Huge amount of lees on my cider.

[byronyasgur]

My cider has a huge amount of lees. It's just finished fermenting and it's basically 50% lees - 50% cider. The cider tastes pretty good but I don't want to loose all that much cider if there's anything I can do to help it. I think the reason there's so much lees is because the way I got the juice out of the apples wasn't really the best ( and I won't be doing it again it was a major head wreck at the time ) ... I froze them and then thawed them out and pasteurised them at the same time on the hob ... and really it was too much fruit to to do this way - maybe on a smaller batch ... but anyway some of the must seemed to have sort of stewed in the process ( not that you'd notice in the resultant cider ) but it started as an extremely cloudy must - a bit like very liquid apple sauce I suppose unfortunately. So it settled out a lot during fermentation but ( now in secondary ) I still have the problem described. I will just rack it off the lees if necessary but I was wondering if cold crashing it for a couple of weeks would be worth a try ... or am I wasting my time ... or is there some way to extract the cider from the lees - The full batch size is about 15 litres ( so 7 or so litres of lees ) ... but I feel that if I was able to press that out somehow there'd be 4 or 5 litres of cider in it ... but presumably, I can't do that without wrecking the product with oxygen or risking contamination or something.
I also thought of the idea of racking off what I could properly and then straining the remainder through cheese cloth into a bottling bucket and not worrying about oxygen and just consuming it more or less immediately - maybe not even carbonating it - any thoughts on that?

 

[madscientist451]

I'd just let it sit and see if the lees start to compress. 6 months is nothing for a cider, so just put it away and come back to it in the spring.

 

[byronyasgur]

I'd just let it sit and see if the lees start to compress. 6 months is nothing for a cider, so just put it away and come back to it in the spring.

lol it won't last that long - but thanks - gives me some confidence though

 

[Drewed]

You could attempt to siphon it through some cheese cloth.

 

[FunkyMunk]

This happened to me with a recent batch. I cold crashed it and kept track of the level of the lees each day to see when it was done settling, and it only took a few days. I then racked as much liquid as I could get to a new container (including a bit of the lees, figuring it would just settle out later). I was able to get a good bit more cider out than I initially thought I would, but it was still a lot of sediment (3 gallons out of a total 7 gallon batch).

 

[byronyasgur]

This happened to me with a recent batch. I cold crashed it and kept track of the level of the lees each day to see when it was done settling, and it only took a few days. I then racked as much liquid as I could get to a new container (including a bit of the lees, figuring it would just settle out later). I was able to get a good bit more cider out than I initially thought I would, but it was still a lot of sediment (3 gallons out of a total 7 gallon batch).

thanks - I discovered that this is not really finished yet but when it is I'll do what you did and see how it works. What were the lees like - I'm thinking of trying to strain the remaining cider out of them ( after racking off the good cider ) and re-clearing it. I know it wouldn't last long as it would have been exposed to oxygen - but would it be worth a shot do you think?

 

[FunkyMunk]

One way to avoid waste is to rack the good stuff into another vessel (keg or bottling bucket), leaving behind the last bit of cider, then afterwards siphon this last bit (with some lees included) into a mason jar or something, crash it in the fridge, and enjoy that sooner. I don't think the hassle of straining would be worth whatever small amount of cider, if any, that you would gain over this method; you're either still going to get a lot of lees going through your strainer, and have to crash anyway, or the strainer will get clogged and you'll have a hard time even getting the cider through it.

 

[byronyasgur]

I was thinking of racking into a bucket lined with cheezecloth and then raising the cheezecloth and letting it sit like that till it drained out ... the lees are really very liquid with a low percentage of solids ... but I'll see how well I get on just cold crashing it first anyway ... good tip on the mason jar idea it might help - lots of mason jars though I'll have to see

 

[FunkyMunk]

Maybe with enough cheesecloth you could filter some out, but whatever makes it through will probably still be cloudy and also oxidized. I probably wouldn't sweat it, but I think you'll be able to condense the solids in there quite a bit with cold crashing, then I'd just rack off that. You could try the cheesecloth with what's left I guess.

 

[byronyasgur]

Maybe with enough cheesecloth you could filter some out, but whatever makes it through will probably still be cloudy and also oxidized. I probably wouldn't sweat it, but I think you'll be able to condense the solids in there quite a bit with cold crashing, then I'd just rack off that. You could try the cheesecloth with what's left I guess.

thanks

 

[MarkKF]

So what kinda yeast did you use? Because I've never had the yeast not drop within 7-14 days of yeast pitch. And that's with temps 55-70 deg. F.

 

[byronyasgur]

1118 ... but I don't think this has much to do with yeast - I made a mess out of the apples to begin with - ... I'd say the lees is 10% yeast ( dropped ) and 40% bits of apple / 40% liquid cider ... or something like that