Anything I should know for my first brew?

[CanadianBacon]

Thinking on making my first brew of hard cider.
23 litter of apple juice
1 kg of brown sugar
and 1 pack ale yeast.

was gunna mix up and let sit in either a fermenting pale with air lock or carboy for 2 weeks then pour it into a second one for 2 weeks. then bottle up. How do i avoid having residue like you get in wine somtimes? and can I just dump the stuff into the second bucket without filtering and just leaving the residue at the bottem?

 

[schwiz]

Yeah no need to filter it you can just transfer, just try your best not to stir up the sediment before you rack. 4 weeks is pretty young for cider. Some do bottle and drink it that early but I've read you should wait at least 6 months.

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

By residue, I assume you mean lees. (in beer it's called trub) This residue occurs in all fermented beverages. It's yeast and fruit particles falling out. Totally normal. You won't need to filter, but I would suggest using a siphon to "rack" the cider off of the lees (residue) so you can leave as much behind in the primary as possible. A length of tubing works fine when you start with the primary higher than the secondary and let gravity do it's magic. Pouring introduces oxygen to your cider and could cause oxidation.

I would suggest not letting time dictate when your brew is done on your first batch. You will need to take gravity readings to determine when to bottle. There's always the possibility it could stall or just be fermenting really slow. If you bottle too early it could cause some problems.

 

[EpicCider]

Invest in some cleaning products, don't want to waste your time over $5 of cleaner. Local home-brew shops or midwestsupplies is the place to get it.