Help please: stuck fermentation?

I have an overlarge batch of cider with an OG of 1.080 (OG boosted with brown sugar, honey, and maple syrup) that has fermented down with English cider yeast to a FG of 1.010. I have never had a cider that finished above 1.000. I was going to prime with Lalvin D47 wine yeast and corn sugar to make it sparkling, then bottle. (I do not have the capacity to keg at this time). My question is, is this a recipe for apple-flavored hand grenades? :slight_smile:

I figure I can hydrate the D47 and add it to the batch to see if fermentation kicks off to see if I can get the FG down to where I expected. Any suggestions? Thanks!

How long has it been fermenting and how long has the gravity been at 1.010? I think your original yeast has a fairly high temp range for fermenting, is it possible it just got cool and slowed down?

+1. Have you been patient? If it’s only been fermenting for a couple of weeks, I think you need to give the cider another week or two, then check gravity again. Odds are, it’s still fermenting and just has reached the slow phase. The last few points take the longest to ferment. If you bottle too early, you could get bottle bombs. So be careful.

I concure with the 2 previous posts.

  1. Check the temperature of your fermentation room. “Warmer” definitely gets those little yeasties active.

  2. Patients young Jedi. I don’t usually bottle until after 4 - 6 weeks of fermentation.

  3. As a last resort … throw in some Champagne yeast. That usually makes mine dry as the desert!

Thanks for the replies. I gave the cider 2 weeks in the primary, and the airlock wasn’t putting out a single bubble. There was a fair amount of dissolved CO2 in the cider–I drank a glass straight out of the fermenter, and it was mildly carbonated. In the secondary (and I should add that this cider fills the entire 6.5 gal carboy, with a full 750 cc bottle extra that I served still to excellent reviews), the airlock bubbled for a day, which I took for the dissolved CO2 being released. In the week since, there has been zero airlock activity. The cider would be great if I could carbonate it as is, but I really think that bottle bombs would happen if I bottle it at 1.010. I’ll give it another 2 weeks, and if there’s no movement on the FG, I’ll add champagne yeast. Oblections? Thanks!

Sounds like it still might be doing it’s thing. After three weeks, it might not be off-gassing, but still fermenting slowly. My opinion is, three weeks is still pretty young for a cider, but that’s just me. I generally go about 2 weeks in the primary and a minimum of 4 weeks in the secondary to clear and age some. Then again, I don’t usually start start my plain ciders at anything above 1.055 or so.

I don’t hesitate to bottle a plain cider at 1.004 or even a little higher. By using nottingham and racking early, my ciders don’t usually drop all the way to bone dry.

I think you are right in letting it sit for a couple more weeks and then see where you gravity is.