First Cider

[CDSEA]

We started our first cider yesterday.

We used:

- 5 gallons of pasteurized 100% apple juice
- 3# of brown sugar
- 2.5 tsp of yeast nutrient
- 1 vial of White Labs WLP775 Cider Yeast

After sterilizing, the sugar was dissolved in 1 gallon of cider and then mixed with the 4 other gallons in the tank. We pitched in the yeast straight out of the vile into the wort once it cooled to 72 degrees, mixed, added the nutrient, and put the airlock on.

We've had it stored in a 75 degree room for the last 27 hours or so and while it smells good we haven't seen any action out of the airlock.

OG was 1.072 before adding the nutrient and the yeast.

I have a few questions:

Should I be worried that the airlock isn't active yet?
Is there anything we should change (room too hot or too cold?)
Anything else?

 

[MarkKF]

that's just what I did but I used a starter for 24 hrs and no nutrient. But, after 72 hrs mine started bubbling in a 60 degree basement. I'd give it a couple of days. That WL yeast is the bomb!

 

[kurtism]

some might say 75 is too warm and you might get off flavors but i made my high gravity cider at 72 degrees.

just to be sure...the applie juice was preservative free right?

as markkf said...give it 48 hrs. if you have no airlock activity, take a gravity reading just to be sure and consider repitching the yeast.

 

[CDSEA]

The juice was free of preservatives - 100% organic apple juice not from concentrate was the only ingredient on the label.

We gave the fermentor a shake at 36 hours and some trace amounts of liquid leaked through the lid, when we put the airlock back on we had almost instant activity.

Maybe it just needed to wake up real quick?

 

[Daze]

has it clouded??? Remember that in the first few days after you pitch the yeast (up to 72 hours) bubbles are not the best indicator of an active fermentation. The liquid clouding up is a far better indicator of activity. The reason for this is you will not see bubbles until the liquid has become co2 saturated. Perfect example I pitched part of a wild yeast and apple juice starter in a gallon of cider. The starter was bubbling away and you would think that the already active yeast would immediately create bubbles in the cider. however because there is a full gallon of cider just weighting to absorb CO2, at two days later there were still no bubbles, however the cider had clouded so I knew the starter was growing then visible bubbles started on the third day.

I think some times people have the idea that each bubble is created by one yeast, (not to be crude but kind of a yeast fart) but yeast are so small and the amount of co2 that each one is excreting is so minimal that one little bubble is the product of 1000s of yeast. When you are dealing with such small quantities of CO2 it easily dissolves directly in to the liquid until saturation is reached, THEN bubbles start to form.

 

[buffalo]

I used that same yeast a month ago on a 5 gallon batch and it was at around 75 degrees the whole time and it came out fine,very strong alcohol taste and needs to mellow for awhile but overall it turned out good. If you have activity now you should be good at the temp that you mentioned,atleast from my experience using it.

 

[twgardner2]

I agree with everything about CO2 saturation, but it sounds like your bung wasn't on tight and your CO2 was leaking out rather than going through your airlock.

 

[CDSEA]

We're using a 6 gallon plastic fermentation bucket and lid is on tightly but we did get a tiny bit of leakage went we shook it. I'll check how cloudy it is and report back.