Potassium Sorbate issue

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jonahk

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I have a conundrum that I'd love some advice on.

I decided to try using Potassium Sorbate in my cider brewing for the first time, in order to suspend fermentation early and preserve apple flavor and some sweetness. I used 3 gallons of pasteurized cider and added some maple syrup and brown sugar to get the OG up to 1062. At around 1030 I liked the taste and pitched 1/2t/gal of Potassium Sorbate (so 1.5t total). Fermentation slowed over the next day or two but it was still bubbling a bit after 5 days so I threw in one more 1/2t just to be sure. After another week or two I took the gravity and it had fully converted (1000).

Questions:
1. Did I do something wrong? Should I have dissolved the potassium sorbate? It seemed likely to dissolve quickly in its solid form. Should I have added it well before it tasted to my liking?
2. Now what? I want to bottle and have carbonation, but I don't know if there's yeast left. My plan was to bottle with a small amount of new yeast to carbonate and now I'm not sure if I need to. Should I add priming sugar to the bottles and just see what happens?

My best guess is that I should just bottle 5 or 6 using some different methods and see what happens after a few weeks in the bottle.
Thoughts?
 
Potassium Sorbate will NOT stop an active fermentation. It doesn't kill yeast, it just prevents them from reproducing. During your ferment there were a few billion active yeast cells doing their thing - you disabled a few of them. It's very likely that there's still enough live yeast to carbonate your cider, but it will not be sweet too. That's a complicated matter to deal with.
 
Yes, you did something wrong. To property use sorbate, you should ferment completely, then add it. Then add sugars to back sweeten. You can't properly bottle carb when using sorbate.
 
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