oscillate_wildly
Member
Hi everyone, I pressed about 8.5gal juice on Sunday, 3 I am using for apple wine, the rest for cider. I've never made it before so instead of trying it out on a small batch I thought I'd go all in and try a few different yeasts 
I currently have 6 gallon bottles filled to the widest part (see photo) and about 1/2 gal in a smaller bottle (far right in photo). I will pitch the yeast tonight.
I am wondering how best to keep back some cider to add to the secondary to avoid headspace while also being able to maintain the differences between yeasts. There is quite a bit of sediment as you can see and I have also left some space for aeration and fermenting.
I was thinking of doing 2 or 3 yeasts: cider house, safcider A2, and Cotes de blancs, using 2 or 3 of the gal bottles for each depending on whether I test 2 or 3, and then leaving the smaller 1/2 gal for topping up.
On to my questions, which are what yeast to use in the topping up bottle?! Or should I do something else?
Also I was thinking of leaving the sediment, but I could siphon off the juice before fermenting if that would be better.
I currently have 6 gallon bottles filled to the widest part (see photo) and about 1/2 gal in a smaller bottle (far right in photo). I will pitch the yeast tonight. I am wondering how best to keep back some cider to add to the secondary to avoid headspace while also being able to maintain the differences between yeasts. There is quite a bit of sediment as you can see and I have also left some space for aeration and fermenting.
I was thinking of doing 2 or 3 yeasts: cider house, safcider A2, and Cotes de blancs, using 2 or 3 of the gal bottles for each depending on whether I test 2 or 3, and then leaving the smaller 1/2 gal for topping up.
On to my questions, which are what yeast to use in the topping up bottle?! Or should I do something else?
Also I was thinking of leaving the sediment, but I could siphon off the juice before fermenting if that would be better.
