Bottling Day

So after a few days in the 2nd FV it was time to bottle the brew!

Again, before anything it was time to clean the FV, syphon hose, little bottler and bottles/caps. I just filled the FV  with warm water with the sterilizing powder and then left the equipment to soak in there for 10 minutes.
Once I removed the items, and gave them all a good rinse, I just used the solution to dip the bottles in a few at a time and leave them for a few minutes before removing them and giving them a good rinse a couple of times.

This was probably the most time consuming task so far, but of course worth it all to ensure no bacteria or sterilizing solution remained in the bottles. Nothing worse than an off tasting cider after all this effort!
Once this was all done, it was back upstairs to the cupboard to syphon into the clean and sterile FV.

At this stage, the brew needs to be primed at the bottling stage. There is 2 methods to do this

• Batch Priming
• Bottle Priming 

I got some Coopers Carbonation Drops with the kit I ordered, though you can use ordinary sugar. 

With batch priming you add the sugar or drops to the FV and once this has all dissolved bottle it. 

And with bottle priming you just add the sugar or drops to each bottle, but needs to be done in equal quantities to make sure they are not overally fizzy once capped. 

I chose to use the drops and put them into the FV before syphoning, where they would just dissolve.