First time brewer.

[Cheap_Bastid]

So I decided to get my feet wet so to speak with a batch of apple cider since it looked simple enough..

My recipe:

4 gal Sam's club (members mark) apple juice
5 cans apple juice concentrate
1.5(ish)lbs cane sugar
topped up with a little water

OG: 1.061
Yeast: WLP720 (loved the smell of it when i pitched)

Pitched direct @78° with 1.5 tsp fermaid K

Less than an hr later (within 30 mins probably) it was fermenting, rather vigorously..
I'm glad I went with a blow off tube instead of an air lock because a little krausen
made it into the tube, it rocked 'n rolled for 3 days (1+ bubble per second from a 3/4" blow off tube).
It's now at day 7 and the bubble rate (which i know isn't really an indicator of anything substantial)
is like one every 90 seconds or so..

Should I exercise some patience and leave it alone til I see no more air lock activity and then take a reading?

Rack into secondary, add a little more fermaid? leave it alone?...

Everything I read about WLP720 made it sound like a pretty slow starter and I was kind of shocked lol.
I was prepared for a 4 week fermentation (maybe it still has a ways to go?)

 

[Randzor]

Leave it. Cider oxidizes easily.

 

[Hello]

I would stick with the 4 week fermentation for sure.

Is your recipe supposed to be sweet? Curious to try another recipe for my second batch.

 

[Cheap_Bastid]

No idea what the sweetness will be like as it's my first attempt, it will probably go pretty dry
according to all the other peoples wlp720 experiences that I've read.

I added all the concentrate hoping to get a nice "apple" flavor,
don't know if it actually makes any difference though.

 

[Cheap_Bastid]

Update: Bottled and primed 3 days ago with 2 cans of concentrate and one oz of sugar i'm thinking
i probably didn't add enough priming sugar to get it very fizzy but it's starting to carb up.

Has a nice crisp apple flavor and it's pretty stout, right out of the fermenter
tasting the sample i took it was probably some of the best i've had, still kinda rough
but i just opened a bottle and i can tell it's gonna be really good in a month or so.

I'll probably do another batch in a week or two using nottingham with just juice and no added sugar

thanks to all the good people and information on this site i got somethin tasty in my cup.. cheers