My first cider adventure

[Flat Foot]

The story so far!

Pressed apples from the tree in my garden on 1st Nov and got 20l of juice. As I added some campden tablets I didn't add yeast until the 2nd.

On the 16th, worried about leaving it in the buckets, I racked to four demijohns.

They've continued to ferment, some are still more active than others, for example when I checked the other day one was showing 1.006 on the hydrometer whereas another was down to 1.002 with bubbling slowing right down.

As I have 20l, my current thought process is to bottle one demijohn soon - I completely get that the longer I leave it the better, but to me it's part of the learning process to see how the flavour changes over time. I'd aim to bottle the others over the coming months, and if I can get a head start next year build up some stocks (usually I'm giving away apples or letting our chickens have the fallers through the year, next year I'm hoping to do several smaller batches and let them sit in the demijohns for longer)

For the others that I want to leave for a bit longer, they have a bit of lees building up, would people recommend racking to another demijohn for storage to get them off this? (I'm assuming they will be on there for a couple of months tops) And if I do, would you top up with something? Currently on each demijohn the cider is up to the neck of the bottle, I wasn't sure if it would be best to top up to the stopper, or if this is overkill.

I know some people recommend marbles for topping up but I don't have any to hand!

 

[Appleyard]

I'm a recently re-activated but comparatively inexperienced home brewer. I'd say don't bottle until you're certain sure that fermentation has finished, whatever, or you risk explosions. I would rack if there's a lot of sediment or bits of stuff are going up and down AND it;'s still working fairly fast. Re topping up, if the level's at the top of the curve, at the neck, and it's bubbling nicely, I would not bother. I too have lost my marbles. That is, I have never heard of them being so used. In the old days I bet they did not use marbles.

Someone will be along in a minute who knows what they're on about, but I would say "Don't be hasty!". Doing things is easy, so is making an upcock, undoing these things might not be possible.,

 

[Flat Foot]

Yeah I was more thinking once my OG had dropped right down and stopped moving, and wasn't sure if worrying about headspace once the fermentation had stopped was overworrying or not (and whether that answer changes depending on whether I leave in that container or rack to another demijohn)

 

[jof]

If you are using real pressed apples (and not turbo cider from cartons of juice), You may wish to leave it longer.
Someone more knowledgable than me will be along soon, but old timers would make the cider in Autumn, but wouldn't dream of drinking it until spring.
I think someone here said that after fementation of sugars, the yeast needs to work on the malic acid & other stuff to make it more paletable.