Other Extended Maceration Eclipse Lodi 11 Cab

I'm two weeks into my extended maceration on my super tuscan. I'm a little concerned, as I'm doing this all in my primary fermenting bucket, not fermo monster. That's said, the lid is closed and it's under airlock with very little headspace. Any concerns with this? Would you dose it with sulphite?

Didn't the blog mention CO2 added to headspace for protection?? I may be mistaken though.

I'm paranoid about too much oxygen during the extended time. On my current batch I put it under airlock in the Fermonster on Day 5 and have been sloshing it around to keep the skins wet since.

There's a lot more air volume in a bucket. The CO2 in the wine will keep much of the oxygen from binding, so depending upon how much CO2 you've lost in stirring it might be a good idea to add some Kmeta, maybe at week 3, stir gently and then lock it down and leave it alone.

If there is still a lot of CO2 in the wine now maybe add the Kmeta now, lock it down and put in the airlock, and then slosh the bucket to release CO2. My thinking there is that the released CO2 will displace through the airlock some of the oxygen still in the airspace in the bucket and give you a CO2 cap over your wine. Just don't open it again until you're ready to rack or you'll lose the CO2 cap.

We're all experimenting here so please just take my input as my thoughts and not a proven answer. Keep us posted.

Ajmassa5983 said:

Didn't the blog mention CO2 added to headspace for protection?? I may be mistaken though.

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If he did I don't recall it.

Thanks! My plan is to dose it in two weeks

AZMDTed I was wondering if you had an update on the SL Merlot in extended maceration. I have been doing all my reds now with an extended maceration of between a month and two months and have been really happy with it. I´d like to do a real full body Merlot so I am interested in doing the Stags Leap or a En Primeur maybe.

Hordak said:

AZMDTed I was wondering if you had an update on the SL Merlot in extended maceration. I have been doing all my reds now with an extended maceration of between a month and two months and have been really happy with it. I´d like to do a real full body Merlot so I am interested in doing the Stags Leap or a En Primeur maybe.

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Hi, no taste tests yet of the SL Merlot. I'm starting week six of its extended maceration. Next weekend I will rack and degas, then a few more weeks before a taste. When I last popped the lid on it about two weeks ago it smelled great.

BTW Vandergrift posted a video two weeks ago saying that he was still going to do an update on his EM experiment. He hasn't posted the update yet. I'm looking forward to his comments as his Amarone should be about 10 months along now.

I think from now on any kit I do with a grape skin pack or homemade fpack I make I'm going to do a minimum of 30 day primary fermentation in my Fermonsters. I haven't dosed any to date with k-meta or co2 blanket cause I am finding the wine is naturally preserved under the normal fermenting co2. When I transfer it to the carboy around 30-45 days then I immediately add the k-meta satchet as I rack it. Skipping sorbate as well on last batch of Reds.

Update on Amarone & Pinot Extended Macerations:

On 1/30 I posted about 2 kits with skins I had started that I had planned to let soak a while. The Pinot got 7 weeks & the Amarone 8 weeks on the skins. I have a CO2 cannister and made sure to top off each wine whenever opening the fermenter after the first 2 weeks. Both wines had good bold flavor at the end of fermentation. I will follow others' advice in the future and use the bag provided for the skins. it was quite an ordeal racking to the carboy and I lost a fair amount of wine in the process. The Amarone was especially difficult and I ended up pouring the bottom of the wine through cheesecloth to avoid having to much back filling to do. Thus, I had to perform an early racking to get the wine off the remainder of the gross lees. Everything looks and tastes good now. Next is the hard part . . . waiting. I'm not sure if the difference in quality that I am seeing at this point is due to the extended maceration or simply the higher quality of the Sterling and Showcase kits. Either way, I am pleased with the results and will be anxious to see how these puppies taste in a few months.

I agree on the skins in a bag versus loose. I lost quite a bit my first time too. Even trying to filter the remaining mud through the mesh bag was frustrating as it was so think with everything.

Thanks to you both for posting, please keep us up to date as time goes on. I'm still impressed with my EM Cab. Whether the traditional method will catch up over time we'll just have to wait and see.

After 6 weeks I racked my Extended Maceration Staggs Leap Merlot into a carboy, degassed, added Kmeta and the oak cubes. I skipped the Chitosan again. My next free start date in my barrels isn't till December so if this kit makes it into the rotation it will have plenty of time to clear.

Interesting note on this one. I used BM4X4 as the yeast. I scooped the skins bag out, and squeezed it dry as I pulled it through the neck of the fermonster. I used a gravity siphon to rack it. The lees on this kit were packed firm and I had almost no wasted wine. I assume that's because I haven't touched or stirred this kit in 2 or 3 weeks. I got more wine out of this kit than any other I've made, with very little transfer of mud.

I didn't taste the wine, but it smelled great. I opened the grape skin bag and it still had some smell to give. The long term verdict is still out for EM but so far I haven't seen any downsides and it seems to enhance the body, nose and flavor.

As in the previous EM kits there was quite a bit less residual CO2 that I had to pull out compared to the standard process.

I wonder how this procedure would work with fresh grapes or must.

Cheers!
-johann

Double post cannot delete

jburtner said:

I wonder how this procedure would work with fresh grapes or must.

Cheers!
-johann

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That MaloneyWine from Washington being discussed has extensive notes on each years process. And on average he's letting his primary go about 4 weeks with careful punching and management. Though he never referred to it as extended maceration.

Thanks to @Brian55 for posting this link to Tim Vandergrift's update on his Extended Maceration experiment:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...DF3F983460B118180E80DF3F983460B1181&FORM=VIRE

While it sounds like Tim is just as excited about his regularly fermented kit as the extended one he does give the Extended Maceration kit the nod for complexity of the wine. I'm not a good taster, so I'll take his word for it that he finds it better than the baseline kit he made at the same time.

Last night I sampled the Lodi Cab from my first EM kit that I started in November. It tastes great, but sadly I can't describe it well enough or have a non-EM sample of the same time to compare to. But I will say that it was very good and I have no reservations about doing more kits this way. It had good body, a bit of a nose, and a very pleasant taste. No tartness from excess tannins or bite from CO2. Strangely though it had a warmth to it that seemed stronger than the not quite 14% ABV I calculated for it.

On Tuesday I started Extended Maceration on a CC Showcase Amarone in my Fermonster. I used BM4X4 instead of the kit EC-1118 yeast. I put the skins in the bag once again. This time I added water to bring it to the full 23L mark. I checked on it this morning...... Overflow! I used the Fermonster lid with the opening for a bung but just hung a clean old T shirt over it to keep the bugs out. This morning the shirt was soaked in juice and I had about another half cup of juice leaked all over. In some areas there was spray as though it came out under pressure, which I'm sure it did. It was the most pleasant smelling clean up I've ever done, but it was a mess.

I did not stir it yesterday, perhaps if I had I could have released some of the building up CO2 more gently and avoided the blowout. Maybe it would have just volcanoed on me then. I sure was hoping that keeping the skins in the bag was a key to avoiding overflow. Seems as though it isn't.

I ordered a second Fermonster that will be here tomorrow and I'll start another EM on a CC Showcase Old Vine Zin on Saturday. For this one I will go back to leaving the water about a half gallon short and see if that buys me enough room to avoid the overflow.

AZMDTed said:

For this one I will go back to leaving the water about a half gallon short and see if that buys me enough room to avoid the overflow.

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Are you just going in at a later point and adding that half gallon of water?

On a similar theme, I'm wondering of something like this would be a better tool for the job:

https://www.morebeer.com/products/speidel-plastic-fermenter-30l-79-gal.html

Boatboy24 said:

Are you just going in at a later point and adding that half gallon of water?

On a similar theme, I'm wondering of something like this would be a better tool for the job:

https://www.morebeer.com/products/speidel-plastic-fermenter-30l-79-gal.html

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That's exactly what I've been using for quite a while now and highly recommend it. I do recommend the upgraded chrome spigot for $16.99, since the plastic one it comes with is not optimal.

Those look nice especially for some EM. I wonder how well EM works with frozen must? Probably pretty good...

Ciao!
-johann

Boatboy24 said:

Are you just going in at a later point and adding that half gallon of water?

On a similar theme, I'm wondering of something like this would be a better tool for the job:

https://www.morebeer.com/products/speidel-plastic-fermenter-30l-79-gal.html

Click to expand...

I don't think I'd add water later to bring it back to spec. I could add it after the first 3-4 days of most active fermentation and hope it blends well, but I think I'd rather have a slightly denser wine than add water later. Though it may not matter. When I look at Tim's pictures it looks like he is well under the 23L mark when he made both kits. There is another variable that may be at fault for the blowout. My basement is now a constant 74 degrees. When I made my first couple of EM kits there were kept about 72 degrees. It's possible that the extra warmth just got things going faster and stronger, enough to blow it out a bit. I'll have a better feel if it's going to happen again when I get home tonight and stir it.

That Speidel looks great. I like the idea of handles. <edited> That does look like it would give me plenty of headspace.

AZMDTed said:

Thanks to @Brian55 for posting this link to Tim Vandergrift's update on his Extended Maceration experiment:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...DF3F983460B118180E80DF3F983460B1181&FORM=VIRE


On Tuesday I started Extended Maceration on a CC Showcase Amarone in my Fermonster. I used BM4X4 instead of the kit EC-1118 yeast. I put the skins in the bag once again. This time I added water to bring it to the full 23L mark. I checked on it this morning...... Overflow! I used the Fermonster lid with the opening for a bung but just hung a clean old T shirt over it to keep the bugs out. This morning the shirt was soaked in juice and I had about another half cup of juice leaked all over. In some areas there was spray as though it came out under pressure, which I'm sure it did. It was the most pleasant smelling clean up I've ever done, but it was a mess.

I did not stir it yesterday, perhaps if I had I could have released some of the building up CO2 more gently and avoided the blowout. Maybe it would have just volcanoed on me then. I sure was hoping that keeping the skins in the bag was a key to avoiding overflow. Seems as though it isn't.

I ordered a second Fermonster that will be here tomorrow and I'll start another EM on a CC Showcase Old Vine Zin on Saturday. For this one I will go back to leaving the water about a half gallon short and see if that buys me enough room to avoid the overflow.

Click to expand...

I experienced the same overflow issues with both the CC Amarone and the RJS RQ Cab Sauv in the fermonster. I've had similar issues using the big mouth bubbler, but not as severe. It seems like the extra wide space at the top of the BMB allows the CO2 to escape and the foam to dissapate a little faster.

I just racked another RQ Cab Sauv and an Eclipse Merlot out of the BMB and Fermonster, respectively. I found that more frequent stirring with very gentle initial action helped to control the foaming pretty effectively. Unless I have a ton of headspace I now punch down and stir very gently during the early, vigorous fermentation phase.

Still learning as I go, but the education is quite enjoyable.