How to carbonate without making bottle bombs?

Ok, this is my first time making a cider. It started around 1065. I used WLP775 English Cider yeast. It has dropped to 1005 and doesnt seem to be moving anymore. It is very clear and tastes good to me. My plan was to give away part of the batch (a 3.5 gallon batch) to family and friends for christmas.

I have yet to bottle because it seemed to take forever to ferment. Now, I’m concerned that I will give them bottle bombs. So, whats the easiest way to prevent that? Is it safe to say I wont be able to give them a few bottles by christmas? I feel like from what I’ve read I can carb it with priming sugar and then after a few weeks pasteurize it. Obviously, that will take longer than I have but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

You could “rouse” the yeast by rocking or spinning the fermenter, that might help shake up the yeast and get them to finish up. The tradeoff is that you will have to let it sit and settle for a couple more days.

I haven’t used that yeast strain in particular but IME English strains tend to leave a sweeter finish than other strains. I wouldn’t worry about bottle bombs, but if you were, take the residual sweetness into effect when calculating the amount of priming sugar to use.

Without knowing your original receipe, its hard to give you solid advice. How long has it been sitting at 1.005? You may be able to simply add a small amount of priming sugar, give it a couple weeks or so to carbonate, and be good to go.