Fermenting?

I have done ALOT of reading prior to doing my first cider. here is what i have going on:
5 gallons of apple cider bought from the local orchard, UV treated but nothing else added. OG was 1.048 so i added 2 1/2 cups light brown sugar and brought it up to 1.055. Put this in my 6 gallon better bottle carboy with 6 crushed campden tablets and let it sit for 30 hours. I then added some S-04 dry yeast at 6 a.m. friday morning. temp was staying around 66 degrees.
I know with cider not very much happens with fermentation, but shouldn’t i have “seen” something. I called the LHBS (which sucks because it is 2 hours away) and they told me to take my carboy and put it in the tub with 80 degree water and aggitate the yeast a bit. still didn’t really notice anything, except it smelled like sulfer which is a good thing.
Sunday, 8 p.m. checked my gravity and i was at 1.052. am i good or should i add more yeast? Won’t be able to get any for a couple days because i will have to have it shipped.

My cider has been fermenting for almost a month…my OG was around 1.060, I have kept mine at a constant 60 degrees in my basement. I periodically check the gravity…last reading a week and a half ago was down around 1.033. Also, this is my first batch, so I am not sure if this is common, or if you and I are both just having crap(ish) luck on the ferment. Anyway, to play it safe, I pitched a packet of US-05 at my last gravity reading in hopes it would speed it up a bit. I will take another reading this weekend.

I am a little dissappointed with the progress on mine. Started Mid October, and was hoping to have a drinkable bevvy for the family on Thanksgiving. it might still turn out that way, but not quite sure yet.

Well i called the LHBS yesterday and they said i could either wait or pitch more. So i ordered another packet of s-04 and some yeast nutriets. Hopefully be here today and then we shall see what happens from there.
Im in the same boat as you n8young, i was hoping to have this ready on tap by christmas.

beardus, even if you do nothing and don’t add any more yeast, my bet is that fermentation is going to explode (well not literally) in the next 48-72 hours. Then it will slow down to a crawl all the way up to about Christmas time. If you want it done faster, get it up to the low to mid 70s in temperature, and that will speed things up dramatically. Nutrients and more yeast are also a good idea if you’re in a hurry. But if you weren’t in a hurry, everything would be just fine on its own.

i was wondering when you would chime in Dave. I already have the yeast coming, so i am going to toss it in and see what happens. Now, is it still possible to save some of my yeast cake, like my other brews and pitch that into another 5 gallons of cider when i move it to a secondary?

Yes, I think reusing the yeast is an excellent idea.

You may want to try rousing your yeast, shaking up the carboy or something to get the yeast back into suspension and working again. It also seems to take a while in this phase where the gravity drops but slowly. Some of the yeasts are so flocculent that they will drop out before they’re done. Stirring it up will help get them working again.

I’ve found that ciders take a while to ferment out. I don’t know exactly why that is (anybody know what the sugar composition of apples is?), but I leave mine for at least 2 months, and I know of an award winning cider that the brewer claims to leave for 3 years before bottling.