First time bottling cider

A while back i ran across a article on a product "Spike your juice" and was intrigued, i did some searching and came across Edworts cidar recipe decided to give it a try. I've almost collected enough bottles and want to run my bottling plan by the experts.....

I've got a batch of Edworts in a 5g better bottle, it's now settled and cleared up, been in for almost 2 months.

I have a empty 6g better bottle, i was going to rack the 5g into the empty bottle (with priming sugar in already poured in) and bottle out of it.

When racking do i have to try to transfer some of the yeast that has settled out in the bottom of the fermenter? Or is there enough residual hanging out in the cidar to react with the priming sugar?

Is it a big deal to have the cidar exposed to air during racking/bottling, i know its relatively short but i don't want to miss something obvious and screw up the ops at this point. Thanks!

There should be enough yeast still in the cider to ferment. It's not a big deal to expose the cider to air (oxygen), but you want to minimize the exposure as much as possible. So, when you pour in the priming sugar, minimize splashing. Likewise, when you rack it from the fermentor to the bottling vessel container, keep the tubing below the surface of the liquid. If you can, try to get the siphon to "swirl" in the bottling container to mix the priming sugar (you still might want to give it a stir or two to make sure it's well mixed). Then carefully bottle and cap!

Awesome, thanks!

So I'm using Star San Five Star sanitizer, mixed per instructions and kept in a dedicated spray bottle. Is it acceptable practice to clean and sanitize my equipment (hoses, racking cane, etc), let air dry then keep them in a tote bin (which has also been cleaned/sanitized) with a lid for future use? Or is the general consensus to sanitize equipment before every use w/o exception?

Also....I just checked the SG of my apfelwein and its at 1.005, i haven't seen any activity for a while now, probably safe to bottle? I used Montrachet yeast and plan on priming.

beech said:

Also....I just checked the SG of my apfelwein and its at 1.005, i haven't seen any activity for a while now, probably safe to bottle? I used Montrachet yeast and plan on priming.

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The rule of thumb is that its safe to bottle after you have a consistent reading for 3 days but 1.005 sounds like fermentation has finished. You should have no problem bottling it right now.

I like to sanitize my equipment just prior to using them just so I know without doubt that they are clean. I make a bucket full of sanitizer and use it as needed during the brewing/transferring/bottling procedure. Some guys like to also keep a spray bottle with sanitizer on hand too.