My graff hasn't gotten off the ground

Making my second batch of graff, and i used the recipe exactly with 120L instead of 60L (b/c I am using cheap juice concentrate.)

I pitched Notty and after about 24 got modest airlock activity that quit completely before 36 hours. I repitched and after 4 days have only VERY slow airlock activity (1 bubble every 20 sec or so) which seems to be slowing. Not the slightest bit of krausen and only a very few tiny bubbles on top of the cider. It seems that there is a very tiny bit of fermentation going on, but it is way too slow to get this whole think fermented, and it appears that it could stop completely at any moment. Acts like the juice was sorbated or something, but the bottles say very clearly "no preservatives" and the ingredients are just concentrate and water.

I am thinking of giving it 1 more day and then repitching with safale-05 instead of notty. Don't like throwing so much yeast at this cider, but it is definitely not working.

Any ideas?

Have you taken an hydrometer reading? I have not made this exact recipe but I've rarely gotten much "activity" from any of my cider recipes but they all fermented just fine.

I've used Notty twice, once with Graff and once with a high ABV IPA. Both times I've had problems... I tried re-pitching with both without success. Try warming it up to 70*-72*F and agitating it to re-suspend the yeast. That didn't work for me but racking it onto a fully-attenuating yeast cake did.

Did you aerate well before pitching the yeast? I think it may have been part of my problem while using Notty.

There was a recent recall on certain lots of Danstar Notty. See thread here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/nottingham-yeast-recall-135065/

I had the exact same problem on my graff.

I had the exact problem with mine... I repitched us-05 and it worked great.

Notty yeast recall.

Notty has been a tried and true for many many years. You can bet they will fix this because so many have switched to other dry yeasts. You are not alone. Repitch, possibly with another and you'll be fine.

Drew_101 said:

I had the exact problem with mine... I repitched us-05 and it worked great.

Click to expand...

That must have been it. I actually repitched S-05 just like you said and it turned out fine. Bummer about Notty...I am going to switch to safale.