Absolutely no fizz!

I just opened up my first few bottles of an RJS Spagnols Cider Press kit. I spoke with RJS and they told me that kegging was not a requirement and if I added about 1lb (I forget the exact amount) and ommitted the potassium sorbate, before bottling everything would be fine.

It tastes great...but it has the same fizz as coke which has been left out all day, barely a pstht. I cannot taste any yeast.

Any thoughts on what could have happened?

Thanks!

Hi Doc. I'm not familiar with the kit, so maybe you could outline the process and ingredients a little more fully. For example, you added 1 lb of what and when? The more info the better. How long has it been in the bottle?

Oops! The kit is a pretty standard thing, apple juice, ferment, syphon to a secondary after about 10 days, wait about 2 weeks, added about 1lb of invert sugar, mixed in the "apple flavor", bottled and waited 6 weeks and psth. The alcohol content is a hair under 5%, so the fermentation clearly worked!

Doc, I'm not sure. The recipe doesn't make sense to me.

First, I don't know what invert sugar is - is it an unfermentable sugar, like lactose? If the invert sugar isn't fermentable, then one possiblity is that your yeast ate all the sugars in fermentation and there is nothing left for them to eat now during bottle conditioning.

I also don't know what you mean by 'apple flavor' that you mixed in - was this an additive? Do you know what was in it? It might have sorbate or campden or something else that would potentially shut down fermentation, I suppose.

Do you have your bottles in a relatively warm place, 70 deg. F or higher?

Pappers said:

First, I don't know what invert sugar is - is it an unfermentable sugar, like lactose? If the invert sugar isn't fermentable, then one possiblity is that your yeast ate all the sugars in fermentation and there is nothing left for them to eat now during bottle conditioning.

Click to expand...

Invert sugar is sucrose aka table sugar split into the simpler sugars fructose and glucose, supposedly this is easier for yeast to eat (debatable), you can do this at home by adding an acid (citric, tartaric etc) and a little water to sugar and then heating it

as far as adding 1# of sugar and then bottling that sounds like your waiting for explosions to happen,

Pappers said:

I also don't know what you mean by 'apple flavor' that you mixed in - was this an additive? Do you know what was in it? It might have sorbate or campden or something else that would potentially shut down fermentation, I suppose.

Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking.

The so called "Apple flavor" was the final packet of stuff to add to the mix before bottling. No idea what was in it - just labelled "apple flavor" - around 1l.

I'm not sure of the temperature the bottle are maturing at...probably above 70F since our thermostat is set to 79.

From what you've told us, it seems that there are both fermentable sugars and active yeasts in the bottles. So, I'm left with the mystery apple flavor packets.

From what you wrote earlier, I take it that this kit was made to produce still (non-carbonated) cider. When you spoke with someone from the company, did they say anything about how you were going to stop the 1lb of inverted sugar from completely fermenting and exploding your bottles? I know you have the opposite problem now, but that is what should have happened.

Something has stopped your yeast, and from what you've told us, I'm with Old and betting it's something in the mystery packet of 'apple flavor'.