Other Extended Maceration Eclipse Lodi 11 Cab

I racked mine today as I am traveling most of the week and don't think there will be time over the holidays. The mud was challenging to say the least. I used a strainer, but had to roll the mud around in the strainer to get the wine to separate. I did lose some wine and had to top off the carboy. I would estimate it took me an hour longer to rack than a normal batch. Maybe I will try your method next batch. I did a small taste test for the wife and I with this batch and one that has been few months old. The extended maceration definitely tastes better at this early age. Unfortunately it will not be able to compare in a year. I got this second kit as I purchased a new 50l Vadai barrel and need double kits to fill. So these will be blended together. Based on the early results, I am probably going to stick with the extended maceration for future kits. I have four double batches waiting to go into the new Vadai, and then its going to be converted to a grape only barrel. I would have really liked to keep these separate to do a true comparison in the future.

Please find someone else who made this kit the regular path and compare in a year. And thanks for sharing your tips as you were a week ahead of me and helped me bypass some potential problems.

@thruhike00 I'm glad to hear that I helped you a bit. Also good to get confirmation that yours seems better as well for a young wine. I expect that I will do a side by side test next summer, but I've got other batches in the plan first. I do have another Lodi Cab that I did the usual way that is 5 months older than this one that I think will at least give me something to compare it with. If it consistently beats that then we definitely have an improvement.

Next month I will start two kits simultaneously, one in the regular bucket and one using the Fermonster for extended. This time the bucket will get another Lodi Cab and the Fermonster will get a CC Showcase Cab. I won't get a fair comparison between the two kits to see which one is better since the method will be different, but I will learn more anyway.

Good luck with the 50L Vadai. I've got two 23l Vadais and already find myself having to plan six months ahead to keep them fed.

Any tips or observations from your extended maturation?

AZMDTed said:

@thruhike00 I'm glad to hear that I helped you a bit. Also good to get confirmation that yours seems better as well for a young wine. I expect that I will do a side by side test next summer, but I've got other batches in the plan first. I do have another Lodi Cab that I did the usual way that is 5 months older than this one that I think will at least give me something to compare it with. If it consistently beats that then we definitely have an improvement.

Next month I will start two kits simultaneously, one in the regular bucket and one using the Fermonster for extended. This time the bucket will get another Lodi Cab and the Fermonster will get a CC Showcase Cab. I won't get a fair comparison between the two kits to see which one is better since the method will be different, but I will learn more anyway.

Good luck with the 50L Vadai. I've got two 23l Vadais and already find myself having to plan six months ahead to keep them fed.

Any tips or observations from your extended maturation?

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The volume of foaming is impressive and should be planned for. I will do my next extended maceration in my big mouth carboy and not a bucket but will put it in something in case it foams over. I used BM4x4 yeast and did a fermaid injection twice during fermentation. Mine still got stuck at just over dry for about a week. I ended up using the EC yeast in and fermentation restarted and finished completely dry. Mine, like yours had surprising little gas when racking. The mud was something else and was a true PITA. Please keep us updated on the tasting.

That makes three of us now who have commented on the lesser amount of gas in the wine. I re-read Tim Vs blog yesterday and he made the same observation about the extended maceration batch.

About a year ago if I had whipped a batch for 6 minutes and got no gas reaction I probably would have called it gas free and done a happy dance, but now I know better. I'm glad for the pump as it did pull more out. But clearly the extended time in 'fermentation' released a huge amount of gas that normally is still in the wine if you degas according to instructions between day 15 and 20 or so. I'd really like to now why. It's not just days as wine I have whipped and vacuumed at day 20 I can still taste and feel the gas after six months in a carboy. So I think it's something else going on besides just time.

This also explains why my tasting notes on this thread picked up gas bubbles tickling my tongue but not the usual bite I taste from residual gas. There's still gas, but not much.

Heck, I may just continue with extended for no reason other than its effect on degassing.

Would you give us a link to Tim V's blog on extended maceration, please.

GaDawg said:

Would you give us a link to Tim V's blog on extended maceration, please.

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I can't access his blog while I'm at work, but it's an easy google:

Tim Vandergrift extended maceration blog

That will get you to mastervintner.com/blog/advanced-techniques-1-post-fermentation-maceration. But google it to be sure that I didn't transpose something wrong. I think he has 3 or 4 blog posts on it now, he calls them 'long tail' articles.

Thanks AZMDTed

This weekend I started a batch of CC Showcase Cabernet using my Fermonster. There are only a couple changes from the Eclipse Cab here. 1, I'm using my fermenting closet kept at 75 degrees. 2., I put the skins in the mesh bag. 3., I used the supplied EC-1118 yeast.

The fermentation has been very active. As I've stirred the last couple days I was surprised to see that I had no issue with potential foaming overflow. I'm thinking that this is because of one or more of the changes I made. The higher temp fermentation area may allow for so much CO2 to escape that not enough is left to erupt with the stirring. Or, the bag keeps the skins together so that there are less nucleation points. Or, the yeast isn't as foamy as the BM 4X4. Could be any or all of these, but it's nice to know that so far foaming isn't an issue in this batch.

AZMDTed said:

This weekend I started a batch of CC Showcase Cabernet using my Fermonster. There are only a couple changes from the Eclipse Cab here. 1, I'm using my fermenting closet kept at 75 degrees. 2., I put the skins in the mesh bag. 3., I used the supplied EC-1118 yeast.

The fermentation has been very active. As I've stirred the last couple days I was surprised to see that I had no issue with potential foaming overflow. I'm thinking that this is because of one or more of the changes I made. The higher temp fermentation area may allow for so much CO2 to escape that not enough is left to erupt with the stirring. Or, the bag keeps the skins together so that there are less nucleation points. Or, the yeast isn't as foamy as the BM 4X4. Could be any or all of these, but it's nice to know that so far foaming isn't an issue in this batch.

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My guess is the yeast is less foaming. I remember reading something (maybe written by Tim Vandergrift) that EC1118 is in most kids due to the low foaming tendencies.

cmason1957 said:

My guess is the yeast is less foaming. I remember reading something (maybe written by Tim Vandergrift) that EC1118 is in most kids due to the low foaming tendencies.

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Father forgive me for I have sinned...but sometimes you can't resist...

Craig, I hate when my kids foam so I always feed them some EC-1118.

I did remember to add on another thread that the Merlot tonight seemed to be causing me issues. This was another one. Those $7 bottles from Costco are just to good to pass up and way to easy to open a second one on a night when the wife says, well should we have a second bottle?

I started 2 kits on 1/18 and 1/19 planning to do an extended post-ferment maceration on each. Kit #1 is a Cellar Craft Showcase Amarone and Kit #2 is a Cellar Craft Sterling Pinot Noir. The size of the Showcase grape skin pouch was significantly larger than the Sterling and it had a larger juice pouch as well. Both kits are being made with the skins free floating in the must. The Amarone is in a Fermonster and the Pinot is in a Big Mouth Bubbler. The yeast for both kits was EC-1118 and both were started in the 70-75 degree range. I made a yeast starter for the AMarone, but pitched the yeast dry in the Pinot. The Pinot was targeted to be about 5 degrees cooler than the Amarone. Both wines fermented vigorously at first and I had foam over issues with the Amarone on days 2-3. After that they both settled down into a nice steady flow of CO2. I was stirring/punching down twice a day through day 8 and now plan to go to once per day until the skins cease to float. My plan from day 12 onward is to top off the fermenters with CO2 from a cannister each time I stir to protect the wine from early oxidation and allow them to sit for 6-8 weeks before racking to carboys. Other than the initial foam-overs things appear to be going well. However, it's very early in the process. I'd be happy to hear any suggestions can provide more details if anyone is interested.

I will say that making Amarone and Pinot Noir at the same time really emphasizes the difference in the flavor profiles of these 2 wines. Having just bottled my first batches of Cab Sauv and Pinot a month ago I am more willing to be patient with these 2 kits and allow them adequate time to mature.

In hindsight, anything you would've changed in your technique? I'm starting an EP Super Tuscan this week and plan to do extended maceration for about seven weeks. I'll leave skins and currants loose in primary. Swapping my test for BM 4x4 too. Is not sulphiting during this time still advised? Looking forward to this.

ehammonds said:

In hindsight, anything you would've changed in your technique? I'm starting an EP Super Tuscan this week and plan to do extended maceration for about seven weeks. I'll leave skins and currants loose in primary. Swapping my test for BM 4x4 too. Is not sulphiting during this time still advised? Looking forward to this.

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This weekend will be six weeks on a CC Showcase Cab I've done, and the two differences on this kit were that I put the skins in the mesh bag and used the kit yeast, EC 1118. The 1118 yeast is very low foaming so I never had an issue with foam over. But I also didn't address my questions about what would happen with BM 4X4 yeast (higher foam) and keeping skins in a bag. The BM 4X4 may be part of why I found the EM kit to have a better nose than other kits I've done. I'm starting a new one this weekend or next which I will use the BM 4X4 again and probably put the skins in a bag. Skins in a bag is the one big change I'd make to see what happens. But I'm not sure which I will prefer until I see how it handles the foam as well as how easy/difficult it is to extract the bag and squeeze the juice out.

You will find with keeping the skins loose that there will be a lot of 'mud' in the bottom at the end. I think I lost a fair amount of wine in that mud. In the long run maybe not enough to worry about, but I want to try squeezing through a bag and saving it. I don't know how much difference there is in the quality of the wine with loose skins versus in a bag. I would think that loose skins would provide a better product because the bag in my current kit eventually sank and as it did I'm sure it compressed the skins inside and many of them would have lost contact with the wine as a result. That would defeat some of the EM goals I think. So I'm torn on that.

The only other thing I'd be more careful about is getting it under airlock sooner. There's a balancing point between needing to still punch down the skins versus losing the CO2 cap to protect the wine. It may not make a difference, but that made me nervous. One thing I learned is that after the foaming period you can slosh the Fermonster around and soak the skins that way without having to keep taking the lid off and using the spoon.

Please keep us on posted on your observations. I sure would like to have others do this and post their findings so that we have more input before declaring this as definitively better than the normal kit process.

Thanks for the response. I'll let you know the progress.

Started mine last night. I let the skins sit in open contact with juice for about 13 hours before I pitched the BM 4x4 this morning. Surprised to see the gravity right under 1.11. This is going to be a highly alcoholic Super Tuscan. Can't wait. I'll rack in 6 weeks

ehammonds said:

Started mine last night. I let the skins sit in open contact with juice for about 13 hours before I pitched the BM 4x4 this morning. Surprised to see the gravity right under 1.11. This is going to be a highly alcoholic Super Tuscan. Can't wait. I'll rack in 6 weeks

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That's great. I hope it goes well. Just beware how a tranquil looking wine can turn into a foaming monster with just a gentle stir

Since I finished this first batch I've done two more. The second was the CC Showcase Cab I mentioned above. For it I used the supplied EC-1118 yeast and put the skins in the bag. I had no foaming issues, which I attribute to the yeast. I racked it out on Saturday after six weeks. It had a great nose to it and a fair amount of gas. I didn't add the oak cubes to the Extended Maceration part, instead I added them Saturday and will leave them in there for a while. Again I've chosen to skip the Chitosan and will try to let this settle by itself over the next six months before it goes in a barrel.

On Saturday I also started an Eclipse Stags Leap Merlot with extended maceration. For this one I put the skins in the bag, added 1/2 a package of Zante Currants and used BM 4X4 yeast. It's been 48 hours now and it's quite foamy as was the first EM kit. Leaving for work this morning I checked in on it and the foam was up and pushing the grape pack up higher. I spent the day wondering what would happen when the pack hit the top. Would it plug it and create a wine bomb? Would the gas still get through and be okay? Would it push the pack partly out?

I came home and all was just fine. The wine is still releasing CO2 like crazy but the gas was escaping around the pack without creating more foam. I gently gave the whole thing a stir, which is what created the foam volcano on the first batch, and...... nothing. No foam volcano, more CO2 release, but absolutely no problem with foam.

So far so good. I'm thinking that the loose skins and currants created vastly more nucleation points for gas and foam whereas the pack limits it. I'm guessing that's why I'm not having the foaming issues like I did on the first batch with loose skins.

I will add though that inserting and removing the skin pack through the fermonster openning is a messy job.

AZMDTed said:

I will add though that inserting and removing the skin pack through the fermonster openning is a messy job.

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Ah, but I bet it makes your hands smell pretty good!

ceeaton said:

Ah, but I bet it makes your hands smell pretty good!

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Finger lickin' good