Hi folks! Im on my second year of cider making and having a blast doing it. My first year I made and bottled hard cider in 12 oz bottles using two different yeasts as an experiment. Did all the normal things and tried bottle carbonating and it turned out great. The only feedback I got back was that folks didnt love the leftover yeast from bottle carbonating that was leftover in the bottles. So this year I bottled in champagne bottles, bottle carbonated, added Bentonite to half the bottles (I wanted to see how much of a difference it made), and Im in the process of riddling the bottles now to disgorge them at the end of April. Im building a homemade neck freezer (not sire if thats what its called) for this process which Im excited about.
This all said - my long term goal is to make cider commercially on a small scale. We’re in the process of planting a small scale orchard (likely in total less than 5 acres) and we’d like to make cider with the bulk of the apples. I’ve been reading a lot of books and enjoying experimenting with the juice we have now (the current trees we have give us about 10 gallons a year and I get about 5 of that to play with (the kids love drinking the rest 
)) - but Im wondering if anyone else has been on a similar journey. Im going to reach out to a couple of local cideries soon and ask about helping out in the orchard and in the ciderhouse to get some more experience - but are there other things I should be doing or experimenting with? Im grafting all of the trees for our orchard so we’re a few years out from having a substantial yield but Im also thinking about buying some fruit to press this year to increase the juice I have to experiment with. The current cider Im making is dry so I might experiment with back sweetening some of what I bottle this year.
Just curious if anyone else has started from scratch and been headed in his direction. If so - any guidance folks have would be appreciated! Im really interested in things we can do to make things more “commercial”. What I mean by that is that if there are things beyond normal hydrometer testing to help ensure a consistent product. Our goal is start small and make one or two ciders that we can make reliably to sell and then start experimenting from there to add on to it.
I know I have a long way to go on this journey but just looking for some advice from folks who have gone from hobby to commercial if there are things I should be looking at sooner rather than later. Thanks as always!