Maturation - on lees or off?

[Matt Cavers]

Hi all -

I have several carboys of cider maturing in my shed at the moment. Most began fermenting around the second or third week of October - a few days after pitching champagne yeast - and all of them hit dryness around the end of the month. Over the last two weeks I've racked each of them into new, CO2-purged carboys and they're happily maturing.

I've noticed that the cider in two or three of the nine carboys has dropped brilliantly clear, and gas bubbles are no longer forming. I brew beer for a living and beautiful, glassy clarity is usually my sign that the product in the tank is ready for packaging, or at least close! However, I've always had the impression that cider needs more time to mature than, say, a beer of equivalent gravity. So the question - is there a noticeable benefit to leaving a cider on its lees after it's dropped clear? Will the yeast cake continue to absorb fermentation byproducts and make my cider taste better than it does right now? Note that I'm not expecting a MLF, having treated the juice (pH ~3.4) with 100 ppm SO2.

(I'm assuming the answer is "yes, obviously," but I'm eager to be surprised.)

Thanks!

Matt Cavers

[Neil Guest]

Matt Cavercidermaker of 30 

In a previous post i mentioned a cider maker of 30 years who  produces aged cider to die for, he never racks and leaves his cider to age and condition on the lees. 

[Andrew Lea]

On 16/11/2015 04:57, Matt Cavers wrote:

> So the question - is
> there a noticeable benefit to leaving a cider on its lees after it's
> dropped clear? Will the yeast cake continue to absorb fermentation
> byproducts and make my cider taste better than it does right now?

Different people will tell you different things. So it's all a matter of
personal preference. Speaking for myself I think the answer is yes. I
have even left ciders (not by design) for nearly a whole year on their
primary lees without racking and they have been fine, even excellent.
However, these were slow (4 month) low nutrient wild yeast ambient (UK)
temperature fermentations. I wouldn't necessarily expect the same from
fast cultured yeast fermentations. The big commercial boys rack pretty
quickly as soon as fermentation is complete.

There is a recent Spanish paper on all this.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814615008961 Lots
of data but no definitive answers ;-)

Andrew

--
near Oxford, UK
Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Aaron Schwartz]

I usually age on primary lees, though I often have racked early in primary to slow the fermentation, so it's not the full amount. I keep wild ferments on their original lees.

I've been thinking lately of stirring the lees every month or so, as is sometimes done to give white wines more body. Anybody do this?

Aaron

[Paul Ross]

Could you give more details of this method Aaron, Sounds interesting.

I am always interested in whether wine methods could be applied to perry.

Cheers,
Paul

[Llanblethian Orchards - Alex]

For perry I find maturation on the primary lees helps. I never rack my perry and tend to use a wine yeast known to produce interesting flavours if kept on the lees for this purpose.

Alex

On Monday, November 16, 2015 at 4:57:10 AM UTC, Matt Cavers wrote:

[Matt Cavers]

Thank you all for your replies! Sorry to have seemingly abandoned this thread - I mistakely thought I'd checked the "email updates" box, and didn't realize there had been so many replies.

I have been pretty surprised to see how quickly and completely these batches have cleared up, and indeed, how little yeast must have remained in suspension when I racked the cider. Of the nine carboys I have maturing at the moment, all are brilliantly clear and the yeast cake completely covers the bottom of only one or two of the carboys.

It's interesting to hear that some of you have had good results leaving your cider on its primary lees for extended aging. I'll be setting up a small cider house next year (attached to a somewhat less small brewery here in BC) and these carboys are test batches for next year's production. I'm trying to suss out whether I should plan on transferring batches to new tanks once they hit dryness, and wondering what the ideal maturation time is in either case. So very much to learn.

M.