Questions about MLF

[dawn_kiebawls]

Hey guys and gals, I'm in the process of my first batch of cider. I would have said that I'm in the middle of it, but I intend to age it for a while but am unsure of where to go from here. My apologies for the long read but I would really appreciate some much needed help and guidance! Thanks!

Some info before my questions:

6 gallons of organic store bought cider (lots of sediment, not clear at all)
2lbs light brown sugar
3tsp yeast nutrient (just before pitching)
3tsp pectic enzyme (added just before pitching..woops :/ )
1/2tsp grape tannin (just before pitching)
3tsp yeast energizer (just before pitching)
OG 1.068 - FG 1.000 (not positive it is done, this is my first reading since initial pitch)

pitched WLP775 (no starter, and did not allow to warm up to room temp from fridge..) at ~70F, put into ferm chamber at 68F, dropped to 67F once fermentation kicked off and let go for 8 days.

My sample tasted pretty good. more apple than I was expecting, with a little more alcohol heat than I was expecting as well (due to a higher OG than designed). At this point it is more like a white apple wine.

My questions are basically, where do I go from here?

Its still a bit 'green' so is only 8 days in primary too early to rack into secondary even though it has already hit 1.000 and I plan to age for a few months?

As young as it is, it is still very murky..turbid..?..it hasn't cleared up at all that I can tell. I was planning to cold crash, but thought it would clear itself up even a little bit! Should I crash it, add finings, THEN stabilize? Or crash, rack to secondary, stabilize, age then add some finings?

Do I need to stabilize before MLF, or after? I plan to back sweeten with wine conditioner, natural apple juice concentrate and possibly honey so I know it needs to get stabilized at some time.

Stabilizing. The wine conditioner already contains K-sorbate but I can only imagine I need to add additional K-sorbate and possibly K-meta? I know Yooper has done a wonderful writeup about stabilizing so I can look that up again, I just don't know if I need additional K-sorbate than the conditioner already contains.

Thanks for all the help everyone, I very much appreciate it!

 

[mwilcox]

your question was about MLF, but it really seems to be an afterthought in your post. Is MLF something you are wanting to do, or something you are assuming will happen? You didn't mention how acidic the cider was; do you really want to lower it by almost 50%? From the description I'm guessing the acidity was not particularly high on this batch, and MLF would rarely be something you'd be hoping would happen in such a case.