Cider help! Fermentation stopped, campden?

[josephdurham]

I'm a novice and my cider hasn't budged past 1010 for the past few days.

Sunday-I pressed a gallon of crab apple juice, added 1 level teaspoon of Campden. Shook and left in demijohn.
Tuesday evening-Added crab apple juice (3 litres) to my 4 gallon John Bull cider kit. Fermentation stopped and the nice head with all the yeast went away!
Wednesday evening-Added half a pack of Ritchie's champagne yeast (yeast used to ferment my previous cider) which didn't seem to do much.

Suspects:
a) I think that the campden powder may have killed the yeast in the kit and has killed the yeast I put in yesterday.
b) I am fermenting down from 1062 (target ABV=8.2%) so maybe the alcohol content killed the cider yeast.

Should I try adding the extra yeast in a few days? Could I bottle it at 1010? Is it completely useless ?

Thanks
Joseph North

[Marts]

I'm no expert on it, but Campden kills yeast AFAIK - it's used to sort out chlorine and chloramine and also to kill off wild yeasts and bacteria - so if you pitched the yeast with the campden then yes I imagine it would have killed it, but it is meant to become inert pretty quickly so if you pitched the yeast much later it shouldn't affect it and as you say it has fermented down to 1010, so on balance I would say no the campden has not killed the yeast.

I found when I made THC with a cider kit that the gravity didn't drop as much as when I make TC. My Finlandia THC fell to 1006 and stopped there. 1010 from 1062 still gives you a 7.5% brew which sounds good. I'd taste it and see what you think. You could always try gently rousing the slurry to get the yeast back in suspension if you want to try and make it drop a bit further, but I would be tempted to just bottle it if it stays put where it is.

Champagne yeast shouldn't be dead at 7.5% so I guess its just run out of fermentables or got a bit cold or something.

[josephdurham]

I don't think the campden has killed it either because I let it settle on the crab juice for two days before adding to the main bucket.

It is more likely that it has just run out of fermentables, as I've got all the radiators in my room (am brewing in my college bathroom) on Club Tropicana setting.

It tastes ok, so will leave it to settle for two days, rack and bottle. Does anybody know anything about adding flavourings to cider by the way? I thought of popping in a bit of cinnamon in a couple as well as the usual priming apple juice.