I am new to fermenting and so, I maybe overreacting, but, as always, better safe than sorry. First some info on the batch in question:
I modified a turbo cider recipe to include some honey, making it, technically a cyser. The recipe contains: apple juice, cranberry cocktail, honey, tea (for tannin), yeast nutrient and spices (cinnoman, cloves, cardamom, ginger, black pepper) and was started using red star premier blanc yeast. The must is about 3.75 gallons. I am using a 5 gallon food grade bucket with an airtight lid with o-ring seal. I drilled a 1.5" hole in the lid then fixed a #10 drilled rubber stopper with s-airlock.
The first day I was worried about yeast activity because I was not seeing the activity I had seen from my first, one gallon batch of mead. However, I figured there was a lot of headspace and it would take time to build the pressure. The next morning I saw the airlock bubble about 1x/2s. Later that day, i saw several bubbles a second. This continued into day 3 along with the worlds most amazing smell (I looked for excuses to walk by that close. Lol). It is now day 4. I notice some positive pressure (the water in the airlock is all in the second chamber) but little to no bubbling (maybe once every 1-2 minutes). Is this something to be alarmed about or expected? Should I add more honey/sugar or some nutrients for the yeast?
The original recipe said you should notice bubbling for a couple weeks. I'm just worried because it was such a sharp decrease in activity. My best guess is that the yeast have used up all the oxygen and that this is the reason for a sudden drop in activity. But I want to make sure, so... any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.
I modified a turbo cider recipe to include some honey, making it, technically a cyser. The recipe contains: apple juice, cranberry cocktail, honey, tea (for tannin), yeast nutrient and spices (cinnoman, cloves, cardamom, ginger, black pepper) and was started using red star premier blanc yeast. The must is about 3.75 gallons. I am using a 5 gallon food grade bucket with an airtight lid with o-ring seal. I drilled a 1.5" hole in the lid then fixed a #10 drilled rubber stopper with s-airlock.
The first day I was worried about yeast activity because I was not seeing the activity I had seen from my first, one gallon batch of mead. However, I figured there was a lot of headspace and it would take time to build the pressure. The next morning I saw the airlock bubble about 1x/2s. Later that day, i saw several bubbles a second. This continued into day 3 along with the worlds most amazing smell (I looked for excuses to walk by that close. Lol). It is now day 4. I notice some positive pressure (the water in the airlock is all in the second chamber) but little to no bubbling (maybe once every 1-2 minutes). Is this something to be alarmed about or expected? Should I add more honey/sugar or some nutrients for the yeast?
The original recipe said you should notice bubbling for a couple weeks. I'm just worried because it was such a sharp decrease in activity. My best guess is that the yeast have used up all the oxygen and that this is the reason for a sudden drop in activity. But I want to make sure, so... any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.
