How long to leave cider in secondary fermentation?

[bensira]

Hi there

I'm new to home brewing, and I've found this forum to be a great source of info. I'm working on my first home brewed cider and I have two batches on the go. I'd love some advice about timescales for secondary fermentation.

Batch 1:
About four litres of apple juice, which I juiced myself from Pink Lady and Braeburn apples. I didn't treat it with campden or pasteurise it. I left it to sit for a night before adding baking yeast* I left it in primary for ten days, took an SG reading of 0.994 and racked it off to secondary. Alcohol is probably about 6%. However, I forgot to take an initial SG reading. It was likely in the region of 1.040, as this is the reading I took on my second batch of apple juice.

In order to leave as little head space as possible and prevent oxidisation during secondary, I topped it up with water and sugar solution. It doesn't look as though the sugar has caused much fermentation in the secondary container - the airlock doesn't appear to be bubbling.

How long should I leave it in secondary? How do I determine the length of secondary - SG readings etc? Thanks

*nothing else was available at the time, I'm using Nottingham in my second batch

 

[HebrewedsoIbrew]

I'm not sure what the alcohol toxicity is of bakers yeast ( How much alcohol there is in the apple cider to kill yeast) If it's not fermenting anymore after your addition of water and sugar then they might of all died. As for SG readings, take a reading and wait a week and take another reading, if it dropped than it fermented, if not you're probably safe to bottle, if you plan to carbonate the batch you might be out of luck as there is too much alcohol in the batch to ferment anymore, But as I said before I don't know how much alcohol it takes to kill off bakers yeast.

Good luck on your next batch, Nottingham is an excellent yeast strain for cider. Hope this helped ya, Happy brewing!

 

[bensira]

I'll take a reading tomorrow, thanks for the tip. In general terms, is that how you know when secondary is finished - when the SG readings stay stable?

If I choose to leave it in the carboy after secondary is finished, is it likely to age a bit and turn out nicer?

 

[abrewnoob]

If your readings dont change at all and yes stay stable then fermentation is done (either your yeasties have kicked the bucket or your all out of sugar) by the sounds of it, i think your yeast has died but let the readings confirm it .and yup the more patient you are and leave it in secondary, the nicer itl age and mellow out. Hopefully your yeast are alive then you can carbonate, if not then let it age into a nice still cider