Need to re-yeast bottle conditioned cider

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kgranger

Small Wave Brewing
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I bottled up a batch of dry cider, and used CBC-1 dry bottle conditioning yeast, their calculator gave me 2g/ 5oz yeast to sugar for 5.5 gal batch. The packet outlines the process of rehydrating: sprinkle yeast on the sugar solution at 95º, wait 15 min, stir and wait 5 more min. Seemed hydrated enough visually. Poured into the bottling bucket, racked cider on top, and bottled away. It was only after the last bottle, looking in the bucket, I noticed that most, if not all of the yeast granules sunk to the bottom and never made it out in solution. The bottling only took about 25 min starting immediately after racking, so it's not like I let it sit and settle too long. Not sure why it didn't hydrate and dissolve into solution, but now I'm probably going to have to re-yeast these bottles. Sugar solution should be well dissolved in each bottle, so I guess I just need to add a bit of yeast to each bottle. I've read that people have had luck adding 4-5 granules of yeast to each bottle in this situation, my question is how the heck am I measuring this out? Any advice on a method to do this without accidentally pouring a gram into a bottle?
 
Never faced this situation, but if I were I think that I would rehydrate new yeast in 50 ml or so of water and use an eyedropper or syringe to put a measured amount into each bottle.

That said, i am curious why you think bottling yeast is necessary. Did you treat this cider with sulfites? If not, I would probably just give it time before attempting a repair.
 
So I actually had two carboys of the same cider, spontaneously fermented all the way to 1.000 FG. I bottled one half of it a couple months ago, same exact process, and even today not one has even the slightest level of carb. When I finished this second batch, and noticed the amount of yeast left behind not disolved, I figured the same thing happened last time.
 
Wild yeasts often release "killer glycoproteins" (aka "competative factor") that other yeasts are sensitive to, so you should choose a priming yeast with this in mind.

Priming with a strain like EC-1118 is a good choice. It has a good competitive factor along with low nutrient requirements (your cider is too short of nutrients and oxygen for a K1/killer strain like K1v1116)

EC is well regarded as well because when nutrients are short and temps are kept to the low to mid part of it's range (fermenting range is 50* to 86* F), it is a decent SO2 producer which also helps in protection from interference from other wild strains and spoilage microorganisms ... and because of the SO2 unintended Malolactic fermentation will be inhibited.
EC also resists hydrogen sulfide production in these conditions.
 
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