First cider, hopefully not horid, but would like some info.

[entaras]

So on a whim my brother, wife, and I picked up five gallons of pasteurized apple cider from a local orchard, threw it in a sanitized six gallon fermenter with two teaspoons of citric acid and a smack pack of Wyeast ( I think it was the British Ale yeast, but we did it at my brother's house and I don't have access to his trash can), and sealed it up (with an airlock of course).

We had a few questions though, as we've only been at brewing beer recently, and have basically stuck to recipes someone else made. Firstly, I know a lot of people rack cider to a secondary after a week or two, and we weren't sure if this was just for clarity purposes or if cider had additional considerations. We were also curious as to what a standard timeline is on a cider that's using ale yeast. Our preliminary readings suggested something like 2 months before bottling with ale yeast, as opposed to 4-6 for wine yeasts, which seems like a lot compared to the relatively simple ales we're accustomed to. Finally, lurking about on here I've noticed several mentions of pasteurizing the cider after bottling and carbonation, and I was curious as to the pro's and con's of the process. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[CiderRules]

Usually I go for about 5 days primary, Until I have confirmed that I have hit my FG (for a normal cider, usually around 1.00-.990 if you ferment dry). I usually use secondary just to age it for a little bit and settle out some of the yeast so I don't get too much in the bottles. 2 weeks is my magic number. I like sweet cider, so when I bottle I backsweeten to taste with apple juice concentrate and/or other fruit juices. If you want dry cider, you can prime like beer.

I honestly have not found any cons from bottle pasteurizing cider to keep it sweet. I have done my own test and it doesn't seem to affect clarity or taste. I always use a plastic soda bottle tester, and open a glass bottle when the tester seems about right. Make sure to chill it down real good before you open, or you might mistake it for being undercarbed when it actually isn't. If it is carbed to my liking, I heat enough water to come up to the liquid level on the bottles (with a towel on the bottom of the pot) and heat the water to about 180 (I think 190 from the sticky is overkill, and probably the cause of most peoples mishaps with pasteurizing) and carefully place each bottle in the pot (while wearing long sleeves/goggles). I don't do more than 8-10 a batch so I don't cool down the water too much. After that's done I usually begin drinking the next day, though they usually taste much better in a month or so.

So my normal timeline: 5days primary, 2 weeks secondary, 3-days-to-1-week to carb, and then up to 3 weeks just sitting in the bottle(if I can wait!). I can churn out a fairly delicious sweet cider out in about a month and a half total.