Good to know - thanks Dave, I will hold on to these for a while but will be switching back to Ale yeast for quick turnarounds.
I've made a few batches with CDB too and the first few bottle carbed up fine within 2 weeks and were fizzy within a few days (but not enough to be enjoyable at that point).
Then the second latest batch I made was about 7.5% ABV, 25% of it was cranberry cherry juice from concentrate (with apple juice in the ingredients) and I added 100% black cherry juice (50/g sugar per 8oz) measured out to get me to 2.4 volumes of C02 and after a week they are barely fizzy and almost acting like the yeast was dead.
I'm not sure what the difference is but this batch has the cherry/cranberry juice which is kinda acidic and I also added 3 teaspoons of malic acid to the 4 gallon batch so maybe it was too acidic for the yeast (but I thought wine yeast liked acidity...?)
I mention this because this is my first time making a batch with so much acidity so I think that may be a factor.
Either way that kinda annoyed me, next batch which I just bottled yesterday is about the same 7% ABV, had 2.5 teaspoons of malic acid in 4 gallons and I added FAJC measured out to get me to ~2.9 volumes of C02 with 1 gram of fresh Cotes Des Blancs added a few hours before bottling (and stirred very well at that point and stirred bottling bucket every ~10 bottles while filling)
Today (less than 24 hours later) I have shaken a few bottles and they are already showing signs of carbonation - far far more than the last Cranberry Cherry batch.
So I think with Cotes Des Blancs you might have to repitch some fresh yeast to get a faster bottle carb.
From start to bottling it was only ~9 days so it's not like mine sat in secondary/cold crash for months and there was time for the yeast to die.
I also used at least 3 teaspoons of Fermax Yeast Nutrient during fermentation and I didn't get any rhino farts so you'd think the yeast was healthy ..
