156: Not All Lees Are Gross

Lees: When should we love them and when should we leave them? And what the heck is “lees” anyways?

The main chat in this episode begins around 10 minutes in and features Curt Sherrer presenting his workshop titled “All Lees Are Not Gross” It was recorded at the 24th Annual Franklin County CiderDays.

Why rack off the lees?

Curt proposes that there are more advantages for aging the cider on the lees then removing the lees.
Sur Lie is leaving the lees in the vessel that you are conditioning the cider in is called:
What to expect from barrel aging and leaving the cider on the lees is the smell of H2S which smells like rotten eggs.

Curt recommends:

Using your nose and taste buds to keep track of what is going on when leaving the aging cider on the lees.
Taste every part of the fermentation
Instead of automatically dumping your lees our of the bottle – save your lees
- add to your next cider
- cook with the lees
- make bread with lees

Lees in barrel or carboy

After the rigours fermentation, stir lees for usually the next 6 weeks – sometimes 3 times per week. This technique is called Bâtonnage.
Use your nose and taste buds to decider upon the schedule best suited for your cider. Perhaps you will stir more often or not.
Lees can rest upon the bottom of your vessel for up to year for further.

This presentation will “lees” you with lots of food for thought and decisions to make for you own cider. Not a cider maker? – then seek out maker who do produce cider sur lie and see if you like this more wine like production.

I do and as such post this taping I began my own oak barrel sur lie cider.

Stay tuned!