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When will this thing stop? :)

Cider
#1

I started my cider on 10/15/11, using WL cider yeast, and have kept the cider at about 65* to 66* for the entire time. My OG was 1.054 (which I gather is pretty good for not adding any sugars). It took about 4 days for fermentation to kick in, but then it progressed nicely.

On 10/28/11 I transferred it to a secondary and added 1 tsp of nutrient.

It is now 11/08/11, and I still get a bubble in the airlock about once every 2-3 minutes. I normally don’t check a gravity until bubbling has stopped completely as I see no point in doing that.

Can anyone with more experience give me a ballpark guesstimate on how long this may take? I realize that aging it in the carboy can be a good thing, but I need to get my carboy back into production so I’m anxious to bottle this cider (plus I’m starting to worry that I’ll have to find a hiding place for this urgly beast when I have people over for Thanksgiving, as right now it is sitting in my dining room!). :roll:

(woohoo! post #100 and suddenly I’m a master brewer! :cheers: )

#2

Mine take around 3-4 weeks when racked at 1.025-1.020.

#3

Yikes, so there is a chance that it won’t be ready to bottle by T-day. :frowning:

#4

I just bottled 2 of my 8 batches yesterday. They’ve been ready for a whole week already. They both had Cote des Blancs yeast, and I finished them up for about a week at 70 F. FG=0.999. If you want to speed up fermentation, just raise the temperature to about 70 F for a week or two, they’ll finish faster that way.

The other 6 of 8 batches using US-05, S-04, and Brett are still chugging away slowly at around 50 F, or at least they were a week ago when I last checked (time to check again), still losing a few points a week each. They’re probably all around 1.010 now as they were all about 1.015 last time I looked. I hope they quit soon so I won’t need to backsweeten. I might add another dose of sorbate to get them down to a real crawl, then maybe I can bottle in another week or two (crossing my fingers).

Funny how sometimes you want fermentation to be slow, sometimes you need it fast, and it never seems to do exactly what you want or expect…

Play with temperature. That’s a good bet.

You could also kill fermentation with sulfite or heat, and clarify with gelatin, which would also serve to scum up any remaining cells to slow them down even further. Might be worth a shot if you’re getting antsy. Taste the cider. If it’s dry enough for you, you can go ahead and kill 'em if you want. No need to ferment to total dryness.

#5

You’re getting good advice here. When I do a cider, I plan on 6 months before bottling, but I let mine cellar for at least a year. Cider is slow to ferment and clear, so it doesn’t sound like anything’s wrong. Taste it and take a gravity reading. That’ll tell you a lot.

#6

Hi everyone,

Please accept my apologies for not getting back here to acknowledge the advice you have given me. There’s been a few fiascoes this past week and I haven’t had the time to do anything ‘fun’ on the computer. :frowning:

I won’t try to force my cider to finish, so it will be decorating my laundry room during Thanksgiving. I won’t be able to mess with taking a sample until after this weekend when the dust blows over.

Happy Thanksgiving guys!

#7

I was going to post a similar question. Its been a week at 69 and it has only fallen from 1.051 to 1.031. There is a ton of activity in the airlock and I expected it to be much lower. So it sounds ok that its taken so slow to attenuate?

#8

Patience. Cider takes longer to ferment than a beer would.

#9

Should I wait for it to stop before racking to the secondary and adding the pectic enzymes?

#10

It doesn’t matter what you do to it, except maybe for temperature. You can rack it, or not, at any time. Personally I rack all my cider when it gets to a specific gravity of about 1.020, but realize that doing so will slow down your fermentation even more, so this might not be the best idea if it’s already going slow. I haven’t ever used pectic enzyme so I’m not exactly sure what it will do if added later during fermentation. Some of my cider currently in the fermenters is cloudy, but I know a little gelatin will make that go away when I’m ready to bottle so I’m not worried about it in the slightest.

#11

I’m not used to fermentation taking this long so I’m trying to be patient. I likely will rake no matter what the gravity is on Friday cause I have the time to do it.

#12

If you don’t want to slow it down, then you shouldn’t rack it. It will be fine in primary for at least a month.

FWIW, my ciders are almost 2 months old and are STILL actively fermenting. Of course, the temperature has been in the 40s so that’s slowing things down as well. If you bring to 70 F or more, fermentation should speed right up, if you want.

#13

[quote=“dmtaylo2”]If you don’t want to slow it down, then you shouldn’t rack it. It will be fine in primary for at least a month.

FWIW, my ciders are almost 2 months old and are STILL actively fermenting. Of course, the temperature has been in the 40s so that’s slowing things down as well. If you bring to 70 F or more, fermentation should speed right up, if you want.[/quote]

I’ve had it at 69 for around a week now. So we’ll see.

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