Stuck Bottle Conditioning

[Alan Adams]

Hi All, 

Hoping to get some advice for my current batch of cider. It had a long, slow wild ferment over the winter. We racked it towards the end of fermentation, then added 50ppm of sulphites and some sugar prior to bottling. It's been in bottle for a few months at this point and has not produced any carbonation beyond the barest "psssht" when opened. I checked the SG from a bottle and it is 1.004, which is about what I was aiming for when we added sugar. Our bottles always finish out at 0.998.  I figure my mistake was not adding some additional yeast or possibly DAP at bottling to ensure it would ferment to completion, but I've never needed that with my past batches of cider. I think this is down to the apples we used - we went to a different, lower input orchard and had more cider varieties in the blend, hence the slower fermentation. How best to address this? Everyone who drinks our cider wants a sparkling product, and my partner in making this batch wants a few cases for his wedding this fall. I figure I can pop the caps off and add a small dose of yeast or DAP to get things moving. Thoughts? 

Thanks,

Alan

[Casa de Oro Cider]

I have noticed with wild ferments that warmer temperatures tend to ensure complete fermentations. I do use about a 1/3 of the recommended dosage of nutrient, just to ensure completion, but have found that it's not completely necessary.

The other, more immediate option would be to, yes, open the bottles, pitch a workhorse yeast (1118) and let it go. I have done this without the addition of dap with .006 gravity points left (I use belgian bottles with a cork and cage) and found it to work just fine. Granted it was a 3% ciderkin so the environment wasn't all together too inhospitable but even at 6& or 7%, something like 1118 shouldn't have an issue. I would also let them sit at room temperature (versus cellar) for extra insurance.

hope that helps.

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Anthony López

Maestro Sidrero

www.casadeorocider.com

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[terryc...@gmail.com]

I have occasionlly had the same issue with stalling somewhere between SG 1.015 and 1.010, especially if using an ale yeast like S04 which has a high demand for nutrients. The trees in my small orchard are unfertilised and old, so I suspect my apples might be a bit low in YAN with not enough for complete fermentation. Decanting and adding a small amount of DAP (and sometimes yeast, for insurance) then rebottling  seems to fix the problem.

FYI the last episode involved bottling at SG 1.011, monitoring carbonation pressure, and planning to pasteurise at about 1.6 bar for something like FG 1.006. It initially stalled at 1 bar (just a psst on opening). Rebottling with added sugar back to SG1.011, a pinch of yeast and DAP resulted in 1.6bar (for 2.5 volumes of C02) at SG 1.005... just about what I wanted.

I dose according to Claude and Andrew''s suggestion that 40-50ppm of DAP is needed for a 10 gravity point drop in a stalled ferment. 

[Alan Adams]

Thanks for the feedback, Terry and Anthony. I'll test a few bottles with a small dose of yeast and see how they respond. We're moving into some hotter weather so maybe the rest will finish conditioning while I wait for the tests to finish and the whole point will be moot. 

Alan