First time hard-cider bottling - any tips?

[Shoshi]

Hey everyone!

Thanks again to Katie for hosting the apple crushing event last fall. I brought my backyard Cortlands, and came home with 4 gallons of gorgeous cider. After waiting several months for my carboy-aged nectar to ferment, I'm getting ready to bottle in early to mid April!

I've been saving up my thick beer and sparkling wine bottles and will do a bottle ferment to bring the fizz back! I still have to get a siphoning tube, since my friend Chris lent me his to do the racking a few months ago.

Are there any folks that would like to offer some tips for the bottling process? Where do I get the caps - Ithaca Beer? Or, how does one actually do the corking? I don't know how that work at all. I have a couple of homebrew cider books from Cornell, but they don't talk about the bottling as specifically.

Thanks for your ideas and let me know if you'd like to join in on the day we do it!

Shoshi

[Teddy de Groot]

Ithaca Beer Co. has all of the equipment you will need to bottle.

This should have all the information you will need:

http://makinghardcider.com/rack-bottle.html

If you cork your cider you will need to buy champagne corks and cages. You will also need a special corker which will cost $70-90. 

[Shoshi]

Great tips! I'll definitely check it out! I may indeed spring for the corker - it makes such a nice finish to the packaging and I can reuse the corks for other projects afterward. I imagine its more time consuming to tie the cages on, right?

[IthacaNancy]

Bought Grolsh bottles for all my bottling needs - I did have to drink the beer, but it was cheaper than buying them empty online.  It makes filling and capping the bottles very easy though.  

I use the same website mentioned by Teddy, http://makinghardcider.com.

It's nice to see the photos of the pressing last fall.  Thanks and good luck with the bottling process.

[Shoshi]

Great idea Nancy - I've used Grolsh bottles for homebrew ginger beer and its so convenient. I love that idea too. I have a bunch more photos from the pressing last fall. Sorry they weren't posted earlier! I should figure out how to do that!