The bubbling action seems to have stopped. A thin film, like the mold that develops on sour pickling projects sometimes, was starting to form on the cider in it's carboys... so I decided to bottle. I was careful to insert the syphon into the bottle without touching any of the white growth taking the clear cider in the middle and leaving the debris on the bottom as well as the top.
This portion I am giving more time in a secondary. I added sugar and it grew in volume and started to form bubbles on top again.
I used 8 oz bottles for cider tasting. I left some to be still and added a bit of sugar to others to see how it would change it. The theory is not to sweeten but to make it sparkle. Adding sugar to a secondary as I also did is to make it dryer not sweeter, because the yeasts, if there are any left consume, the sugar.
I also used 750 ml bottles for sharing. Bubbles formed from the sugar. In this case there is no outlet for the rising bubbles as there is in the jug with the airlock-which lets the air out, but hopefully not in.
These will have to sit for a few months at least judging by how they taste. It will be fun to see how they change over time and to start to get a feel for how cider that has not been controlled with yeasts and chemicals ages. I understand these things are used to create consistency in product. So in my case each year will most likely be different, but I am still interested in trying to get a feel for how to do it without these aides. Especially now that I see this beautiful product and am forgetting how "hard" this was to do.
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