Hello!
So exactly a week ago I started my first ever homebrew. I bought two gallon jugs of apple cider from Whole Foods, and left one as is, and the other poured 1.5 lbs of honey into. Then I added 1tsp of Yeast Nutrient (Urea and Diammonium Phosphate) and 1/2 tsp of pectic enzyme to each jug, as well as 1/2 tsp of wine tannins to the one with honey. I poured half of a 5g pack of Safcider yeast into each gallon, and let them sit.
They both took off real quick, and were going steadily. These last few days however I noticed them slowing down, so started swirling them a bit to get things moving more. Well today I looked at them and they were both at a complete standstill with lots of sediment on the bottom. I looked it up and a forum post told me that yeast can crash in cold temperature swells, and not start up again because they are all on the bottom. So, I capped the bottle of my cyser and tried shaking it rigorously. Soon I realized it was creating a bit of co2, so I put the stopper back on but the airlock barely moved.
At this point I was super confused, and already worried I had ruined my batch, so I rushed to take a hydrometer reading, without thinking to sanitize, and saw that my brew was basically complete! What started at 1.102 spg was now at .994. So while I thought my yeast were less active due to coldness, turns out they just had eaten most of the sugars!
So, anyways, now I stand with a mostly fermented, but also probably oxidized and possibly contaminated cyser. From what I understand, it's good to let the fermentation go for a while after this point to let the yeast mellow the flavors. I currently have my jug in the fridge, because I don't know what the best option is.
My question is, is this brew basically done for? Is there any way to salvage it? Should I take it out of the fridge and just let it sit?
Will things grow if I do that? Or should I let the cold crash go to completion, and then bottle and chemically treat it and just hope it mellows in the bottle. If I bottle it, do I need to refrigerate it? Any advice you can give would be much appreciated!
So exactly a week ago I started my first ever homebrew. I bought two gallon jugs of apple cider from Whole Foods, and left one as is, and the other poured 1.5 lbs of honey into. Then I added 1tsp of Yeast Nutrient (Urea and Diammonium Phosphate) and 1/2 tsp of pectic enzyme to each jug, as well as 1/2 tsp of wine tannins to the one with honey. I poured half of a 5g pack of Safcider yeast into each gallon, and let them sit.
They both took off real quick, and were going steadily. These last few days however I noticed them slowing down, so started swirling them a bit to get things moving more. Well today I looked at them and they were both at a complete standstill with lots of sediment on the bottom. I looked it up and a forum post told me that yeast can crash in cold temperature swells, and not start up again because they are all on the bottom. So, I capped the bottle of my cyser and tried shaking it rigorously. Soon I realized it was creating a bit of co2, so I put the stopper back on but the airlock barely moved.
At this point I was super confused, and already worried I had ruined my batch, so I rushed to take a hydrometer reading, without thinking to sanitize, and saw that my brew was basically complete! What started at 1.102 spg was now at .994. So while I thought my yeast were less active due to coldness, turns out they just had eaten most of the sugars!
So, anyways, now I stand with a mostly fermented, but also probably oxidized and possibly contaminated cyser. From what I understand, it's good to let the fermentation go for a while after this point to let the yeast mellow the flavors. I currently have my jug in the fridge, because I don't know what the best option is.
My question is, is this brew basically done for? Is there any way to salvage it? Should I take it out of the fridge and just let it sit?
Will things grow if I do that? Or should I let the cold crash go to completion, and then bottle and chemically treat it and just hope it mellows in the bottle. If I bottle it, do I need to refrigerate it? Any advice you can give would be much appreciated!
