Would you expect any bubbles if you accidentally used a cider with sorbates/benz

brewedisland

Three days ago, I started brewing my first cider, which is also my first ever home brew. Within the first day, a big foamy head appeared, which has since subsided. Currently, I do see some tiny bubbles streaming up the sides of the carboy, and I've seen a few of similar size in the airlock, but I've yet to see any real airlock "belching" as I expected and have seen in videos.
I'm using M02 yeast and a gallon of fresh sweet cider from a local orchard. The cider was unpasteurized, but says nothing about whether any preservatives were used. I've since learned about sorbates and benzoates from this forum, and I wonder if that might be a factor in my brew. I called the orchard and left a message asking if they use these, but haven't heard back yet.
Assuming they may never call back, I wonder if I'm wasting my time on this brew. Is the foam + bubbles a sign that I lucked out? Or is the lack of airlock belching a sign that this isn't going to work out well?

DBhomebrew

What you describe sounds like a healthy, quick fermentation. Don't judge by visual clues, don't compare to another's fermentation. Judge with a hydrometer or refractometer.

z-bob

It sounds fine to me. That doesn't mean it *doesnt* have preservatives, it means you pitched enough yeast. If it has preservatives the fermentation will probably stall before it's finished -- but the cider might be good like that. Let it go and see what you get. If it stops and it's still too sweet, maybe rehydrate a packet of champagne yeast in warm water and add that to maybe get it over the finish line.
There also might be no problem at all. Don't go looking for one yet  

bracconiere

if you got your juice fresh from an orchard, i'd be almost totally sure it had sorbate or something in it....but that just means you need to pitch more yeast...i just pitched 1 cup of yeast into strait sugar water, same goes for sorbate juice, but not that extreme, i used to ferment juice with sorbate, just gotta pitch like 4-5 packs of yeast to it, it'll ferment...

Cider-Wraith

You added a whole packet of M02 to a gallon of fresh juice and it launched? Sounds good to me. You're probably on your way to a gallon of good hard cider. Good luck

Cider-Wraith

Seems common to have witnessed local orchards picking apples in the morning that they're putting in presses at noon and selling juice to the tourists as it comes out and saying, "Now you understand this won't be good for more then a day or two in the fridge" Might be liquid gold

Cider-Wraith

What size is the carboy? I might wildly guess that your batch launched and accelerated so quickly with M02 you blew out the liquid from your air lock and after that with only one single gallon there was enough headspace to buffer residual C02 production

brewedisland

Sorry, I should have mentioned the amount. I used about a half packet. Thanks!
They said it would last about 2 weeks in the fridge. There's another local place that specifically says "no preservatives". I'll drop by sometime and pick up a gallon of that to compare.
The carboy is 1 gallon. It's pretty full with the cider. The airlock still has fluid in it.
Here's how it currently looks:

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brewedisland

Thanks. I'll take a hydrometer measurement at the 1 week mark.
Thanks. Good advice, but hard to follow!

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I don't know if I want to use 5 packets just to find out whether this is going to work, but I'll consider adding the other half of the packet when I take my 1-week reading. Thanks.