When To move to Secondary

Making cider. It is in Primary currently. When are you supposed to move to secondary? After that, when should you bottle? And if I wanted to carbonate it.. How would I go about doing so/ is it possible to do so with swingtop lids?

For my most recent cider (Black Rock Extract) I siphoned to secondary after 7 days, added my finnings (gelatin) at this time and bottled 2 days after that.
The trend recently with beer is to not rack to secondary at all and this is what I am going to try with my current batch.
Most important is to make sure fermentation is finished before you bottle, take a gravity reading and when it is the same for 48 hours you are safe to bottle, but there is no rush. the time that it takes for full fermentation depends largely on your yeast and fermentation temp so dont get to worried if you arent matched to the timeline for mine.
It was carbonated by adding 2 carbonation drops / 750ml bottle, roughly equivalent to 1tsp of table sugar. This was with crown top bottles but I cant see why it should be any different for swingtops, provided the seals are good.

Secondary for cider isn't necessary, but at least for me it's a matter of logistics and practicality.

I make cider in a 20 litre demijohn and then after fermentation is complete (usually around the 7 day mark) I transfer the first bit of the siphon into about 8 x 750ml PET bottles which go straight into my fridge for cold crashing. The rest of the siphon goes into 4 or 5 liter glass jugs with airlocks purely for the purpose of eliminating headspace so the cider doesn't go bad since I don't have space in my fridge to cold crash 20 litres at a time.

I don't usually carb my cider, but when I do then I also do it in the PET bottles. Swing-tops would work fine, too, but if you are asking how to carb then I suggest that your grasp on the chemistry involved is still low enough that you should probably avoid glass for now.

I guess we all do things a bit differently. I rack to secondary to get the cider off the lees otherwise it can pick up off flavors from the dead yeast. I do that typically after 2 weeks, with SG about 1.005.

I have about 25+ batches of cider under my belt, and have never racked it to secondary. I don't know why you think you'd get off flavors from dead yeast. If you age the beer at all, a good portion of the dead yeast are eaten by the active yeast, and the bit that's left is not nearly enough to cause autolysis in such a small batch. Autolysis is typically associated with high pressure levels in commercial sized batches from the sheer weight of the liquid on the yeast cake. I routinely age my ciders for about 8-12 weeks in primary and have no off flavors or issues.

I wouldn't worry too much about it either way. You don't need to do it if you want to save time, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.

TopherM said:

I have about 25+ batches of cider under my belt, and have never racked it to secondary. I don't know why you think you'd get off flavors from dead yeast. If you age the beer at all, a good portion of the dead yeast are eaten by the active yeast, and the bit that's left is not nearly enough to cause autolysis in such a small batch. Autolysis is typically associated with high pressure levels in commercial sized batches from the sheer weight of the liquid on the yeast cake. I routinely age my ciders for about 8-12 weeks in primary and have no off flavors or issues.

I wouldn't worry too much about it either way. You don't need to do it if you want to save time, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.

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I agree but one of the advantages you get from racking to a secondary is that when it comes time to bottle there is very little or no sediment in the carboy and so if you then rack to a bottling bucket /and or add sugar to prime you have no problem disturbing lees and clouding the cider. So the issue is not so much autolysis - although some yeasts are more prone to this than others - but clarity. If you prefer cloudy scrumpy then typically there is no advantage to racking cider if you are going to be bottling the brew a few weeks after pitching the yeast.

I keg, so not really a concern, but cider also generates very minimal sediment compared to a beer. I would just make sure you have an autosiphon and be careful when racking, instead of racking to a secondary. I don't end up with cloudy ciders either, as my extended aging and careful racking to the keg yields a crystal clear cider. I'm not saying you are wrong, the secondary will accomplish those things, but again, you can accomplish the same goals without secondary, so it's still a superfluous step.