Help! Not fermenting in Secondary.

[benyalom]

Hi all - I racked four gallons of cider that had completely stopped bubbling into secondary, topping off with a good amount of fresh cider. After three days I see no signs of secondary fermentation.

It sat in the initial fermentation for several weeks after activity had ceased, which has never been a problem before.

Any ideas what to do?

 

[bernardsmith]

It is possible that racking you racked off the most viable part of the yeast colony and now you need to wait until the colony reproduces enough for you to observe any reduction in gravity. Or it is possible that you added cider that had been doctored to prevent it from fermenting.
What I might do is take a pint of the cider and add some sugar. Measure the gravity and then allow this to sit for three or four days and see if there is any reduction in gravity...

 

[kgressler]

Is your secondary vessel air tight? Mean the lid may have a slight leak so no airlock activity is seen it just escaping out of the top.
I've got two 1 gallon experimental batches going in the jugs the cider came in and one is showing airlock activity the other is showing nothing. They are the exact same cider yeast etc. One just has a tighter seal so its showing airlock activity.

 

[DaMonkey]

Any ideas what to do?

Add more yeast? Add Nutrients? Unless your ABV is 14%+ either of those or both should work.

 

[ohiochris]

You may not actually see signs of activity in secondary. Sometimes you do and sometimes you dont , unless you stand there staring at it for 12 hours or so. You have to remember the bubbling stopped already in primary , which means the activity has slowed considerably and it "may" not pick back up much again after transfer. Unless there is a contamination issue , the fermentation process is still going on long after visible signs have stopped. The available sugar is nearly depleted but fermentation goes on at a drastically slower level. Especially at cooler temperatures. The process is usually still going on after bottling even if you dont add any sugar for carbonation. I dont think its anything to worry about , Ive had cider be very active in secondary and Ive had times where there seemed to be nothing , yet it all turned out like it should.

 

[bu_gee]

I would suspect potassium sorbate.