high alcy meads you add honey. part of that is mitigating the anti-microbial stuff in the honey and building up tolerance in the yeasties. that's where you'll be starting out with a medium potency yeast, and forcing it to go dormant from alcy content but then remain sweet after, it's not a typical build as it were. haven't' done it myself, i prefer a dry mead.

Alright I'll stick to the 4 gallon batch, I only had enough cash on hand to buy 4 gallons on my shopping trip.

So if I use that link to figure out an approx. # of billions of cells that I need, can I boil the oxygen out of some water, cool it in the fridge, add it to the yeast at the bottom of the bucket, bottle it in some sanitized bottles and stick it in the fridge till I'm ready to use it? And cut the $7 yeast cost from my next batch?

Any idea where to get some white labs cider yeast? I read in a couple forums a lot of people prefer it to the wyeast cider variety.

Michael did you say you had made cider before? How long did you let it age? I saw that the white labs yeast produces sulfur that is supposed to go away after a couple of weeks, dont know about the wyeast.

Cider typically produces sulfur, this is resolved most commonly by a secondary fermentation (transfering cider into a second fermenter to get it off of the main yeast cake). You could store yeast the way you outlined if you were going to use it within 2-4 weeks. You would have to adjust the amount, though, to compensate for dead yeast.

Also, White Labs yeasts: Midwest Supplies or Northern Brewer.

cider i've had drinkable in 10 days from pitch, and let age up to... lessee i think that stuff is over 5 years now, and still nice.

i'd go with minimum 2x primary fermentation duration for your 2ndary, and then bottle there. you're not going for varietal cider or specialty yeasts, this is a first go, so start with simple variables and go from there.

alright I think I'm just gonna toss the yeast and start over when I get more money and equipment of my own.

my plans are to keep with the primary until the bubbling slows or stops

secondary for 2x the primary.

bottle, numbers on the caps to help me keep track of what's what.

1. Flat, straight from secondary.

2. Forced carbonation, 1 tsp of sugar per bottle.
2a. brown sugar?

3. Forced carbonation, added fresh cider.
3a. Pomegranate juice.

I'm guessing that the primary is going to slow down just like it sped up, and not just come to a sudden stop?

It's been 3 days and 22 hours since I pitched the yeast and it's still going at about 2 bubbles per sec. It's been at that rate for a little over 24 hours now.

sounds like a plan to me.

I wouldn't do brown sugar, the amount that you are adding to carb is minimal to taste. If you want to do flavor adds, do so at the beginning. Also, find a brewing calculator to figure out how much sugar/juice to add. Bottle bombs can be dangerous if you're putting the cider into glass. Think shrapnel. I'm not exaggerating.

Nope, going pet plastic. Saving pop bottles, and bought a case of 24 and lids, with my hydrometer at midwest today.