Just before Christmas I did the second racking – moving the cider off its sediment. Fermentation has slowed to a barely perceptible bubbling. The cider was surprisingly clear, with about an inch of sediment in the carboy.

This racking involves siphoning the cider from the carboy to the bucket, cleaning the carboy, then siphoning the cider back into the carboy and cleaning everything again. It turns out that once the fermentation is underway, cider making is mostly housekeeping!