Why do you macerate?

[Per T Buhre]

Dear everybody,

The subject of maceration is slightly confusing to me. I mostly hear in cider (and Perry) making that maceration is done to soften tannins and acid, but in wine the official reason seems to be to increase tannins, and the possible presence of some VA actually adds to the acidic taste . And I have heard cider makers claim that they macerate to increase tannins, body and mouthfeel, as in wine. That is also my (very limited) experience, that long maceration (2 weeks) in cider (of low tannin apples) seems to increase tannic structure and mouthfeel. So to me it seems that maceration could have several outcomes depending on a lot of factors.

So, my question to you out there is: Why do YOU macerate, and what effects do you experience? What kind of apples and how long is also of interest.

/ Per

[Bartek Knapek]

Hi,

 

  As as for my part, I find a couple of hours long maceration to increase the juice pressing yield, and make the cheese layers more stable under pressure.

Longer maceration 12-24h, especially in open containers, decreases TA with 1-2g/L, but the resulting cider is also less flavorful. Stirring during maceration seems to further strengthen these effects. So I avoid long macerations and keep the containers closed during the process. However all these observations are done for dessert apples, I have no experience (yet :) with high tannin cider varieties.

 

The 2w maceration you write about below - do you mean you actaully start to ferment in a pulp, or do you keep it at low temperature during this time?

I read that fermenting in a pulp can help to extract more tannins, but I always considered it to be rather impractical, as I would need to press that mess at some stage. I suppose pressing the juice in the first place is done exactly to avoid that.

 

cheers // Bartek

 

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[Per T Buhre]

Thank you for answering!

It is a friend of my that is doing the 2 week maceration. He has a wine background so he is very inspired by that (were really long macerations seems to be hot right now). The pulp is macerated outside in a 1000 l plastic vessel (maceration container for wine, I think) and then pressed. Temperature in Sweden in that time is certainly not very high but it should be high enough for epiculate yeast fermentation to start. He also tried 4 week maceration but that turned out too acidic, but I am not sure that the maceration in itself was the reason for the VA.

I recently had a wine that was macerated for 9 months (!) and that was really funky, very exiting and slightly acidic in a nice way, so I am very interested in maceration experiments in cider.

/ Per

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[Andrew Lea]

Traditional cider pulp maceration in the UK and France is done for only a few hours. Its purpose is to encourage enzymic changes such as greater release of pectin (helpful for keeving), reduction of tannin by polyphenol oxidation onto the pulp, increase or decrease of colour depending on how much air can get to the pulp, and liberation of aroma precursors (primarily by lipoxygenase action). 

There is no historic tradition of pulp maceration for longer than a day or so. However, in some Spanish cidermaking practices, the pulp may be left pressing for several days which is a form of “maceration”. During this time lactic acid bacteria may proliferate in warm autumn conditions, which have an impact on the final cider.

There is no mainstream tradition of fermenting cider on the pulp as far as i know. This is a red wine technique which is primarily intended to extract skin anthocyanins and tannins into the juice, and does not apply to apples. In cider apples the tannins are distributed throughout the flesh, whereas in grapes they are concentrated mostly in the skin (and seed).

Andrew

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le mardi 14 mai 2019 09:58:52 UTC-4, Andrew Lea a écrit :

There is no historic tradition of pulp maceration for longer than a day or so. However, in some Spanish cidermaking practices, the pulp may be left pressing for several days which is a form of “maceration”. During this time lactic acid bacteria may proliferate in warm autumn conditions, which have an impact on the final cider.

I have met a producer in Germany (Jörg Stier) who, for one of his ciders, let the pulp macerate for up to 5 days before pressing. Interestingly, the obtained cider is quite similar to true Asturian sidra...

Claude

[Per T Buhre]

Claude: I assume that Jörgs cider had this typical high concentration of acidic acid (and lactic)?

Is there even an official connection between long macerations and acetic acid?? 

During this time lactic acid bacteria may proliferate in warm autumn conditions

Andrew: Do you mean that there could be some sort of MLF already in the maceration stage?

And I recently heard a Canadian cider maker (Ryan Monkman) claim that he macerated a juice to increase tannins. It would surprise me if he was completely wrong, but he has a background in winemaking so I suppose this comment could be based on assumption… 

Andrew, you say that

 In cider apples the tannins are distributed throughout the flesh

The apples Ryan were talking about was clearly no bittersweets. Could there be a difference in distribution of tannins (flesh/skin) in other varieties?

For some reason this subject obsesses me. Thank you for answering!

/ Per

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[Andrew Lea]

On 15/05/2019 08:50, Per T Buhre wrote:

>
> Andrew: Do you mean that there could be some sort of MLF already in the
> maceration stage?

I'm no expert on traditional Spanish cider but it is well documented
that yeast and ML fermentations do begin together in many cases due to
the warm weather at harvest time. And that the long pressing phase can
traditionally extend into the beginning of the fermentation phase. This
is not the case in the cooler areas of northern Europe.

Claude's contact seems to have been able to exploit this concept by
manipulating pulp maceration.

>
> Andrew, you say that
>
>>  In cider apples the tannins are distributed throughout the flesh
>
> The apples Ryan were talking about was clearly no bittersweets. Could
> there be a difference in distribution of tannins (flesh/skin) in other
> varieties?

AFAIK the distribution is much the same for all apple varieties, though
obviously bittersweets have a lot more tannin in absolute terms.
However, much of the tannin is cell wall bound and so is potentially
more extractable the higher the alcohol level. But as I said, there is
no historical tradition of cidermaking by fermentation on the pulp
AFAIK. There may well be people playing around on a "what if" basis if
they only have dessert apples available, though.

Andrew

--
near Oxford, UK

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

www.amazon.co.uk/Craft-Cider-Making-Andrew-Lea/dp/1785000152

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le mercredi 15 mai 2019 08:34:56 UTC-4, Andrew Lea a écrit :

However, much of the tannin is cell wall bound and so is potentially
more extractable the higher the alcohol level. But as I said, there is
no historical tradition of cidermaking by fermentation on the pulp
AFAIK. There may well be people playing around on a "what if" basis if
they only have dessert apples available, though.

There are other interesting cases. For example, at Cidrerie Milton in Quebec, they make a rosé cider by using Dolgo crabs that they let macerate at high temperature, which extracts the color from the skin. They however keep the details secret (i.e. for how long and the temperature at which they macerate). They then blend this with some dessert apple juice and obtain a very nice final product.

I guess there is a huge field of experimentation there!

Claude

 

[Dan Samek]

I came across some conference proceedings from the 80s (czech chemical society or sth) which referred to methods of producing calvados. The french produce calvados by distilling cider whereas the tradition here used to be fermenting and distilling the pulp, the latter having much worse sensoric qualitie. The author refers to higher methanol content and sulphuric compounds such as thioalcohols and thioethers the origin of which are supposedly crushed seeds. Maybe this does not show so much in cider. Maybe Andrew might share his thoughts on this?

Dne úterý 14. května 2019 9:03:53 UTC+2 Per T Buhre napsal(a):

[Andrew Lea]

No deep thoughts I’m afraid.  Distillation of fruit brandies from fermented pulp notably plums (which are hard to juice) is well known to produce high methanol levels from pectin breakdown. The EU sets limits on these things. Never heard of thioalcohols in apple seeds but I’m prepared to believe it’s true if the seeds are broken. Not sure this is relevant to ciders where, as I repeat, pulp fermentation is not a normal procedure. It could raise some caveats though, for those wishing to go down that route. 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

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[Richard Swales]

Apparently this is still the way it's done in Slovakia at least in
small-scale or home production (which would be the vast majority made).
When someone once said to me that there was no tradition of cider-making
in the country I asked how it was possible, given that a fair number of
people people make jablkovica (the local name for apple brandy) and
apple vinegar, that nobody had ever tried drinking the intermediate
product and found they'd liked it. The answer was basically that the
intermediate product was an open fermentation of pulp as described below
and probably a fair amount of sugar too, and that basically nobody who
tried it would find they liked it :)

Richard

[Matthew Moser Miller]

Hi Per/all,

I'd remembered reading interesting research at CiderCon this year about different methods purported to increase tannin extraction in non-cider-specific varieties, which apparently often do have higher tannin concentration in the skin (Red Delicious with 42.9mg/g tannin in skin but only 5.2mg/g in pulp, as an example); but my recollection was fuzzy, so I wanted to doublecheck with the person who'd done the research. According to Kate Pinsley, a grad student at Cornell, there's no research supporting the idea that extended maceration or skin contact is useful for tannin extraction. In both cases, you may be able to pull more tannins off the skins, but the losses to oxidation and binding to solids leads virtually no net gain, and a possible decline in tannins. Plus you have the higher risks of other microbial activity, potential mold growth on the cap, etc. The best options she found for increasing tannin were minimizing oxidation between milling and pressing and something called Pulsed Electric Field, which apparently is a new tech/treatment that changes the cells in the pomace to make them more porous. If people are interested, I can check with her to see if she's ok with me making her posters on the research available on here.

I was also talking to Ryan last week about this, and maybe there was some confusion? He said he had done extended macerations in grapes, but not in apples; his macerations there were only a few hours at most. He did, however, mention the value/role of "sacrificial tannins" that can be mixed in before pressing or fermentation that will be oxidized first (I don't know the details of why, on a chemical level), preserving the apple (or grape) tannins in fermentation. I think he said they were derived from untoasted French oak?

Best,

Matt Moser Miller

[Per T Buhre]

Thank you for all great answers!

Matt: The research sounds really interesting! Please share if possible.

Ryan Monkman is talking about a 100% Northern Spy cider (in the pod Cider Crate 15 june 2018 at 24:21) ”it’s got fairly mild tanning which we were able to increase with some skin soaking, at milling, just before press”. I really believe the idea of ”Sacrificial tannins” which you (according to Ryan) can add by using new oak barrels with untoasted top and bottom or oak chips/staves. It has to be French or European oak (Quercus Robur/Petraea) and not American (Quercus Alba) since it has to little tannins.

I spoke today with my fellow Swedish cider maker Jesper and he has done macerations up to 1 month with Swedish garden apples (low tannin/high acid). His experience is definitely that maceration increases astringency and structure (!). The 1 month batch he made turned out too astringent to his taste. He says that he perceives the acid to become more ”balanced” with long macerations but also confirms the higher risk of VA when macerating, but none of his ciders that I have tried has any significant taste of acidic acid. His fermentaions is always in ambient temperature on the west coast of Sweden (Gothenburg).

I have still not tried maceration myself but I find the idea to be very appealing, especially with low tanning fruit. It is very annoying that is is impossible to find American/Canadian ciders over here, since I understand that you make really interesting stuff with low tannin fruit. Last time I went to the USA my schedule was too busy for cider safari. But I will come back! 

But, so far, my cider heart belongs to Herefordshire UK, without bloody macerations.

Best,

Per

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[Garrett Huber]

I totally agree cold maceration before fermentation creates polymerized tannin due to oxidation and pectin binding.

Although, I have been doing fermentation on the pomace of bittersweets on macintosh and empire juice. I am tasting more astringency due to this process. I am thinking that is due to alcohol being a solvent for tannin.

I plan on having Kate Pinsley analyze gallic acid equivalents.

[Garrett Huber]

Ahh sorry I did not identify how long the bittersweet pomace fermented in mac empire juice. It fermented for 12 days on the pomace at a rate of 1.2 pounds/gallon. Fermentation was managed with 2x day punchdowns or pumpovers to mitigate VA and mold on the cap.

The product is Eden Heritage Can now being renamed as Eden Harvest Can. Further blending occurred in the result of this product though but we just won Gold in Heritage Dry for it at GLINTCAP.

[John in Wa]

On Thursday, May 23, 2019 at 7:18:45 AM UTC-7, Matthew Moser Miller wrote:

Hi Per/all,

 If people are interested, I can check with her to see if she's ok with me making her posters on the research available on here.

Please do!