My first stuck fermentation

I heard Hard Lemonade is tough to ferment, but now what?
a. 4 cans lemonade concentrate
b. 3 lbs sugar
c. 1.5 tsp of each yeast energizer and yeast nutrient
d. K1-V1116 yeast
e. Boiled water to dissolve sugar, added ice to make 1.5 gallons
f. 2014-7-19 put in 5 tea bags and stirred.
g. 2014-7-20 moved to secondary.
h. 2014-8-24 1.05 Racked, yeast die?

 

The yeast hate the low PH/acidity of lemon juice. To make a hard lemonade, you typically have to make a yeast starter and use a decent amount of yeast nutrient. Your yeast aren't dead, but they will stay dormant in the low PH.

Even the commercial hard lemonades don't ferment lemonade. They basically make grain alcohol and blend it with lemonade, then force carbonate.

 

Will ec1118 ferment this?

 

Typically, ec1118 is what is used

 

EC-1118 would ferment a car battery, if you let it.

 

Can I just sprinkle some in the carboy.

 

Rehydrate, then pour into the carboy.

 

People who make skeeter pee - which I assume is a version of hard lemonade (you dilute lemon concentrate and ferment that) - tend to use slurry from a previous fermentation. I have made SP once (this spring and I had no problem using the slurries from mead and cider I am fermenting.

 

The original ICV-K1 yeast you used was a good choice.
I would not switch to EC-1118. There is a possibility, however slight as the K1 colony has stalled, that any remaining K1 may end up interfering to some degree with the EC-1118 ... K1 yeast is known as a "killer strain" for it's high competitive factor. No sense in doing something that may be less desirable in practice.

Your list of what you've done suggests you did things correctly ... HOWEVER you stated that you used "lemonade concentrate" ... a sweetened product ... and sugar for a final volume of 1.5 gallons ... my calculation for your recipe shows an Opening Gravity of at or above SG 1.140 and a potential final ABV of over 18%.

Too high a gravity causes a pressure imbalance for the yeast that eventually causes much of the yeast colony to die. The K1 you used is pretty good at chewing through a high sugar/high gravity concentration but generally requires stepped nutrient additions and stepped sugar additions to do so - and especially in a lemon wine.
With the low pH of the lemon product ... and then racking the must away from part of it’s active yeast, it was enough to stall it.

If you don’t like the potency (ABV%) and flavor at SG 1.05 and want to resume the ferment, make a starter with more k1-v1116 (the yeast type you already used), get the starter rockin & rollin ... add an additional 1/6 (one sixth ... basically just a dash) dose of nutrients (but no more than that) to the must ... then aerate your must by vigorously stirring or shaking to re-oxygenate it, and add the active starter. Keep at a mid-range temperature. This should finish out your fermentation.

 

If it were me, I'd just leave it at 1.005. That's got a little bit of sweetness, not too much at all.

 

I rehydrated the ec 1118 and added it to no affect. Maybe I should add some apple juice to cut down on acid.
I would like to carbonate and pasteurize it when I bottle it.

I may have made an error, the last hydro may have been 1.08

 

I can't believe everyone missed the fact that you racked to secondary after only 1 day???

 

I needed the pail for a batch with fresh fruit, so I really just moved the hard lemonade to a carboy.

 

I made a couple quarts of apple juice from concentrate, added ec1118. Next day mixed it with the 1.5 gal of stuck hard lemonade. Bubbling good now.