New to cider, need suggestions.

Here is what I have done so far.

5 Gallons of pasteurized cider with only ascorbic acid added
3lbs of clover honey
3lbs of dark brown sugar
2 Packets of Champagne Yeast

How long do I leave it in carboy for primary ?

How do I kill the yeast ?


My bottles are 22ozer's so i'm trying to figure out what to add when bottling. There are so many different things on the internet my head is spinning.

Thanks for any help
Clayton

It has been 48 hours and my airlock is bubbling once every 1-2 seconds. Lots of visible activity.

I'm not sure what you're looking for in the way of advice. The recipe seems good.

You asked how to kill the yeast. That's not really very easy. You can let it ferment out, though, and then stabilize with sorbate and campden tablets. It doesn't kill yeast, but keeps it from reproducing. If you do that, though, you won't be able to bottle carbonate, so I guess it really depends on what your plan is for your cider.

You have plenty of time- cider takes a while to ferment out, and even longer to be good. Fermenting honey is a pretty slow process (actually, you're making a cyser- cider with honey) and being patient will help you.

well my friend youve entered on a long journey... what you've made is was is known as a Cyser

bad news your OG was probably through the roof. oGod news you pinched enough yeast to handle it. Bad news, this is gonna take awhile to ferment out because of the honey and large ammount of brown sugar. Good news your gonna have an ABV when its done of about 15% is you let it go dry.

As for your questions

let primary until you dont see any foam around the top of the cider in the carboy, and air lock activity is low(3-6weeks depending on tempature). Then you should rack off and do a gravity check and then get it back into a carboy. At this point likely you will be around 1.030-1.025... this is still really sweet and it should be allow to sit and finnish for at least a month.

If you dont like this course of action, you can when you've got it so you like the taste of the juice in the fermenter in primary (just take a sample and test with hydrometer and taste) you can cold crash it (get it down below 40F degrees for 24-48 hours) and while its still cold rack into another container off its yeast (you can wash the yeast and save it or get rid of it and put the juice back into the carboy if you want)... because you used two packets of champagne yeast i recamend you do repeat cold crash again. Then after youve racked it you can bottle and still carb if you want.

when bottleing simply check your SG if its stable and no longer fermenting (because of the reduced yeast count from either cold crashing or letting it ferment dry and ageing) add 1 ounce of cane sugar per gallon of cider, or check the ammount of sugar per serving on the back of a bottle of apple juice and add the approite ammount. Example, i use apple juice which contains 28 grams of sugar per 8oz serving, thats 1oz per serving so i add 5 servings (5 cups) to the cider and bottle as normal.

If you cold crash then bottle as stated but after 3-5 days store bottles someplace dark and cool(below 60F degrees) to reduce risk of bottle bombs because of incomplete fermentation. If you ferment dry then bottle and store as normal.

I would sugest fermenting dry, back sweetening with a non-fermentable sugar, and then priming with fresh apple juice. Your ABV will be high, it will age very well, and taste great after about 3-6months... youll thank yourself for your pacients... in the mean time make a few batches with out as much fermentables in them... I recently just fermented straight juice with Nottingham dry yeast, let ferment dry, and primed with apple juice as stated above... the stuff is heven in a bottle in about 4 weeks from start to finnish

cheers

oooops ... never mind

Thanks for the suggestions brewinjack. I can wait as long as needed so I think I will let it ferment out like you said and then use splenda or something and prime with apple juice. Before then I need to go get another carboy to rack into and then some 1 gallon jugs to experiment with. I'm going to make some like you said with just the juice and Nottingham, and then maybe try some mead. Let the addiction begin!

Update

Decided to take a small taste sample today. It has been a week since I started and I just ordered the stuff I needed to rack it off, so i'm getting a little more anxious. The taste of it was awesome. I'm glad I decided to add the honey and especially the dark brown sugar instead of light. I started this whole thing not knowing what I needed so hopefully in 4-6 business days all my stuff will get here and I will be able to rack it at three weeks. Thanks to all that answered my questions. Will keep you posted.

oregoncidermaker said:

Update

Decided to take a small taste sample today. It has been a week since I started and I just ordered the stuff I needed to rack it off, so i'm getting a little more anxious. The taste of it was awesome. I'm glad I decided to add the honey and especially the dark brown sugar instead of light. I started this whole thing not knowing what I needed so hopefully in 4-6 business days all my stuff will get here and I will be able to rack it at three weeks. Thanks to all that answered my questions. Will keep you posted.

Click to expand...

Well 3 weeks is all well and good, but i should stress that you need to have most of your fermentation done before you rack your first time. This is espically needed because of the use of honey, if your fermentation were to stall then youd have a ***** of a time getting it started again so you want most of your honey broken down before you rack your first time. 3 weeks may not be good enough, sometimes this can take up to 4-6 weeks. So do a gravity check and keep an eye on your airlock.

cheers