my first batch ever)
Bottled: Nothing (I told you I'm new)
Drinking: Budweiser (I told you I'm just getting started, why can't you just leave me alone)

A couple other thoughts. From what I've read, heating the cider to pastuization temp. shouldn't hinder the yeast, but may lead to clarity issues due to the pectins "setting".

Also, have you checked for a air leak around your stopper or airlock. If you read the "How many bubbles should there be?" thread, someone said they compleatly finished their fermentation having never got a bubble. But then decided that there might have been an air leek.
__________________________
Primary: Apple Cider
Secondary: Empty (the cider is my first batch ever)
Bottled: Nothing (I told you I'm new)
Drinking: Budweiser (I told you I'm just getting started, why can't you just leave me alone)

I'm not really sure how to check for leaks at this point, everything seems tight but it IS a new carboy cap that I've never used before.

EDIT: I checked today at lunch, the bubbles appear to have disappated. The seal from what I can tell seems pretty tight on both the carboy cap, the hole with the airlock, and the rubber cap over the other tube.

I have a 5 gal carboy and I purchased a new Orange cap for it and started a new batch. I had a similiar problem, a bubble ring and no airlock activity. I discovered it was a lose fitting cap. I solved be putting a rubberband tightly around the Orange cap and airlock activity started immediatly.

To answer the other question, you are not likely to see a krausen with cider. Not enough protein.

The only caveat I'd add to David_42's comment is that you might well get a krauesen with ale yeast, and from what I've myself and read here, and you should definitely be ready for a healthy one if you use hefeweizen yeast, even without added sugar.

Well I decided to repitch but I did inspect my carboy cap, it seems kind of loose so I'm going with the rubberband thing. Pitched another packet and added yeast nutrient this time so we'll see how it goes! Thanks for the help all.

hey I've got bubbles! Of course now I'm not sure if it was the repitch or the rubber bands but it seems all good right now, thanks for the help all!

I had the same problem, minus all of the heating and cooling and such. I didn't get any activity for 4-5 days (and the brew shop was closed all weekend of course), but once I repitched it started going crazy within 12 hours.

The thing is now, there's some foam around the neck and I'm getting slow bubbling through the airlock (maybe 3 a minute?). I never really had vigorous bubbling but maybe I had a leak at that time? I guess I'm not sure now if it's slowly starting to ferment or if it already went strong and is now slowing down. There's not a lot of sediment at the bottom from what I can see. I guess there's nothing to do but wait.

Does anybody know what to expect in terms of clearing when you use cider instead of juice? Will this ever get to the "read a newspaper through the carboy" stage?

jmiracle said:

I guess I'm not sure now if it's slowly starting to ferment or if it already went strong and is now slowing down.

Does anybody know what to expect in terms of clearing when you use cider instead of juice? Will this ever get to the "read a newspaper through the carboy" stage?

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The way to check, is with the S.G. Do you have a hydrometer? If so, it should be somewhere around 1.001 or less, or closer to 1.050 if it's just getting started.

I don't know for certain about cider clearing vs. juice, but I would think that it wouldn't matter as the S.G. when it ferments is lower than sweet juice/cider, therefore the sediment should sink in the thiner final product. This is just my opinion, someone PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong here.