should you add it throughout the fermentation, or maybe just when you transfer to the secondary... maybe not at all? haha... I just wanted to see if it would be necessary. I added 1/2 tsp to a gallon of cider before pitching the yeast.
The short answer is, yup ... it's good to add ... tho not throughout the entire ferment.
In general, nutrients in cider depends on the yeast you use ... what you want it to do (such as if you want the ferment to stall before all the sugar is used) ... and the intended temperature and duration of the ferment.
The most simplistic version is ... all the nutrients should be added within the first 1/3 of the ferment ... and they should be broken up into doses during that time.
But this is still a bit of an oversimplification. The right way is as follows.
First, a serious consideration to adding the nutrients at the beginning is whether there are likely to be wild yeasts/spoilage organisms present as well.
This is the case with fresh fruit or fresh unpasteurized juice or cider. SO, in this case you would *not* add your balanced nutrient (fermaid or energizer etc ... which is the product you would normally add at that time) directly into the fresh apple cider prior to pitching the yeast ... yeast spoilage organisms will get ahold of the nutrient while your proper yeast is still in the lag phase and make serious hay with it ... leaving none for your proper yeast once it gets out of lag. Neither fermaid nor DAP.
You could avoid this in a number of ways ...
use pasteurized apple cider or juice.
treat your fruit/apples/must/fresh cider with K-meta prior to use
OR you can get the yeast past its lag phase by using a starter that has had *part of* the fermax dose added to it, made of store bought pasteurized apple juice or pasteurized cider, and your yeast. Then, by the time you add it to the main must with the rest of the initial fermax/fermaid/energizer dose, your yeast is already into the growth phase and rockin and rollin.
The actual additions ...
Keeping in mind my comment above about wild yeasts etc ... the nutrient additions in any case would be ... fermax/fermaid/energizer during the lag phase (so that is, prior to pitching) ... DAP during the growth phase (the growth phase is when the yeast just gets going and bubbling well) ... and again, something like Fermaid/energizer when your sugar has been 1/3 depleted ... but nothing after that.
Note that cider gets to the 1/3 sugar-used point quick as it is not as high a brix as wine.
How much?
Generally about 1 gram of fermaid per gallon ... then for the DAP addition about 2 grams per gallon ... and then about .8 gram of fermaid again for that final addition. These measures are approximate and you can just follow the amount suggested in the directions for the brand of products you are using.
Other technical blather too ... but I’ll leave it at that.
Nothing exceeds like excess ... eh?
But as I say ... the simplest version of adding nutrients to cider is to use pasteurized cider ... and add whatever nutrients/DAP etc that you have on-hand, in stages, and get all of it in before 1/3 of the way thru the sugar being used up.