Hey, thanks for the explanation, that makes a lot more sense now. You are right getting the hydrometer will avoid all the hassle of dealing with any bottles blowing open. I was planning on carbonating with priming sugar too so it’s better to be safe than sorry.
UPDATE June/22/2022
Just a small update on how everything is going with some picture attached. Tasted the cider as recommended on June 17th and it still tasted like apple juice, but no weird flavors. It had a lot more bubbles than before. Then today June 22nd I tasted it, and it smelled faintly...
There is some foam in the top of the juice, but the cider also has some blueberries so I was unsure if it was the yeast or the blueberries. I will try the flashlight trick tonight.
It does have a spigot so I will give it a taste today, hopefully it tastes like you said.
I have also read that...
It was store bought juice but the ingredients only said “100 % Pure Apple Juice (Not From Concentrate), Vitamin C”. So I think it does not have any preservatives, here is a link to the juice.
So I tried making cider for the first time yesterday and I think I made a mistake because I can't see any bubbles in the airlock or in the fermentation vessel. Some background is that I wanted to try making a simple test cider before buying 5 gallons of apple juice and going all in. I got a 7...