Question on the amount of yeast to use?

I am making 5 gal of hard cider with the addition of two pounds of honey and about a pound of brown sugar. I added one packet of Laevin EC-1118 Champagne yeast. Is this enough or should I add an additional packet?

OG??

In my experience, EC-1118 is a BEAST of a yeast. A single packet will probably be enough to ferment what you've created.

not sure what the OG is havent measured it. Im new and this is my first attempt so im short on equipment.

Hydrometers are dirt cheap and a critical tool (refractometers can take over for OG readings, but many still rely on brewing hydrometers)... GET ONE right away, before you brew/make ANYTHING else...

OG readings are very important. A lot of other steps depend on knowing at least that, plus where the gravity is currently. Since you have no idea what the OG was, you really can only wait and see. GET a hydrometer and take a reading in a couple of weeks to see where it is. If you get one within a day, or two tops, then you will at least have an idea of where things are at that point. But, there's almost no way to know what the OG was at this point.

It's like driving without a gas gauge or any odometers. You'll never know when you'll run out of gas.

Ill get one in the morning. I just put the yeast in about 30 min ago.

Im guessing ill end up with about an 8% by the receipe given to me from a friend that has made it before and did measure but well see.

You can always scale your batch down and take an OG reading that way, ie: 1.25 gal juice and .5 lbs honey, or scale further down, just as long as its in proportion.

Take a sample now and save it in the fridge to slow down the yeast. And when you get your hydrometer tomorrow take a base og reading

OG=1.076
Brix=19%
potintial ABV is going to be about 10%! maybe a little less.

Yeah, if you get down to 1.000 you should hit 10%. Might drop lower though. I've never used that yeast but I assume it will finish dry.

Rolodex916 said:

OG=1.076
Brix=19%
potintial ABV is going to be about 10%! maybe a little less.

Click to expand...

That's not a true OG, since you didn't take a reading before pitching yeast. You could have been above that. You could be looking at a potential of 14% or better. With EC-1118, you don't need to worry until it's up in the area of 18%.

I've used EC-1118 and have had it go up to 18% in mead that had a much higher OG.

At this point, all you can do is wait for it to finish doing what it can, and reaches a stable FG. I would wait a solid week between identical readings before calling it a FG though. Are you looking to have this be still or carbonated? Are you just going to bottle, or keg it?

Did you give the yeast any food when you pitched it in? If not, you might want to put some DAP in there. Just don't wait too long before doing that. Usually you only feed for the first few days, or a week, then it's gone low enough that you don't want to feed it anymore.

At least you know now what to do better for your next batch...

it will be dry but Im going to add Xylitol to it just before bottling. It cant be fermented so no worrys about yeast eating it up. It will add a bit of sweetness to it.

No DAP just proofed it.
It had about 30 min to ferment before I pulled out a bit to sample and chucked it in the freazer to stop the fermntation so the OG is pretty close. but I agree it was probally slightly higer.

I have basically the same question as the top of the thread. I brewed a wit yesterday with 6 lbs of DME and 2 lbs of honey. OG is around 1.068 or 70. I areated the hell out of it with a mix-stirrer on a cordless drill before I pitched. I only used one packet of Wyeast forbidden fruit. I should have made a starter but it didn't occur to me until too late. Is that OG too high for one packet? I checked it this morning and it was already off to a great start. Very high krausen and fast bubbles coming out the blowoff tube. I take this as a good sign. Does this mean the yeast was able to reproduce enough or will it peter out early and not fully attenuate?