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About to Bottle Apple Cider, Priming?

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WildCider

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Jul 7, 2015
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I'm just getting back into brewing, having brewed only beer 20+ years ago.

I don't even know whether priming is the right word all I know is what the old man taught me, we never had high tech gear like a hydrometer.

when we use to bottle beer we would drop a teaspoon (5g) of sugar into the bottom of a 750 ml bottle and full with our beer brew. Do I do the same with Apple Cider.

This is not a wild cider, I have used an Cider yeast M02 with an airlock.
I don't know what the gravity was when I started but it is 1.000 now.
 
I'm just getting back into brewing, having brewed only beer 20+ years ago.

I don't even know whether priming is the right word all I know is what the old man taught me, we never had high tech gear like a hydrometer.

when we use to bottle beer we would drop a teaspoon (5g) of sugar into the bottom of a 750 ml bottle and full with our beer brew. Do I do the same with Apple Cider.

This is not a wild cider, I have used an Cider yeast M02 with an airlock.
I don't know what the gravity was when I started but it is 1.000 now.

I'm not sure of the proportions, but as long as nothing explodes, I don't know if there would be a significant difference.

Of course, if something does explode, then I should mention I've only been homebrewing about 10 months.
 
I'm just getting back into brewing, having brewed only beer 20+ years ago.

I don't even know whether priming is the right word all I know is what the old man taught me, we never had high tech gear like a hydrometer.

when we use to bottle beer we would drop a teaspoon (5g) of sugar into the bottom of a 750 ml bottle and full with our beer brew. Do I do the same with Apple Cider.

This is not a wild cider, I have used an Cider yeast M02 with an airlock.
I don't know what the gravity was when I started but it is 1.000 now.

I use a level teaspoon of sugar per 500ml bottle, which would be about the same as a standard teaspoonful for a 750ml bottle. So what you plan sounds about right.
I always let my ciders ferment out completely dry before bottling, I tend to bulk age them in secondary for 2-3 months before bottling. Your FG sounds like the cider has finished, but if you are bottling it young take care!
 
Use a priming sugar calculator like this one:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/learn/resources/priming-sugar-calculator/

Cider is carbonated from 1.0 to 3.5 volumes of Co2, plug in the number it asks for and the amount of priming sugar is provided.
Adding sugar to an individual bottle is a pain in the butt and could cause an infection, so instead, boil a cup or so of water to sterilize, add the correct amount of sugar to dissolve, then let it cool down some and put the sugar water in a bottling bucket and rack the cider to the bucket.
If the cider doesn't taste good now, I'd let it sit a while before bottling.
I age my cider 4-6 months minimum. Cheers!
 
Five (5) grams in a 750 ml bottle of beer sounds correct, however I would not use that much in any cider. Personally speaking I do not like my ciders really fizzy. In a 5 gallon batch, I will prime with one 12 oz can of concentrate, which works out to 3.4 grams of sugar per 375 ml bottle.
 
Thanks for the responses, as I still don't understand brew lingo I need a few definitions.

What is racking?

What is aging in secondary?
 
Racking is when you transfer the cider. beer or wine from one vessel, like a carboy or fermentation bucket, to another one.
A siphon is used to do this with the idea that you leave behind the yeast and other material in the bottom of the primary bucket.
A self priming siphon can be obtained at a homebrew shop for about $10.
You want to be careful when racking and avoid splashing the liquid so as not to introduce oxygen to the beer, wine or cider.
And of course everything has to be properly sanitized. If you don't have any star-san, you need to get some.
Your first fermenter would be your primary, if you rack to a second one, that's called the secondary fermenter. Racking to a third vessel would be called your tertiary fermenter.
Racking to secondary when making beer is now considered old-school, its just not really necessary. If I'm bulk aging anything more than 30 days, I usually rack to secondary, it also helps if you are trying to collect the yeast to use again.
 

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