Monitoring (for Re-Racking)

During this phase you wait for the yeast to do the hard work. There are different methods for determining how long to wait. The first think you want to do is make sure the fermentation is going well. After a few days the airlock should be bubbling.

Once the airlock stops bubbling you can wait a few days and move on to the next steps. This should typically take 10 days to 4 weeks depending on yeast, temperature, and the sugar content of your juice.

If you want to be more precise, you can take a reading of the specific gravity with a hydrometer and make sure it’s what you expect for the yeast. Generally if you’re going for a dry cider it should be getting close to 1, and less than 1.010 before moving on.

Jolicoeur takes measurements of the SG throughout this process to measure the rate of fermentation and will sometimes rerack to slow it down if he thinks it’s going too fast. So far I haven’t gone down this route, but it is an option to consider.