Cider Primary Question

[jaysquared2]

This is only my second attempt at making a cider. The first one I had some issues keeping temperature down (I live in good old hot south Florida) so it came out a little off flavored (I assume from esters). This time I went ahead and used a swamp cooler with some ice in the water and for the past 3 days have managed to kept the temperate of the must inside the fermenter around 67 degrees. I am using Safale US-04. I went to look at it today and the very little amount of krausen (which I thought it would form quite a lot and last for more than about 24 hours) that had formed is completely gone and the cider itself is a very faint yellow, almost white in color and it doesn't smell like apples in the least bit at all. Is this something to worry about? I know it's nowhere near done fermenting, but is the batch bad and worth continuing? I can probably upload a couple photos of it if necessary.

 

[porterpounder]

Cider usually doesn't create a krausen during fermentation, unlike beer. Lack of head-forming elements. It also tends to ferment out very dry in most cases, which will make the appliness go away. You may have to back sweeten with concentrate or something to get the apple flavors/aromas back, but you may like it dry as well.

 

[jaysquared2]

The smell is honestly the thing I'm most worried about. It smells quite awful, but not really like a rotten smell. It's almost impossible to describe.

 

[bernardsmith]

Stressed yeast will produce hydrogen sulfide (smells like rotten eggs) or mercaptans (smells like burnt matches). You can relatively easily get rid of the hydrogen sulfide by whipping air into the liquor but if the problem is stressed yeast you may need to feed them with Fermaid O or K (unless the gravity suggests that there is only a little fermentable sugar left. In which case feeding the yeast at this time is likely to feed bacteria and not the yeast).
To get rid of mercaptans is a problem. Adding Reduless is said to be one solution, another is to add copper or rack through copper wool but it is easier (IMO) to prevent the problem than to cure it once it has occurred.

 

[jaysquared2]

Stressed yeast will produce hydrogen sulfide (smells like rotten eggs) or mercaptans (smells like burnt matches). You can relatively easily get rid of the hydrogen sulfide by whipping air into the liquor but if the problem is stressed yeast you may need to feed them with Fermaid O or K (unless the gravity suggests that there is only a little fermentable sugar left. In which case feeding the yeast at this time is likely to feed bacteria and not the yeast).
To get rid of mercaptans is a problem. Adding Reduless is said to be one solution, another is to add copper or rack through copper wool but it is easier (IMO) to prevent the problem than to cure it once it has occurred.

I really don't smell either of the smells you described. It doesn't smell rotten or sulfur-y, and doesn't at all smell like burnt matches. It's just a weird smell that's insanely hard to pinpoint a comparison and describe. I guess I'll just ride it out and see what happens.