Fermenting K1-V1116 low and slow?

[TandemTails]

I usually pitch Lalvin D47 into my ciders and ferment really low (58'F or so). I heard good things about K1-V1116 with cider so I picked up a packet for my next batch.

The tolerable range for K1 goes down to 50'F. Should I ferment that low or just stick with something around the upper 50's?

I have 5 gallons of store bought cider (not from concentrate, heat pasteurized) w/ honeycrisp juice added, 2 quarts of pure pear juice, 6 lbs of granny smiths and 1 lb of pears (i'll be juicing the apples and pears for added acids and tannins that might be lacking in the store bought juice). I'll also steep 3 black tea bags in about a cup and a half of water and add that for added tannins.

 

[MarkKF]

Sounds great wish I could taste it.

 

[Maylar]

I wish I had temperature control like that. K1V at 50° with no nutrients. Rack to secondary at 1/2 gravity. Let it finish some time in March. Report back when you bottle next September.

 

[mwilcox]

I have 1116 fermenting away at 49-51 right now. properly hydrated, with overnight in the 60's to get going before I put it in the cold room, it has been slowly chewing through with no noticeable hydrogen sulfide despite the less than ideal conditions.

 

[TandemTails]

I pitched the yeast last night and put it in the ferm chamber set to 50'F. I rehydrated the packet of yeast with 6.25g of GoFerm and 125g of water at about 105'F.

As of this afternoon there is no noticeable krausen or airlock activity. I just bumped the ferm chamber up to 63'F in hopes of waking the yeast up then I'll drop it back down.

By now I usually see active fermentation with my other yeasts. I'm starting to wonder if I need to spin up a starter of D47 from my yeast bank in case this doesn't take off.

//Edit: At yeast pitch, the pH was 3.7 and the OG was 1.052. Should have been perfect conditions for the yeast.

 

[Maylar]

Most yeasts want you to pitch at room temp (about 70 ish), then after the lag phase you can drop to your ferment temp. Might take a while to start up at 50.

 

[Scrumpy!]

If you are starting it in a carboy, you may be suffocating your yeast before it can get established.

Before adding anything or pitching another batch of yeast, I would warm it to 65-70, aerate it by pouring it into a plastic bucket, and covering the opening with cheesecloth so some air can get in. Initial growth of yeast (lag phase) is aerobic so cutting off the 02 with your closed container after pitching the yeast will slow its transition to anaerobic feeding phase and it might make a struggling population vulnerable to greedy and less friendly microorganisms.

Heavy production of CO2 is evidence of the anaerobic phase where our microscopic work force is busy making hooch. Once you have a substantial cover of foam, you can cap and airlock the bucket and move it to a place that is 60 or even the low 50s until it slows down enough to rack to a carboy.

Keep that in the low 50s until you are ready to bottle.

 

[TandemTails]

Thanks scrumpy. I've got it in a big mouth bubbler. I bumped the temp up to 68 a few hours ago. I just opened it and aerated it again.

I've got some d47 starting up now just in case

 

[TandemTails]

Well, I'm really testing out my sanitation procedures with this one. 12 hours post aerating at 68'F there's still no signs of fermentation. No co2 release when swirling the big mouth bubbler, no co2 rafts or airlock activity.

I made a DME starter yesterday afternoon for some D47 I had in the fridge. After cooling down to pitching temps I noticed a fruit fly had somehow gotten in there right as I was about to pitch the yeast I had saved. I'm not sure when in the process it got in there (I'm guessing it either flew into the DME as it was boiling or when transferring to the growler I'm using for the starter).

After dumping that, it was now about 9:30pm so I whipped up another batch but knew it wouldn't cool down to pitching temps before bed. I finally pitched the D47 into the starter this morning so it probably won't be until late tonight at the earliest when i can pitch that -- a full 48 hours after the first pitch of k1v.

The only thing I'm a little concerned with is that I juiced about 15 apples/pears and added that to the must without using a campden tablet first since I figured the k1v would dominate any wild yeasts or bacteria that might have been hanging out on them.

To top it all off, I leave for a week and a half vacation tomorrow afternoon so I won't be able to monitor the start of fermentation, haha. Adventures in cider making I guess

 

[Maylar]

Since both K1V and D47 are active competitive factor yeasts, I wonder if they'll play together?

 

[TandemTails]

Since both K1V and D47 are active competitive factor yeasts, I wonder if they'll play together?

At this point i'm pretty convinced the packet k1v I got wasn't viable. It had an expiration date of 10/2017 but who knows what happened to the yeast between the manufacturer and the LHBS.

According to Lalvin's website (http://www.lalvinyeast.com/company/products/icv-k1v-1116-wine-yeast), K1V should have had no problem starting up.

The K1V-1116 strain is a rapid starter with a constant and complete fermentation between 10° and 35°C (50° and 95°F), capable of surviving a number of difficult conditions, such as low nutrient musts and high levels of sulfur dioxide (SO2) or sugar. Wines fermented with the K1V-1116 have very low volatile acidity, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and foam production.

Even if I put the yeast into dormant mode during that initial 8-12 hours at 50 degrees, sitting in the mid to high 60's for the last 24 hours should have woken it up.