From dry cider to mead? Think I screwed up.

[lxxenigmaxxl]

I did something crazy a couple of weeks ago and want to get a little input on what I did and if I ruined my brew.

I have been brewing 5 gallon of fresh cider with Nottingham and 2 cups sugar since the beginning of October and it has gotten very dry. I decide I wanted to make it a little different from the last batch so 3 days ago I added 5 cans of concentrated apple juice and 5 pounds of honey.I brought them to 160F and cooled before adding. After adding new ingredients it brought the SG back up to 1.050 from FG 1.000 and I realized I added to much sugar and the batch tasted like honey. I let it sit for a few days and fermentation has slowed to a crawl. ( bubble every 2 min)

I started thinking about what I had done and felt as if I had created a cyser instead to cider. So with that I decided to pitch some D47 to help the dying Nottingham. Three days went by and fermentation did not change so I decided to add some raisins for nutrient. 3 more days nothing has happened so I add 2 teaspoons of energizer and nutrient and it is still doing nothing. does anyone know what has gone wrong and how to kick start this dying brew.

 

[vulcan500rider]

A more experienced mazer may be able to offer better advice, but I'm thinking it's a problem of acclimatization. You didn't say where the OG was, so it's hard to guess what the ABV is, but the D47 may have been shocked by the alcohol level and not really gotten going. You may have to pull some of the must out, dilute it, and try pitching your yeast into that. That gives it a bit of a chance to get used to the alcohol before you pitch it into the larger vat of must.

You may also want a bit hardier a strain; I think people often use EC-1118 or K1V-1116 for restarts, though I haven't had to try one out myself.

 

[lxxenigmaxxl]

A more experienced mazer may be able to offer better advice, but I'm thinking it's a problem of acclimatization. You didn't say where the OG was, so it's hard to guess what the ABV is, but the D47 may have been shocked by the alcohol level and not really gotten going. You may have to pull some of the must out, dilute it, and try pitching your yeast into that. That gives it a bit of a chance to get used to the alcohol before you pitch it into the larger vat of must.

You may also want a bit hardier a strain; I think people often use EC-1118 or K1V-1116 for restarts, though I haven't had to try one out myself.

Sorry, I started at 1.056. Your thoughts do seem relevant. I never considered the alcohol levels shocking the yeast. Off the top of my head I going to guess the ABV at around 5%. If I give it time, will the yeast recover.

 

[vulcan500rider]

A quick check on the mead calculator at gotmead.com suggests that you're about 7.5%, if you went from 1.056 to 1.000, though that would change with the additional volume of concentrate and honey that you added, so you may not be too far off at 5%. I wouldn't have thoughts that would be too big of a problem for most yeasts, but I'm certainly not expert on what each strain can withstand.

My understanding is that a recovery is unlikely at this point; the yeast is likely dead, and you'll have to look at re-pitching.