Cider Troubles

[Brewtopalonian]

I've been brewing for the past 14 years, but never made cider from fresh pressed juice. This year, my Golden Delicious tree produced an absolute ton of apples (I'd guess almost literally). I borrowed a crusher and press from friends and got to work. I collected about 25 gallons before I got tired of harvesting, cutting, crushing, and pressing apples. I was going to a yeast experiment, since I have 5 - 5 gallon batches. I added Potassium Metabisulfate to the juice at a rate of 1tsp/gal to kill off any nasties or wild strains. I waited two days and then pitched my yeast. Not one fermented. OG - 1.044, checked after three days - 1.044. I thought, well hell, maybe I didn't shake it enough before pitching the yeast and there was still some SO2 in solution blocking out the yeast. So, I got out my wine degasser and drill and went to town on them for 3 minutes each changing directions every 30 seconds. Then pitched another batch of yeast in each. It's been 3 days, nothing. still 1.044. Please send help! I don't want soft cider, but I'm starting to think I might be stuck with soft cider. I'm also out nearly $100 in yeast already. So, if anyone has a suggestion, I'd love to hear it. TIA

 

[Chalkyt]

Whoops... If I read your numbers correctly (ditto my maths), a tsp of potassium metabisulphite per gallon is roughly 1/4 tsp per litre, say 1 gram per litre. This is 1000 ppm! I understand that potassium metabisulphite is around 60% S02, so you have dosed your juice with about 600ppm of sulphite.

The normal dose (say, using Campden Tablets) is 50 -100 ppm of S02 depending on the pH of the juice (yours is probably around 4.0 if you didn't add any acid, so 50-100 ppm would probably be O.K.)

However, it seems that you may have added up to ten times more than you needed which has probably stopped the yeast. I believe the S02 will dissipate over time, but I don't know how long it will take. It is normal to wait for 24+ hours before adding yeast after 50ppm sulphiting, but I don't know how quickly larger doses of S02 dissipate. Even if it dissipates at 50ppm per day, you may be looking at waiting for a week or so. Others might be able to help with this information as I understand that Hydrogen Peroxide will neutralise sulphites, but I don't know anything about this process.

I imagine that once the sulphite level has dropped, adding yeast should start things up... and the "good news" is that any nasties shouldn't survive in the meanwhile.

 

[Brewtopalonian]

Yeah, I gathered some of this info from the aha forums. I am going to try to blast it with straight O2 using my oxygenation system for beer. I'll hit it for a couple minutes and give it a day and try to pitch some more yeast. If it works, I'll do it to the rest of the buckets. If it doesn't work, I'll try the H2O2 method. I found a calculator for determining how much H2O2 to add and it suggests 300ml gradually while stirring, which seems like an awful lot, hence I'm trying the pure O2 first. Thanks for the info! I'll update results.

 

[Midway Island]

I would try cold stabilization for 2 weeks, then rack, check brix count ensure 21 brix is present, pitch nutrient then yeast, keep ambient temp at 23 C.

 

[An Ankoù]

For the record, I've been making cider for years in 30 litre batches (FV size) and I've never used metabisulfite in the juice. I hose the whole apples with water to get any mud or grass off them and them. Then go straight to chopping and scratting. Most rotten bits are rejected, wormy bits go in with the rest.
I use dried cider or champagne yeast. I've never had a batch go off. The OG of my juice is about 1060.
Cider yeasts, in my experience, tend to fizz away gently rather than make a big head like a batch of beer. I also leave them to get on with their business throughout the winter so fermentation is slow. I can usually bottle the cider around Easter.