Wilkos kit cider, 4-6 days later, no where near finished fermenting?

[Samjw]

hello,

Ive made a few different brewing kits before, and understand quite a lot about the whole process.

However recently ive been making a wilkos forest fruits cider kit( (40 pints),
it reccomended puting 1.5KG of sugar into the mix along with the rest of stuff.

However i wanted to make a stronger cider, so i added an extra 0.5Kg to it.

Everything that could possibly sterrilised has been, and the temperature has been as constant as i am able to get it, (screw top bucket with an airlock sat in a large basin of water with two thermostatically controlled aquarium heaters in, set at the correct temperature 20 degrees my house is freezing, so i am confident that the temperature never exceeds this))

The Starting gravity was 1.052. It said to let it ferment for 4-6 days, untill it had finished primary fermentation.

however the bubbling in the airlock has slowed, but after nearly 9 days, the SG is still 1.022.

is there a problem or reason why the fermentation time is so drastically much more? how long could i expect to wait?

is there any tips on what i should actually do next?

Hoping this isnt a problem or my christmas may not be so merry!

thank you

 

[Thomas007]

Are you sure that SG is correct? My cider started out at 1.052 and I didn't add any sugar at all. I'm guessing, but maybe the sugar was unevenly mixed and you didn't get an accurate hydrometer sample...

 

[Samjw]

That may be the case, but even if it was, why would it still be fermenting for all this extra time? do you think it will reach 1.006 as a FG to be able to be bottled?

 

[TAPPAR]

It doesn't seem that unusual for it to be fermenting that many days out. There are so many variables in the yeast colony I wouldn't worry if the gravity is still dropping. If it needs helped along or you want to to go faster you could try raising the temp a bit, I usually ferment in a room set to 70f with no water bath (so the temp of the ferment is probably higher) although it sounds like your setup is more optimal the lower temp will make it go slower

It will need to age anyway to be its best so I wouldn't worry about it setting in the primary for an extra week.