Limeade Fermentation Question

I made 4 gallons of limeade 9 days ago.
Here's the reciepe:
6 cans Minute Maid Limeade
7 cups cane sugar
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient
Red Star Champagne Yeast
3 gallons water

The OG was very high @ 1.110 (way too much sugar). Fermentation was steady but not agressive (1 bubble every 5 seconds). After 8 days fermentation all but ceased. I took a gravity reading is was down to 1.094.

Since I had the pail cover open I decided to rack to secondary.

Should I add more yeast or let it set for a couple of weeks?
I'm leaning on adding more yeast.
Any comments?

Thanks

What temp are you fermenting at? I think warmer is better (i.e. 75F).

Fermentation temp is 65F

Make a starter, wait till you get a very decent amount of activity, repitch!

Then that is what I will do. Another starter and re-pitch
Thanks for the replies.

I'm making something similar called Sketter Pee (made from RealLemon). Just for info, HBT has a sister-site called Wine Making Talk and a folder dedicated soley for Sketter Pee. Although SP uses the yeast from a previous batch of wine, several have used dry yeast. The link below sounds a little bit similar to what your making and if you haven't seen it might find some helpful tips. There is also a Sketter Pee website; http://skeeterpee.com with a FAQ section.

The keys I picked up were to aerate well and keep warm. My 'pee' has been happy fermenting away since 3/16

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12583

Add a pack of EC1118, warm to 75. I've done very similar recipes and had it get near 1.0. You'd need to backsweeten at that point.

Thanks everyone, what a great resource of information.

I will stop by my HB shop and pick up some lalvin, make a starter using some must, aerate via air stone and try to find a warm place in my house.

I have some hard lemonade in process (started 2/22) that I used Lalvin 71B-1122 in... I rehydrated the yeast before pitching it... OG was about 1.098, as of 3/20 it was down to 1.002... :rockin: I did adjust the PH of the must, give it some DAP at the start, and watch it for the first few days. After that, I've just left it alone... I'm in the process of moving my mead around, so I'll be racking the hard lemonade into my 5 gallon glass carboy (it's in a 3 gallon PET carboy) so that I can add most of one more can of concentrate. Sometime next week/weekend I'll be bottling it up. I plan to prime it with part of another can of concentrate.

I would advise looking at the characteristics of the Lalvin yeast strains. Pick one that will give you want you're looking for. Although, with the high OG you had, you might be locked into just three of their strains (tolerant to 16% or 18%)... I've used EC-1118 and D47 in mead so far... This is my first time using 71B...

I have some tips for fermenting an acidic must like that in my hard lemonade recipe. To make your new starter, I'd follow those tips on the yeast starter and incremental feeding. Yeast don't like to work in a super-acidic environment, and limeade and lemonade can be very tough ferments!

Treated my batch with pot. bicarb before pitching the yeast in... Took off like mad within 2 days... :rockin:

You do need to compensate for the higher acid of the must... Get some wine PH test strips and get it at least closer to 3.2, if it's lower. That did the trick for me...

Oh, and I used 4# of honey in my batch... Right now, you can taste the honey in it (mixed it all up cold)... Need to use more concentrate so that the lemonade flavors come through more. Went with pink lemonade, although it's hard to see right now.

When I pitched the yeast starter, the initial fermentation started within 12 hours. It never went strong. I did add some of the limeade to the starter twice to let it adjust. I do think maybe I pitched to soon.
I added 1/2 cup of limeade to 1qt of starter that was sitting for 1/2 hr. and let it sit for 1hour then added another cup and let that sit for 1/2 hour then pitched.

I will start the new starter,1 qt warm water with energizer and nutrient, let sit for 2 hrs. add 1/2 cup of limeade, sit for another 2 hrs, add another 1/2 cup and let that sit for 2-3hrs then pitch.

I had some wine made from Niagara grapes... backsweetened with 2 cans of limeaid to a 5gal carboy.... MAN... that is good. He didn't rack off the limeaid solids and it's a bit like a margarita!! I've got some started now!! In the future, you could try something like that to get the limeaid flavor you're looking for!

Debbie