Delayed cider fermentation question

[Thirsty Mallard]

agreed to the addition of more fermenters since our current one is tied up.

Yeah... I definitely would have to say the major problem you have with fermentation is that you only own one fermenter.

Side note: When reading about only one fermenter does anyone else all of a sudden get very anxious and feel like the walls are closing in on you?

Oh, and welcome to the forums... keep us posted on the cider!

[rhino777]

I remember a time when I never thought I'd need more that the 6.5 and 5 gallon carboys that came with my kit. Now I have 8.

[ravingcutie]

Wow, I go away for a day and the thread is hopping.

I am the primary brewer, although the basic brew setup we have was a gift to my husband for his birthday. He really enjoys craft beer, as do I, and he neglected to specify what he wanted for his birthday this year. So he got a beer kit. All is well, because he happily hoists and hauls the full fermenter from our kitchen down the two staircases to the basement, and other brewing related heavy lifting.

He does hover while I'm brewing, but usually resorts to a game of Madden while the kettle is boiling....but he does cap every single one of the bottles and says nice things about the beer, so I'm not complaining.

He has mentioned that I should not obsess over hops and gave me funny looks when I brought the fermenter into the bedroom. I'm not weird, it's just the only warm room of the house that are kids can't get into.

[ravingcutie]

I need suggestions for pitching a secondary yeast. The English Cider yeast was too tired to finish the job, and I racked to secondary yesterday since I was getting worried about autolysis. (It's been on there just over 6 weeks.)

I'm sitting at 1020, can I do another starter, let it wind down and pitch the whole mess into the fermenter?

If I repitch should I go for more English Cider or perhaps a Chardonnay yeast?

[Lufah]

What was your OG? How dry do you want the cider to end up? I would probably finish this out with Cal Ale yeast. Unless you want it really dry. Then you could use a wine or champagne yeast.

Travis

[ravingcutie]

It's only 58-60 attenuated. That seems really low to me considering how fermentable cider is supposed to be, and I did add a small amount of sugar. I did keep it pretty warm (72) for the past two weeks and got a decent amount of airlock activity, but I'd like it to attenuate more so that I can bottle it.

The upside is that it tastes good right now. I like ciders with a bit of sweetness to them, and this definitely has that!

[Lars]

If it tastes good now, then it is done. Why try to get it to complete dryness only to have to back sweeten it? I have about 15 gallons of cider in fermenters now, some have been in secondary for over a year. I'm not worried about autolysis, especially once it is off the primary yeast.

[ravingcutie]

Now that it's off the yeast, I'm not concerned about autolysis, but I was getting antsy before racking to secondary. The cider had been sitting on mostly dormant yeast for 4 weeks and the same yeast (now actively fermenting) for two more. I thought that 6 weeks was probably pushing the limit of the yeast.

My concern with leaving it as is, is that I don't have a keg system. So I'll either have to serve it out of a carboy until it's done or attenuate it further so that it's safe to bottle.