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Actually, if you have one of the beverage type coolers (the ones with the spout/spigot), those might work pretty well since you can use the drain to empty the water. FYI, if that picture is your end result before bottling, i'd top that up and kill that headspace ASAP. Dont want anything growing...

This. anything less than 4.5 gal (maybe not even that low) in a 5gal bucket can suffer problems when you leave such massive headspace, which gives room for bacteria to grow. You should also be taking gravity readings more often, as sometimes it might finish sooner, or get stuck.

Nottingham is .5 to 1.0 grams per liter for dosing. Since a gallon is around 3.8 liters, that means you need ~2.0-3.8 grams of Notty per gallon. My first batch was done at about the 3.8gram mark, and my second batch was done at the 3gram mark. Out of the same 11gram packet no less. My third...

Well, since my batches have been done tail-end of the year when it's far cooler, leaving it out and about is good enough as long as you dont leave it in a room that gets a lot of sunlight. Basements can be a great spot as well since they can sit in the mid-60s. For summer temps, if you've a...

Yea, you roasted your cider. I think nearly all yeasts used, whether beer, cider, or wine, can only tolerate temps up to around 70*, with a preference of 62-65*. Only a few can really go higher, and I dont think they can tolerate anything that high. Dont forget, even if that's what the ambient...

Bottles that accept crown caps will have a flare that the capper will grip as you force the caps closed. Those bottles dont, so you'd only be able to use screw caps. My best guess for those would be to do a batch of still cider, and only prime one or two bottles for carbing, along with a...

Make a still batch to drink while waiting for your carbing to finish :D

You also need to get the cider off the yeast cake before you use chemicals or backsweeten.

I think most cans of FAJC will have 27 grams of sugar per serving.

If bottling, you could look into pasteurizing the bottles, which would let you possibly slide without needing to use chemicals.

If you're doing a still cider, and you want to sweeten it with fermentables, you NEED to pasteurize if you do not have cold storage available. That's the long and short of a sweet still cider. If you do not pasteurize, any yeast remaining in the cider will pick up fermentation inside whatever...

Cold crashing helps stall the fermentation and clear the cider when you're using yeasts like Nottingham. Why? Because you might not be fermenting to dry, and yeasts like Notty will drop out as you cold crash. It gives you greater control over the fermentation and resulting flavor as well...

That'd be 2.5gal of apple juice. A gallon is only ~3.8 liters, so you'd need to be careful about over-filling. Just remember to taste it first before you backsweeten, that way you dont overdo it.

Taste, smell, and after-effects are probably as definitive as you're going to get unless you can have a sample lab tested. Mind you, bottling would still need to take place even if you were getting it tested.

Most likely. Heat pasteurization has a better chance of killing nasties than kegging. Possibly because a keg's built to resist pressure, and live yeast still gives off CO2 if it's not entirely dry already.

If that's done fermenting, that's definitely too much headspace, and even a CO2 dose isnt as effective. I'd have topped it up in the new carboy until it had a couple inches between it and the cap. As others have said, if there's no bad taste to it, bottle it and immediately pasteurize it at 180...

Actually, wouldnt potassium sorbate dosed cider/juice be a way to make a low-alcohol sparkling sweet cider? Since you know the yeast cant ferment dry, you'd be able to tinker with yeast amounts to find out just how much you'd need to add to get carbing going.

Looks like your reading is about 1.017. Is that tap water? If so, are you accounting for the effect of temp on the reading?

Yep. Carbing can sneak up fast. In a situation like that, another option to give thought to was breaking seals to bleed out the pressure in all the bottles, then retry the carbing. Moving to cold storage may not have slowed it quickly, as it seems like it'd be as quick as pasteurizing in the oven :p

The main thing I'd be worried about is that you might be adding enough yeast to potentially impact the flavor. Another poster here's had some good results using one of those sodastream things to carbonate a dry cider. I'd imagine you might be able to use something similar.