Strange results from a known good recipe

[fatjay]

Last year I was feeling lazy. I threw 2lb brown sugar, 1 cinnemon stick, 4 cloves into the 1gal carboy, filled with apple juice from costco, ec1118 yeast. It sat for 2 weeks until the bubbles stopped. I bottled it, and drank it. And it was damned good.

I've since repeated this 4 times, and and great results.

This time it's different. This time, I made 6 gallons. I adjusted the recipe accordingly.

Waited 3 weeks, bubbler stopped at 2, bottled it off, and now I'm sitting here sipping on the first bottle. I can't taste the alcohol, and it's to sweet. And it has a slight aftertaste which isn't' entirely pleasant.

I am not an expert, mostly trial and error. I thought I had something solid. Not sure where I went wrong.

Is there a way I can save this?

 

[An Ankoù]

Was it the same apple juice? Can you check to see whether it contained any artificial sweeteners?

 

[fatjay]

Costco apple juice every time. I don't have the bottle off hand, but I don't think it had any artificial sweeteners.

 

[madscientist451]

They might have added a preservative to the juice. Carefully look at labels when you use industrial juice. Get a hydrometer and take before and after gravity readings. If the apple wine is too sweet, your fermentation likely stalled after the simple sugar was used up. Also, cheap apple juice is often made from cheap concentrate from China. The manufacturing process might have changed, and apples themselves are not the same every season.

 

[Kickass]

Did you take gravity measurements?

 

[fatjay]

I didn't take gravity measurements. It says fresh pressed, not from concentrate, and 100% US grown apples.

 

[DaveC73]

Maybe old/bad/off packet of yeast? Try getting a new packet and repitching?

 

[fluketamer]

was the temperature different than ususal

 

[Kickass]

It’s not too late to bit a hydrometer and check the gravity. That might help diagnose problems.

 

[Chalkyt]

Sounds like it stalled, possibly because of preservatives as suggested above. The other issue with bought juice is that it can be low in nutrients because of the apple type or storage time. As suggested above, try pitching new yeast and add a nutrient like DAP, then monitor SG with a hydrometer to see if things start moving. Perhaps do this with a gallon. You should see fresh bubbles and hydrometer movement in a week or so. If you add DAP, 1/4 teaspoon per gallon will be enough.

Good luck, we all have dramas from time to time!

 

[fatjay]

I already reused the carboy for wine, i've sent 4 people messages on marketplace with carboys for sale and no one has replied.

Soon as i get one i'll empty the bottles into the carboy and try to get it going again.

 

[fatjay]

I just realized I forgot nutrients this time around. Would that really have that much of an effect?

 

[fluketamer]

I just realized I forgot nutrients this time around. Would that really have that much of an effect?

yes it can

 

[fatjay]

Why do people even list crap for sale on marketplace if they don't want to sell it. 6 people i've messaged to buy their carboys and no one has responded.

 

[Kickass]

Are any of them selling a hydrometer?

 

[fatjay]

I have a hydrometer but i have a bad habit of not taking measurements and going off bubble action.

 

[Chalkyt]

As fluketamer said... "Yes it can".

Sorry if this gets a little technical, but it is worth understanding what goes on so you can deal with a stalled fermentation (if indeed that is your problem).

If I read your numbers right, your original SG 1.050 juice would have about 110g/L of fermentable sugar. The 2lb of sugar per gallon adds another 230g/L so the end result is 340g/L of sugar. Now this is a bit of rough arithmetic, but according to Vinolab your starting point is a SG of over 1.100 and potential alcohol over 17% ABV… a hydrometer is your friend! Do those numbers sound about right?

Yeast needs nutrient in the form of YAN (Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen) for a strong cider fermentation, but the only YAN that you have (without adding nutrient) is in the juice. The sugar doesn’t contribute any, so if the yeast runs out of YAN they simply stop working.

To quote Claude Jolicoeur, "apple juice is generally poorer in natural nutrients than other fruit juices". Research has shown that about 10ppm (10 mg/L) of YAN is needed for yeast to ferment 10 gravity points (SG 0.010). So, to fully ferment your juice the yeast would need to start with over 100ppm of YAN, and you might have just fluked it with the smaller batches. The problem here is that although different AJs typically have 50 -100ppm of YAN, some apples have less than this. Also, apples from old unfertilised trees, late picked and very ripe apples can be low in YAN. As well, I understand that juice that has been in cold storage for some time (such as store-bought juice) may develop a depletion in YAN levels and you usually don't know what the blend is. i.e. “shop bought juice” can be a mystery and have some of the above issues. You certainly can’t rely on having 100ppm of YAN.

I have experienced stalling due to nutrient depletion where fermentation stops around 1.010 - 1.020 since my own orchard apples suffer the "tripple whammy" of being from old, unfertilised trees and are generally picked late in Fall when they are ready to drop naturally.

A readily available nutrient is DAP (Diammonium Phosphate) which is about 20%YAN, so adding 50ppm of DAP (50mg/L which is 10mg/L YAN) per 0.010 of required SG drop should move a stalled fermentation along. For "insurance" I will sometimes add a gram (a bit less than 1/4 teaspoon) of DAP per 5 litres at about half-way through fermentation (i.e. SG 1.020 - 1.030) to ensure that I end up at 1.000. Adding DAP at the start can result in a fermentation frenzy which really isn’t desirable. The dosage of other nutrient compounds like Fermaid is about the same.

So, it seems to me that your cider may simply have simply run out of nutrient. Adding DAP or similar should fix the problem.

Phew, I hope that makes sense to you.

 

[fatjay]

As fluketamer said... "Yes it can".

Sorry if this gets a little technical, but it is worth understanding what goes on so you can deal with a stalled fermentation (if indeed that is your problem).

If I read your numbers right, your original SG 1.050 juice would have about 110g/L of fermentable sugar. The 2lb of sugar per gallon adds another 230g/L so the end result is 340g/L of sugar. Now this is a bit of rough arithmetic, but according to Vinolab your starting point is a SG of over 1.100 and potential alcohol over 17% ABV… a hydrometer is your friend! Do those numbers sound about right?

Yeast needs nutrient in the form of YAN (Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen) for a strong cider fermentation, but the only YAN that you have (without adding nutrient) is in the juice. The sugar doesn’t contribute any, so if the yeast runs out of YAN they simply stop working.

To quote Claude Jolicoeur, "apple juice is generally poorer in natural nutrients than other fruit juices". Research has shown that about 10ppm (10 mg/L) of YAN is needed for yeast to ferment 10 gravity points (SG 0.010). So, to fully ferment your juice the yeast would need to start with over 100ppm of YAN, and you might have just fluked it with the smaller batches. The problem here is that although different AJs typically have 50 -100ppm of YAN, some apples have less than this. Also, apples from old unfertilised trees, late picked and very ripe apples can be low in YAN. As well, I understand that juice that has been in cold storage for some time (such as store-bought juice) may develop a depletion in YAN levels and you usually don't know what the blend is. i.e. “shop bought juice” can be a mystery and have some of the above issues. You certainly can’t rely on having 100ppm of YAN.

I have experienced stalling due to nutrient depletion where fermentation stops around 1.010 - 1.020 since my own orchard apples suffer the "tripple whammy" of being from old, unfertilised trees and are generally picked late in Fall when they are ready to drop naturally.

A readily available nutrient is DAP (Diammonium Phosphate) which is about 20%YAN, so adding 50ppm of DAP (50mg/L which is 10mg/L YAN) per 0.010 of required SG drop should move a stalled fermentation along. For "insurance" I will sometimes add a gram (a bit less than 1/4 teaspoon) of DAP per 5 litres at about half-way through fermentation (i.e. SG 1.020 - 1.030) to ensure that I end up at 1.000. Adding DAP at the start can result in a fermentation frenzy which really isn’t desirable. The dosage of other nutrient compounds like Fermaid is about the same.

So, it seems to me that your cider may simply have simply run out of nutrient. Adding DAP or similar should fix the problem.

Phew, I hope that makes sense to you.

Perfect sense, and this confirmed many of my suspicians. I do like reading hard numbers, but the numbers are absorbed by my brain and it spits out answers, sometimes with me not knowing how.

EC1118 tops out at 18%, so your 17% sounds spot on. Especially considering I often drink 100ml of old forester 100 proof bourbon before bed as a sleep aid. It's sort of a magic number, because less and I wake up a dozen times, more and i wake up poorly. I drank ~15 bottles of my previous ciders at 300ml per pour, and it gave me very similar sleep. How's that for as unscientific as it gets?

I do remember months ago reading about YAN, and apple juice having a poor amount of it. And previous brews, i did add nutrients on days 1-3-5. For whatever reason, it completely skipped my mind this time and didn't even re-enter it until you mentioned it earlier.

I did get ahold of a 6gal carboy, cleaned it out real good, dumped 27 bottles back in, yeast, nutrients. It's going now and looks good.

Thank you for the detailed explanation, it is really helpful.

 

[fatjay]

It's been just over a week, it's bubbling very slowly. Added 5tsp nutrients to repitched yeast on day 2 and 4.

Last night I took gravity measurements and if i'm reading this right, it's at 1.054? and I'm shooting for 1.000?

 

[Chalkyt]

It is not unusual for it to take a few weeks for "normal" AJ to ferment from 1.050 down towards 1.000.
In your case the starting FG was probably a lot higher than this because of the added sugar. Also, the other stuff (cinnamon and cloves) could have some effect on SG. Because these are non-fermentable, this effect should be constant (i.e. shouldn't change with fermentation progress), but we don't know what this effect would be.

So, although you are reading the hydrometer correctly, there is no way of knowing if the reading accurately reflects the remaining sugar content of the cider, BUT a change in hydrometer reading over time will indicate if the sugar is still being fermented.

You seem to have another 1.054 to go but don't know if it will ever get as low as 1.000 because of the level of possible non-fermentables. So, give it another couple of weeks and monitor to see if the hydrometer reading is changing. This will indicate that fermentation of the sugar is still in progress. If you reach a point where the reading doesn't change then you can assume that fermentation has stopped.

At that point... taste it. If the cider is very sweet, then something is stopping fermentation. If it tastes O.K. then any non-fermentables are resulting in the "high" final gravity.

 

[fatjay]

Still very sweet nearly 2 months later, pitched yeast again and 3 treatments of 1oz of nutrients, and low alcohol content. Measurement is 1.050, barely any progress. It seemed active when it was going for the first week, then basically stalled.

Is it a lost cause at this point, nearly 2 months later?