Racking and secondary

[turbos17]

Hey guys I am totally new to ciders and meads. I am doing 4 easy ciders as we speak. I bought 4 off the shelf pasteurized apple juice gallons 2 from Costco and 2 from SAMs Club. The goal of this is to learn this craft by starting inexpensive and working my way up. I took about 2-3oz off the top of each and gave it to my kids to drink and dumped a packet of Red Star Montrachet yeast in each. I didn't rehydrate the yeast on these because I wanted to see how this will do (my next batches I will). Since my rubber stoppers weren't the right size I had to use made in the USA balloons. So far so good on day #4. I did have to vent one 3x on one and once on another cause the ballon got massive...lol! View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1451320993.272902.jpg

I just picked up a racking came from Amazon so racking/secondary is going to come up soon. My questions are when you rack or go to a secondary do you add anything to it? Also do you continue to use your airlocks or balloons (if opening is too big)? Thanks for the help and I look forward to this journey in Cider and Mead making.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Make sure to sanitize your racking cane/tubing & new vessel(s); Starsan is what I use, it works great. You don't have to add anything at secondary if you don't want to; some add sulfites, some don't; either is OK. Something you might want to seriously consider is replacing those balloons with rubber stoppers & airlocks. Regards, GF.

 

[GHBWNY]

Make sure to sanitize your racking cane/tubing & new vessel(s);...

And your balloons.

 

[bucketnative]

I have a friend who uses the balloon method. She pokes a small hole in the balloons before she installs them on the bottles. That way, the balloon only inflates to the point that the pressure produced by the fermentation process is balanced by the pressure escaping the balloon. Since it's a positive pressure system, there's little chance that contamination will get in. Sanitize the balloons first.

Alternatively, get some airlocks with 5/8" OD (1/2" ID) rubber grommets. Then, you use a 5/8" Forstner bit to drill a hole in the plastic cap of the apple juice bottle. Install the rubber grommet, then sanitize the cap/grommet and the airlock. This is my preferred method for in-bottle fermentation.

 

[turbos17]

Thanks for the tips everyone

 

[turbos17]

Do you have a link to these Buck?

 

[bucketnative]

I'll link to one of the forum sponsor's, but the airlocks are fairly ubiquitous:
http://www.homebrewsupply.com/three-piece-airlock.html

Just get a grommet to fit. Check the dimensions with the supplier.

 

[turbos17]

Sorry I have the airlocks I meant grommets. I found some on Amazon