Cider Secondary Fermentation and Maturing

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mattleesmi

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Hello all,

This is the first post on the forum and I am a bit new to brewing. Last Saturday (19th) I started my first pressed apple wild yeast cider. As far as I can tell it's going well, bubbling away happily. I will be taking a sample soon to check with a hydrometer.

I have been looking around about secondary fermentation and maturing the cider. Whilst I have tried to answer my questions on the forum and elsewhere I couldn't quite find what I was looking for.

Secondary Fermentation
First of all, I assume that if I wanted to do a secondary fermentation with no additional sugars or flavours, I would just rack the cider into a sterilised demijohn and leave the trud/sediment behind, reseal it with an airlock and leave it (for a month or so). From what I have understood, sorry if I have this wrong, this would lead to a malolactic fermentation which will possibly create a film/pellicle. As I am using wild fermentation, do I need to add anything to make this happen or protect the second fermentation? Also, I assume that to make this happen I shouldn't add a Camden tablet at the end of the first fermentation.

Maturing
To mature the cider I can add a Camden tablet at either the end of first or second stage fermentation and rack to either bottles (without priming them as I want flat cider) or another demijohn and leave for 6 months to a year, sampling as you go. Does that sound correct? Also, to reduce oxidisation should I top them up to the neck with water? If I used a demijohn for the maturing, should I use an airlock or seal it?

Sorry for the number of questions, any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time.
Matt
 

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