2 turbo cider brews both with problems. please help!

[skint_golfer]

Hello folks,

I have 2 simmilar problems with 2 sepetate brews, any help would really be good thanks!

problem brew 1:

apple tc made with aldi 50% juice, 1kg sugar, 1 packet of youngs wine yeast. it was started on the 20th and ferment started as expected.

10 days on its doing nothing on the fermentation side of things, smells "interesting" and tastes ok but only has a slight alcohol taste.

Problem brew 2:

mixed fruit tc made with 17L of 100% fresh fruit juice (morrisons), 1kg of sugar, 5L water and 1 packet of youngs cider yeast.

This was started about 2-3 weeks prior to the apple tc, appeared to ferment well initially when it slowed I racked it into a second fermentation bin with an airlock. its been stood since.

I tasted it last night, its fruity and a nice colour + smell but has no alcoholic taste at all.

So whats going on with my brews then?

and what can I do to fix them?

cheers all! :-)

 

[Jeltz]

Do you have starting and current SG readings?

 

[evanvine]

What were your starting gravities and what are the gravities now?

 

[RobWalker]

brew 1: is it sweet? if it's dry, then that's fine, all the sugar's been eaten. if it's still sweet, your fermentation has died, try rousing the yeast - kick all the stuff up at the bottom. if it's only got a slight alcohol taste, you're in luck more than anything! but check your hydrometer reading. it might be fermenting, just not visibly.

brew 2: same I guess, same problem really...are they sweet or dry tasting?

 

[graysalchemy]

As above you need to see if it has stopped fermenting ie take a gravity reading.

You say that you can't taste the alcohol, cider can be quite insipid especially when young and tends not to have a lot of mouth feel. Did you use any tannin with your TC's tannin is certainly needed and so to is malic acid. Finally they need time maturing cider really benifits from at least 2 - 3 months in bulk before bottling.

:thumb:

 

[skint_golfer]

I'm affraid I cant find the starting readings but currently the fruit tc is reading 0.998sg (its been racked int a clean fermenter once already) and the Aldi apple tc is reading 1.22sg (in primary still).

the apple seems to be a little more sparkely tjan befor with a few bubbles on top so I gave it a good stir to try and liven it up.

should I be keeping the lids closed all the time on these? and if those readings sound squiffy please feel free to school me on hydrometer use, think I did it right but...

cheers.