Very slow fermentation

[Parva]

Hi guys, I decided to bite the bullet and made a turbo cider with Safale 04 used for the yeast and that's bubbling away merrily.

For the other DJ I decided to make a Hooch (recipe gained from elsewhere in this forum). It's 4.5l water with 1Kg sugar mixed in (I used glucose instead since I have a few bags of it), a 250Ml bottle of 'Jif' lemon and 4 lemons cut up small enough to go into the DJ. The one big difference is that I used cider yeast for the hooch and I'm now thinking I should've used the Safale 04 in it instead.

Both DJ's got a teaspoon of yeast nutrient. The TC is merrilly bubbling away at roughly one bubble every 5 seconds (both brews completed about 5pm this evening) but the hooch is really struggling at roughly 1 bubble a minute. Twice I have given it another good shake but nothing seems to be encouraging it.

Is it just a case of see how it's doing tomorrow or does it look like a may have a problem on my hands?

[jonnyv]

Panic not - Safale often goes off to a flying start.

Given the ingredients of the hooch, the cider yeast may be a better choice anyway but I would leave it another 48 hours before getting worried about it.

I would imagine the acidity of the lemons might slow the yeast to start with?

[Parva]

Ok, I shall quit panicking and see how it goes, cheers.

[Duffbeer]

It's the Jif lemon that's causing the slow start, jif contains sulphite as a preservative, the yeast will be struggling to survive. Airate the hooch to drive off some of the sulphite and see how it goes.

[Parva]

Got up today and found that it's kick-started itself, bubbling at less than a second. The tc on the other hand defies belief, it's like a volcano in there!