First time cider question

Hey, my first cider is fermenting right now and reading some threads here I had a question about something I read in one.

"Nottingham – This has been my favorite yeast for several years. It works well for sweet ciders and cysers with pasteurized juice, although not so well for unpasteurized cyser. It cold crashes well with any juice. With just juice, no sugar, and cold crash around 1.004, it is outstanding. If you use sugar and bump sg up to at least 1.060, then you can stop fermentation with pasteurized juice by racking. You have to do either rack or cold crash to keep it from drying out all the way, as it tends to strip out the flavor if it goes all the way dry."

My recipe is:
4gal pasteurized apple juice
1 gal pear juice
96 oz honey
Nottingham yeast
OG: 1.086

I heated the honey for 15 minutes at 175 then added it to the juice in the fermenter.

So my question is, am I correct in my understanding that by racking my cider to a secondary at about 1.004 I can effectively stop fermentation and cause the cider to not be as dry/more tasteful? Also, how much of a difference would this make?

Thanks

You can rack if you add chemicals to stop fermentation, but it will only inhibit yeast reproduction and not kill it, as such. I've never had a problem with it, but just a heads up. You won't be able to carbonate using sugar via this method, only.force carbing. A lot of people believe that stopping fermentation rather than backsweetening keeps more flavour in the cider

Hmm, I only bottle right now so if I understand correctly I can either let it go its course and carbonate or try to stop the yeast by racking which only inhibits it (or cold ctash) and force carbonate.

I'm pretty much forced to just let it run its course in this case. If I do find I need to backsweeten, are there any reccomendations on what to use? I've heard splenda works but some don't like it.

Sweeteners are generally rubbish but do the job. Xylitol is the cleanest tasting, but its expensive. If you only want to take the edge off they're okay - if you want a sweet taste you should definitely consider pasteurizing - there's a sticky at the top of the forum.

My real recommendation, though, is to keep it dry and give it time. The taste of a well aged dry cider is much better than any other kind imo

Thanks for all your help! I was planning for it to be done by late Nov-Dec. Do you think this will be sufficient enough of an aging or will I have to resort to the Xylitol? I really need to get some more fermenters and switch to kegging. Sorry for the 21 questions, I appreciate the help