Add cider to secondary fermentation.

[Bad-Omen]

So I have completed Week 1 of fermentation.... Wow.. is there a way to fast forward time?

I have a solid question.
I started my first batch with 4 gallons... My question is can I add a 5th gallon of the same cider to my batch when I move from the Primary to the 2ndary Carboy?

I dont want to leave any room in the secondary (fear vinegar) I plan on moving from the primary to the secondary in 2-3 weeks. with the Cider i would add another pound of sugar or so...

Any info, sugestions, Words of windom would be appreciated!

I wanna be sooner than later.. Therefore my goal is to get it right the first time.

 

[kurtism]

i did just that. i lost a bit of volume in racking as expected and filled the head space of my secondary with more juice. so...by adding more fermentables, you are going to have more yeast activity as long as there are still some around (i.e. you didn't kill them already by getting to its alcohol tolerance).

an alternative would be water, but that could have ill effects on taste.

just be aware that the more fermentation that occurs in your secondary means that the less it will clear in secondary. my old boss used to rack to a tertiary carboy at times if he thought the secondary was too active.

 

[Bad-Omen]

nice feedback Kurtism. I am mostly concerned about taste and overall quality of the Cider at this point.. so this sounds like a good plan. Do you have input on adding more sugar? The Cider i am using is already pretty sweet.... Hmm maybe ill make that call on racking day.

 

[Apple_Jacker]

So I have completed Week 1 of fermentation.... Wow.. is there a way to fast forward time?

I have a solid question.
I started my first batch with 4 gallons... My question is can I add a 5th gallon of the same cider to my batch when I move from the Primary to the 2ndary Carboy?

I dont want to leave any room in the secondary (fear vinegar) I plan on moving from the primary to the secondary in 2-3 weeks. with the Cider i would add another pound of sugar or so...

Any info, sugestions, Words of windom would be appreciated!

I wanna be sooner than later.. Therefore my goal is to get it right the first time.

This was exactly what I just did. I went from a 6 gallon primary to a 6.5 gallon secondary and had tons of head space. I added 1.5 gallons more to my cider and it is bubbling like crazy again. I'll definitely have to rack it again, but that doesn't bother me too much. I didn't add any additional sugar though, but it doesn't look like I needed to.

 

[kurtism]

nice feedback Kurtism. I am mostly concerned about taste and overall quality of the Cider at this point.. so this sounds like a good plan. Do you have input on adding more sugar? The Cider i am using is already pretty sweet.... Hmm maybe ill make that call on racking day.

adding more plain sugar really depends on whether or not you want to push the alcohol content up because if your yeast are still hungry, adding sugar isn't going to sweeten it right now.

if you want to sweeten your final product, I'd wait till bottling and add a non-fermentable sugar or sweeten in the keg or glass.

FYI...i did add sugar to my secondary as well but my goal is as strong a final product as my yeast can make.

 

[Bad-Omen]

Yeah i wanna keep a consistant ABV that i origionally had...
so im looking to maintain a 1:1 gallon of cider to lb of sugar.

Still good advice.. I was talking to a buddy who started a batch the same day and he suggested grabbing a 2nd gallon just in case i need to kill some head space in my secondary from lost volume...

So excited!