"Louis, Louis..."

There's cider making... and there's bottling. Bottling being an art in itself I'm coming to realise...

The 'Grolsch bottled' last week is not showing much activity despite the max/min thermometer readings showing 21/23 degs...

First up today was to pasteurise a rather lively batch 5 - not that's it's a particularly sweeter batch. Here it is cooling (note the folded wet towel on top!)


This time I switched off the tank at 63.2 degs. - it continued up to 64.9 slowly, and thinking it wasn't going to make the magic number, switched it briefly on again, whereupon after a minute or so it rose to 65 degs.
The idea of the folded wet towel is to dampen any mishaps, as I reckon the tops/necks of the bottles are the most volatile. Temperature in the test bottle is 55.6 after an hour.
A second cage would be handy... and to speed up cooling, a hose with a fine spray would be good too.