Hi everybody! I started my first batch of cider 11 days ago.
5 gallons of unfiltered pasteurized apple juice
6 pounds table sugar
1 packet of 11g Nottingham yeast, reconstituted in 4 oz water for 15 min
Starting gravity was 1.090
Last night, after 10 days, the gravity reading was 1.024, and the sample still tasted way too sweet, but had great apple flavor. I left the hydrometer floating inside the 6 gallon carboy and overnight it went down to about 1.018, so the yeast is still working on the sugar - faster than I thought was possible
Two questions:
I. I don't want the yeast to strip all the apple flavor, as is suggested in some of the posts that I read here. If I wait for my preferred flavor profile and then rack the cider into a secondary carboy, would that really stop the fermentation? Won't there be billions of yeast cells in suspension that would simply multiply and resume their feast? I used so much sugar because I hoped the yeast would quit before using all of it - I don't want a cider that is too dry and flavorless.
II. The cider is still as cloudy as the original unfiltered juice. Is it too late for me to dump some pectic enzyme into the carboy? Would it help if I add the enzyme to the secondary carboy when I rack this cider from primary?
5 gallons of unfiltered pasteurized apple juice
6 pounds table sugar
1 packet of 11g Nottingham yeast, reconstituted in 4 oz water for 15 min
Starting gravity was 1.090
Last night, after 10 days, the gravity reading was 1.024, and the sample still tasted way too sweet, but had great apple flavor. I left the hydrometer floating inside the 6 gallon carboy and overnight it went down to about 1.018, so the yeast is still working on the sugar - faster than I thought was possible
Two questions:
I. I don't want the yeast to strip all the apple flavor, as is suggested in some of the posts that I read here. If I wait for my preferred flavor profile and then rack the cider into a secondary carboy, would that really stop the fermentation? Won't there be billions of yeast cells in suspension that would simply multiply and resume their feast? I used so much sugar because I hoped the yeast would quit before using all of it - I don't want a cider that is too dry and flavorless.
II. The cider is still as cloudy as the original unfiltered juice. Is it too late for me to dump some pectic enzyme into the carboy? Would it help if I add the enzyme to the secondary carboy when I rack this cider from primary?