Cider in primary w/nottingham...how long can it stay there?

I have 5 gal of cranberry-apple cider fermenting with Nottingham ale yeast, and I'm wondering how long I can keep it in primary before I run the risk of off-flavors from autolysis? I don't have a second carboy or bucket (I know, I'll get one soon!) and I know Edwort's apfelwein stays in primary for the whole time, but I'm wondering if the fact that I'm using an ale yeast rather than a wine yeast changes things?

I have never experience autolysis, but from what I understand you can leave it there over two months without much worry.
Hopefully an expert can chime in here and correct me if I'm wrong.

I used lavlin EC-1113, and left it in for six months. It turned out great

There have been several studies (even John Palmer and Jamil Zainasheff) that show that with the quality of modern yeast, autolysis simply does not happen at homebrew or even microbrewery batch sizes. It really takes larger vessels where there is a significant WEIGHT/PRESSURE LEVEL of beer pushing down on the yeast cake, like 100BBL+ before autolysis is a concern.

RDWHAHB. I routinely leave beers and ciders in primary for 3-4 months, and it only makes them better.

I make my hard ciders at a little over 6% ABV, and they seem to peak around the 5-6 month mark, so ideally, I'd leave them all in primary for a good 4 months. I'm always way too impatient to drink them, so I typically age them for more like 2 months, then drink, but inevitably, the last pint is always the best one!

Good luck!

Thanks everyone! Much appreciated. I think I'm going to leave it for a bit longer. I've got some bottles that aren't being used right now, and between them and 3 1 gal jugs I'm hoping to split the batch to experiment. Fingers crossed!

How are you backsweetening your cider, or are you going for a dry English style?

I'm not sure yet...I do like it fairly dry, but I have some xylitol (sugar alcohol from birch trees!) that I might use a bit of if I decide it could use it. I usually really really dislike the flavors of artificial sweeteners, but I've been trying this in different applications and it seems to have no aftertaste, at least in the lower concentrations.

Either way, I tend to prefer English style, so if I do sweeten it'll probably be more in a salting-your-food way rather than an attempt to make it actually sweet...if that makes sense?