Cyser problem

[TexBow]

Ok y’all I made a Cyser the ingredients were one gallon of good tasting apple cider, 5 lbs of honey, and Lalvin K1-V1116 yeast. I mixed the honey and cider really good. I pitched the yeast in (the way the instructions call for). After a few days it wasn’t doing anything. So I pitched the yeast again. After few days still nothing. So I just sprinkled in the yeast the third time dry. After a day the balloon started inflating. So I thought it was doing its job. I let it do its thing for about 10 months. I bottled it tonight and noticed it was thick looking. After bottling 3 bottles I tried it. It was super sweet (what I was looking for) with a good apple flavor but I didn’t taste no alcohol at all. I believe I should have tasted some alcohol in it. What do y’all think?

 

[gratus fermentatio]

5 lbs of honey & juice to 1 gallon? Gravity is too high, meaning there's too much sugar for the yeast to work. Take a hydrometer reading, I'm betting it hasn't really begun to ferment yet, which is a recipe for bottlebombs. I'd dilute that mix with water & put it back in the fermentation bucket, add some yeast nutrient, give it a good stir & wait for the fermentation to take off. The K1-V1116 strain is a strong fermenting yeast, you just overwhelmed it with sugar.
Regards. GF.

 

[SKBugs]

After 10 months it should have done the job. I wonder if you've just made a good wine. 2.5 pounds in a gal should give you something regardless.

 

[Maylar]

Way too much honey. The yeast went into osmotic shock from too much sugar. You only need about 1.5 lb honey per gallon of juice for a 13% ABV cyser.

 

[TexBow]

I made a blackberry mead last year with 6 lbs of honey. It came out awesome. I used regular bread yeast on it. But if y’all think it’s to much honey it probably is. I cold crushed it for about a month or more. So I don’t think it’s going bottle boom.

 

[bernardsmith]

was the apple juice store bought or bought from an orchard? If store bought how was it "preserved"? If the bottler added sorbates then you killed all the yeast when you pitched them. Sorbates are added to prevent fermentation.

 

[Maylar]

was the apple juice store bought or bought from an orchard? If store bought how was it "preserved"? If the bottler added sorbates then you killed all the yeast when you pitched them. Sorbates are added to prevent fermentation.

5 lbs of honey in 1 gallon of apple juice will have a starting gravity of about 1.175. That's the problem here.

 

[TexBow]

was the apple juice store bought or bought from an orchard? If store bought how was it "preserved"? If the bottler added sorbates then you killed all the yeast when you pitched them. Sorbates are added to prevent fermentation.

I bought the cider from Walmart. I didn’t look if sorbates were used in it.

 

[bernardsmith]

5 lbs of honey in 1 gallon of apple juice will have a starting gravity of about 1.175. That's the problem here.

Osmotic shock certainly could be the problem, but if there are sorbates in the apple juice TexBow has another problem, and simply reducing the amount of total sugar to a more reasonable starting gravity will not solve it.

 

[TexBow]

Yes it does have sorbate in it. So y’all think that was the problem?

 

[bernardsmith]

Sorry - No matter what else you did sorbated juice will prevent the yeast from fermenting. But let's assume you find some juice that has no sorbate in it.. you really do not want to start a fermentation with so much sugar (honey) in the must. The concentration of sugar causes what is called osmotic shock: the yeast cannot transport sugars at such high concentrations through their cell walls. Aim for a starting gravity somewhere between say 1.090 and 1.120 (that is the equivalent of about 2.25 lbs - 3 lbs of sugar dissolved in 1 gallon of water. You are making a wine (a mead) not distilling alcohol. A mead made to those starting gravities will be around 12- 16% ABV . Most yeast can handle that. And if you want a sweeter mead you stabilize the mead when it has finished fermenting and you add K-sorbate with K-meta to prevent any refermentation and then you can add as much honey (or other sweeteners) to your hearts content.
That said, if you really are looking for a higher ABV mead the only realistic method to achieve this with a drinkable mead is to step feed the yeast with sugars (honey in the case of mead): you start with a must of say, 1.090 and you add I would say 4 oz of honey to each gallon when the gravity falls to 1.000. You keep on adding another 4 oz of honey each time the yeast work their way through the honey so that when they give up the ghost because you have exceeded their tolerance for alcohol - and all yeast has a limited tolerance for alcohol - you know that there cannot be more than about 9 points of unfermented honey in the mead. You can then decide how much more honey you want to add to make this mead as sweet as you want it.
Hope that this helps.

 

[SKBugs]

Well it helped me mate. Cheers

 

[Maylar]

Also be aware that if you're making a cyser you have to include the sugar in the apple juice in your honey addition calculations. Typical apple cider has about 50 gravity points of sugar, equivalent to about 1.4 lbs of honey per gallon. You have to reduce the amount of honey to get the same gravity and ABV as compared to using water.

 

[nitack]

I have used plenty of store bought apple juice with no problems. It could obviously pose a challenge for the yeast, but shouldn’t be considered the most likely cause. My guess is that it is a combination of much too much honey and the sorbates didn’t help

 

[ten80]

5 lbs honey would also take up approximately 0.7 gallons of volume, so that needs to be factored into the gravity math. Seems like this should be a 1.7 gal batch based on the OP’s description.

5 lbs honey = 35 points per pound per gallon*5= 175 points
1 gal juice = 50 gravity points (estimated 1.050 OG for store-bought juice)

total = 225 gravity points


Assuming 1.7 gallons total, then you'd have 172 points / 1.7 gal = 132.4 points per gallon = 1.132 OG. While that is a monumental starting gravity, it's not unpossible to ferment as some meads and ice ciders start around 1.130, it’s still a high starting gravity for a dry yeast to ferment much below about 1.050 without nutrient additions (based on my experience).


Now if I’m wrong and the staring volume was 1.0 gallons, then that means 0.3 gallons of juice + 0.7 gal honey and your yeast was completely hosed from the get-go.

 

[Maylar]

5 lbs honey would also take up approximately 0.7 gallons of volume, so that needs to be factored into the gravity math. Seems like this should be a 1.7 gal batch based on the OP’s description.

5 lbs honey = 35 points per pound per gallon*5= 175 points
1 gal juice = 50 gravity points (estimated 1.050 OG for store-bought juice)

total = 225 gravity points

I get different numbers. Honey is usually 3 lbs per quart, 12 lbs per gallon. 5 lbs would be .41 gallon. But if the juice is sorbated, it's a moot point.

 

[GeneDaniels1963]

I use store bought juice all the time, the problem is too much honey at the start. Anything over 4 lbs in a gal would seem to be sugar overload to me. I can't imagine getting that kind of must to start fermenting.

 

[Maylar]

Not all store bought juices are created equal. Some have preservatives, some don't. Read the fine print and stay away from anything that says potassium sorbate or sodium benzoate on it.

 

[GeneDaniels1963]

I guess the juice they sale here is preservative free (except for vitamin C of course). I have never had any problem with store bought juices; Sam's club, Old Orchard, even Wal-Mart cheapy brand. Just add FAJC, yeast and let it do it's thing (yes, I often use some kind of adjunct; berry juice, honey, etc, but even my very basic cider is good).

 

[Maylar]

This is apple season here in CT and the grocery stores are all displaying gallon jugs of "100% pure" apple cider. If you read the fine print on the back though, they say sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate added "to preserve freshness". You gotta be careful.

 

[Octodan]

Musselmans Apple Cider is $7/gal at Walmart’s. Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) is the only preservative. I used three gallons in my cyser, along with 10 lbs of honey. Two packets of hydrated Lalvin EV-1118. After three weeks, added two thawed cans of apple juice concentrate and 2 lbs of raw honey. Yeast nutrient was added at start, and another dose with the additions at three weeks.
Now it’s been 7 weeks, and the bubbling is stopped. There were several stirrings along the way, to keep the yeast moving and de-gas. I’m going to rack to secondary later today, with cinnamon-cloves-nutmeg in a hops-sack. I’m going to keep an eye on how the flavor develops.
This was my first non-beer project, after about six years of homebrewing beer. Thanks to all who’ve contributed mead knowledge here, most of which I’ve read. Open to any suggestions, of course.

 

[Raptor99]

From your description, it sounds like you have lot of sugars in your recipe. Apple juice will usually produce around 5-6% ABV by itself. With the honey plus apple juice contentrate that you have added, it is likely that the potential ABV would be more than 20%. It is possible that the yeast has hit its alcohol limit and stopped. What ABV were you aiming for?

If you have a hydrometer, you should measure the SG to see how much sugar is left. Does it taste sweet?