BeerBaron1985
The Beer Baron
Hello all!
Long time lurker now a member. I can really use some expertise with cider. I've been brewing for about 8 years. Only in the last two years have I really kicked into overdrive. Anyways, went to my local orchard and got 12 gallons (two 6 gallon fermenters) of delish unpasteurized cider. I'm using British Ale yeast.
So i pitched at 62 this past Saturday and as of today Tuesday its been bubbling aggressively. I didn't add any extra yeast nutrient, nor did I use potassium metabisulfite...yet. I got home from work today and the basement smelt something fierce of sulfur. Rhinofarts from what I've read on here. So I opened up the house to air it out, and read on here that the sulfur smell was from low levels of nutrients for the yeast. So I added 3 teaspoons a piece of nutrients to each fermenter after sanitizing my hands and equipment.
Now where I think I screwed up is this. I panicked thinking the sulfur smell meant the batch was infected and also added about 2 teaspoons of potassium metabisulfite to each fermenter, and this is after the yeast was pitched. I then opened up the fermenter and stirred them in the open air to aerate them (I know bad idea, risk of infection)
Did I just kill all that vigorous yeast? My air locks are still bubbling, but far slower, like a bubble every other minute or so instead of several every few seconds.
Is the batch no good? Can I save $118 bucks of cider? Or should I dump down the drain, start from scratch, and take the $130~ lesson move on???
Long time lurker now a member. I can really use some expertise with cider. I've been brewing for about 8 years. Only in the last two years have I really kicked into overdrive. Anyways, went to my local orchard and got 12 gallons (two 6 gallon fermenters) of delish unpasteurized cider. I'm using British Ale yeast.
So i pitched at 62 this past Saturday and as of today Tuesday its been bubbling aggressively. I didn't add any extra yeast nutrient, nor did I use potassium metabisulfite...yet. I got home from work today and the basement smelt something fierce of sulfur. Rhinofarts from what I've read on here. So I opened up the house to air it out, and read on here that the sulfur smell was from low levels of nutrients for the yeast. So I added 3 teaspoons a piece of nutrients to each fermenter after sanitizing my hands and equipment.
Now where I think I screwed up is this. I panicked thinking the sulfur smell meant the batch was infected and also added about 2 teaspoons of potassium metabisulfite to each fermenter, and this is after the yeast was pitched. I then opened up the fermenter and stirred them in the open air to aerate them (I know bad idea, risk of infection)
Did I just kill all that vigorous yeast? My air locks are still bubbling, but far slower, like a bubble every other minute or so instead of several every few seconds.
Is the batch no good? Can I save $118 bucks of cider? Or should I dump down the drain, start from scratch, and take the $130~ lesson move on???