Can I add sugar/honey to primary at 48 hrs???

[TallMatt]

I've brewed a dozen or so beers, and now I'm making my first cider, made from pears out of my buddy's yard. I had wanted to get the SG to about 1.065, but under-calculated the amount of honey I needed. So I added all the sugar I had on hand and went ahead and pitched the yeast yesterday. SG was 1.052.

I have three primaries going. #1 uses Montrachet yeast and at 24 hours if very actively bubbling. #2 uses Pasteur Champagne yeast and is not bubbling at all (is this strange?). #3 uses some Munton's standard yeast - the only ale yeast I had on hand - it's bubbling decently and steady (I wanted to try an Ale yeast, and have two gallon jugs going of this).

Can I add more honey or sugar to the primary tomorrow, at the 48 hr point, to boost the alcohol content? Any reason not to?

thanks.

 

[KBentley57]

Sure, people do this all the time to avoid stunning the yeast by hitting it with all the sugar up front. Just make sure to give it a good stir to dissolve it all.

 

[sa101]

If you want your cider to be strong (8% and above) then sure, add some more sugar in! I'm assuming you're fermenting it all out, so you'll need to backsweeten with pear concentrate to retain any flavour. It will need to sit in the secondary and concequently in the bottles for much longer in order to mellow out, but the result is a stronger cider.
My experience with champagne yeast is that it takes longer to kick in, and gives the finished product a very dry taste. Not my cup of tea, but if you're a fan of dry ciders then it's the way to go.

 

[overpunch]

If it's bubbling already, then it might start to foam over when you add stuff to it.