Question about specific gravity

It seems like everyone shoots for a sg of around 1.00. Is there a reason for this goal?

Nevermind - failed to see that this post was in the Cider forum

It's not really a goal- but cider will finish at .990-1.000 or so. It'll stop where it stops without any prodding.

Basically that .098-1.000 is when there is virtually no fermentatble sugar left in a cider. To the cider maker, this means... fermentation is over. i.e. time to bottle or rack off to secondary for bulk aging. If you stop earlier, and bottle, you could have bottle bombs.

This of course doesn't get into malolactic fermentation, which can be bad if it occurs in your bottles (this secondary fermentation produces Co2 and funky smells if sealed, i.e. you want the cider to be on an airlock).

You will only have a chance at malolactic fermentation if you used unpasteurized cider or you introduce a strain from your LHBS. If you keep your bottled hooch at about 45F or lower you are nearly guaranteed that the event won't occur. Usually malolactic fermentation occurs for me if the cider is 55F-60F+