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As the two above said you want to limit head space as oxygen helps unwanted bacteria and mold to grow as well as causes oxidation which destroys flavors. You could purchase food safe CO2 or an inert gas like argon to flush the headspace. This technique is sometimes used in scaled brewing. But...

Strawberry souffle with a rhubarb sauce inspired by Alain Roux's raspberry and rhubarb souffle with rhubarb sauce from his Waterside restaurant.

You can actually rack it to secondary as fermentation slows down. The question is what is going on with your must. There seems to be no more sugar, but the pH readings are all over the place. If you do have vinegar production then maybe you should just see what happens. Otherwise if it's...

That's an astonishing low pH. Did you press apples that acidic or add powdered acid? Are you going to do a maloactic fermentation? As for secondary, most people use glass carboys, but a bucket will work, just not as easy to see what's going on without exposing stuff to the air. But you would...

Tannins help prevent oxidation. Certain regions of red wine producers create really high tannin wines so that they can be aged for long periods of time. You will hear about "young" wines which refers to there not having been enough time for a portion of the tannins to break down and the wine...

That is some low acidity. I have cider must at 3.2 ph that I pitched yeast into without issue. pH in that range won't help much to protect the must from infection.

If you added campden (kmeta) then it is best to aerate before adding the yeast because this can sometimes hinder the process. Rehydration is always a good step as well. And as was mentioned earlier check to make sure the bucket is not leaking (had one like that this year myself).

667.75+22= 689.75 16 from a local orchard, added some acid to make it more similar to last year's quality. Tried 2 different white wine yeasts (ec-1118/red star) to see differences. Only added 1/2 of the sulfite I did to start out last year, which will give me some more room at the end to...

The reason I think is because of aging sur lie, or on the lees. When you keep the bottles on the side much more of your cider is exposed to the lees because of the greater surface area. By reducing the surface area you may not get as complex a flavor from aging. That said the champagne cider...

Awesome! I'm happy I could inspire someone else to give it a shot. It is a little bit of extra work, but it is impressive when completed. Let me know if you decide to try it and have any questions.

Thank you. Glad I tried it because I am going to continue with this method. It is really not that difficult once you get the hang of it.

I am planning on leaving some bottles of cider bottle condition and age on the lees for about a year and a half this time around. Really wondering what will happen to the flavor. Also interested in how much sulfite will be used in that time. My recent batch was only 6 months before disgorging...

You should never heat your must above 70° F. You loose way too many volatile flavor compounds. Many people ferment their cider in the 50° F range. Not only does high temperature affect the juice itself by speeding chemical reactions like oxidation, but it also affects the yeasts production of...

I have never back sweetened with juice, but I have added simple syrup afterwards in carbonated bottles before corking. The syrup always seems to dissolve into the juice without issue and it is fully mixed relatively quickly. Though, the carbonation does help to agitate the cider. That said...

I usually do around 3 months to make sure the cider I am bottling is crystal clear. I have a short window for fermentation at a low ambient temperature so 3 months is really all the longer I can leave it sit before temperatures are too high in the garage. That said longer lengths can lead to...

You should be able to add it now without much harm. I've pitched it at the same time as yeast before without any ill effects that I noticed. The only issue is that it likes to clump so it might be worth dissolving in sterile water prior to adding.

Campden is not necessary. It will kill wild yeast and bacteria, but the commercial yeast is usually so fast growing that it will take over the must on its own and protect it. Just watch out for any sicknesses. As for the color pectinacse can help with clarification, but I believe there are...

It was not that bad. There is so much information out there that you can learn these complicated things with ease. The worst part is knowing what to search for and running into mistakes that go undocumented. I hope I was able to save some people the trouble of looking all these little bits up...

@RPh_Guy You said last year you were interested in how this would go. Here are the results.

Over this past year I completed a 10 gallon batch of sweet, sparkling, crystal clear cider. I wanted to give a rundown to how I accomplished this and some of the lessons I learned along the way. The quick background is that I started with 10 gallons of juice which I fermented in 5 gallon...