S-04 alcohol limit?

[pilotdane]

What is the upper limit for S-04 alcohol tolerance?

I used it to brew a cider and it got the FG down to .991 with an ABV of 9.66%. After two weeks carbing in the bottles with enough sugar to provide 2.7 volumes of CO2 I still don't have much carbonation. I'm wondering if the alcohol has killed the yeast or if warming the bottles and giving the yeast another couple weeks to carbonate will do the trick?

 

[Teacher]

How long between pitching and bottling? If it was quite long, the yeast needs to be repitched, as the original yeasties have mostly died off or become inactive.

 

[Saccharomyces]

I believe this yeast will go over 12%, but bottle conditioning anything over 8% without adding more yeast at bottling is never a good idea, especially with a yeast as flocculent as this strain.

My recommendation, save a White Labs vial worth of your starter slurry, and pitch it into the bottling bucket...

 

[pilotdane]

Good advice for next time.

This cider was in the fermentor for a month and it was quite clear at bottling so few yeast went into my bottling bucket and I did not re-pitch at bottling so it sounds like there are too few yeast alive in my bottles to do the job.