Cider fermentation is not moving, will this method work?

[saleens281sc]

Hey everyone, I am brewing my normal 5 gallon hard cider with WLP775 and apple cider from my local orchard. I didn't realize it until it was too late, but the cider includes potassium sorbate, which I believe stops the yeast from reproducing. It has been almost 3 months and I have no movement in the primary. The gravity has not changed. Here is my plan, would it work?

Purchase another 5 gallons of cider (Musselman's without potassium sorbate), this is the kind I normally use without problem.

Purchase 2 more WLP775 yeasts.

Follow my normal process and put 2.5gal of my new cider in each of 2 fresh primaries with 1 full vial of WLP775 in each. Let these get going pretty good, I'm guessing 3-5 days. I would then add 2.5gal of each of my stagnant cider to each of these primaries.

I believe this would allow me to have a very good fermentation going, when I add the cider with potassium sorbate, I should have a good enough fermentation going to get around it not fermenting.

Thoughts?

 

[Yooper]

It might work. It's pretty amazing, though, that you've had a cider in the fermenter for months and it's not fermenting or growing mold That right there might be an indicator of so many preservatives that it won't ever get going. I mean, even if I leave apple juice on the counter without adding yeast, it would spoil in a couple of days not months.

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Yea, you may want to take a taste to make sure the cider is still palatable.

There are threads on HBT which discuss how to work with an attempted ferment that turned out to be sorbated for one reason or another.

Considering you are doing 5 gallons and with cider that might have been a bit more pricey as it came from a local orchard, you may want to give it a shot before giving up.

You should read-up on HBT what has already been posted about the issue ("re-starting a sorbated must") ... if you go to google advanced search, put the word "sorbated" on the Phrase line ... and in the box (at google advanced search) where you put in the site to search, put in homebrewtalk.com.
This will produce a list of posts and threads to read-up at.

For what it's worth, I made a post quite a while ago about rescuing a batch of grape wine that had become sorbated before fermentation. Though you will need to understand and be mindful of what applies to your situation and what does not, if you like you can read it as a sort of primer on the issue ...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/too-sweet-pinot-noir-338471/index2.html#post4217557

Edit: ok ... I just re-read that old post that I gave you the link to above. I noticed I quoted an incorrect measurement. It is as follows ...
In that post where I talk about making the starter I say to put in1/2 cup of the grape juice (in your case this would be apple juice) ... this should read to put in **2-1/2 cup** (two and one half cup). Don't know how I didn't catch it before. Unfortunately it is such an old post that I can not go back and edit it.
Anyhow ... in case you were going to follow those instructions ... you need to know that correction.

 

[saleens281sc]

I appreciate the feedback everyone. I did attempt to use that existing cider, but it didn't smell/taste right. I ended up just starting from scratch and dumping that batch. I'm glad I didn't combine without taking your feedback in to account, I would have had 2 bad batches. Thanks again.