About a month ago I snagged some cider from an orchard we went to and pitched some Wyeast 3787 into it without reading the label on the cider. Turns out they used potassium sorbate as a preservative…so my yeast didn’t do anything. So I read around on the net a bit…removed my airlock for a few days and swirled it every day…still nothing…so i let it sit…and then i was like wtf mates…so i removed the airlock for a week and just forgot about it. Took a look at it tonight because i saw something on the surface…and it look like a 1-2mm layer of plastic was on top of the cider.
So I shook the hell out of it and put the airlock back in What ya think it is?
Too bad you didn’t ask here how to defeat sorbated cider. Or if you did, I apologize I didn’t see it.
Sorbate stops the replication of yeast, but doesn’t interfere with the fermentation. So what you needed to do is create a huge yeast starter. I have done it in the past by making a Graf, starting the wort fermenting a couple days before adding the cider. If you don’t like graf, then I suppose you could do it by getting a cheapo nontreated apple juice and making a starter with that.