What happened!? 6 gallon batch seems ruined :(

[msarro]

I began a batch of cider back in september of last year, 5 gallons worth of locally sourced apple cider. I added 2 lbs of brown sugar, and used champagne yeast to give it a pleasant tart taste (lalvin ec-1118). Around december I moved it over to a secondary (6.5g carboy) and added a gallon of the same cider, pasteurized on stovetop). It has been sitting there since. At the time I tasted it, it was EXACTLY what I wanted. Nice and tart, refreshing, great cidery flavor. Just perfectly delicious.

Yesterday I got around to racking it out of the carboy, and then back to try and clarify a bit more. In the process I grabbed around 2 litres of cider to give it a shot with some guests, since based on last time I figured it would be even better.
Well...
It tastes TERRIBLE! That's actually wrong, it doesn't taste like anything. It tastes like a really watery pinot grigio, with a very tiny bit of a bitter musty aftertaste (aftertaste is similar to when I tried to make a pear wit). There is almost no apple character remaining, if any. All tartness has faded. No boozy flavor or anything.

I tried adding some simple syrup because I thought maybe it just would need some back sweetening, and that just makes the musty bitter taste at the end more pronounced, and it makes it cloyingly sweet almost immediately because there is no tartness to contrast it.

It has just been sitting in a ~60 degree cellar, not being moved. I don't get what went wrong. It couldn't have been sitting too long, some of the local homebrewers leave cider age for more than a year!

Any ideas to help prevent it in the future would be really appreciated... I'm a bit crushed because it's the second batch of things which turned up nasty yesterday (also had a 1 gallon batch of apfelwein become a spice bomb yesterday). Not a good brew day (or money day, really)

 

[saramc]

Could be a combination of 1/2 gallon of headspace plus sitting on lees that has done it.

 

[msarro]

Sitting on lees for 3 months is doubtful... especially with champagne yeast (its one of the best yeasts for sur lie aging). I'm also not sure about the headspace because I was periodically opening the air lock and blowing in food grade CO2, and then replacing the air lock, but it is still a possibility. It could also just be the cider I started with

I'll have to try again next year. In the meantime, I'll just let this sit.

 

[Yooper]

Sitting on lees for 3 months is doubtful... especially with champagne yeast (its one of the best yeasts for sur lie aging). I'm also not sure about the headspace because I was periodically opening the air lock and blowing in food grade CO2, and then replacing the air lock, but it is still a possibility. It could also just be the cider I started with

I'll have to try again next year. In the meantime, I'll just let this sit.

If you're not stirring during sur lie, you'll have a foul musty taste for sure. Aging sur lie requires routine stirring to avoid autolysis flavors that are foul. Sitting on lees for 3 months will generally cause an off flavor. That, combined with the headspace, will cause a problem.

the co2 that you blow in will come out the airlock with a bit of time. It's far better to have the appropriately sized carboy and top up than to try to put co2 in and keep it in there.

 

[msarro]

Thanks yooper! If this is the case, it brings up a few questions... is wine/champagne yeast much quicker to begin autolysis than ale yeasts? I know with ales you don't really have to be concerned until you start looking at 4-6 months of sitting on lees before you'll develop any off flavors, especially in a secondary. In this case, it was around 3 months in primary, and 3-4 months in secondary (assuming the counter gets "reset" when you rack and rerack).

Also, how often do you need to stir for sir lie aging? I have been rocking the carboy around once a month (just rolling it around on its corner to gently stir it up... don't really trust rolling it across the floor like you could with a barrel).

As I said, it was racked off of the initial lees after around 2-3 months, but there was no off taste then - just a tart, pleasant taste like one would expect.

I've done some more research and found a number of folks who had ciders go watery... but no real conclusive reason for why it happens. O2 could be the culprit?

 

[LeBreton]

Sur lie aging is commonly stirred about once a week for white wines.

It's probably not an O2 problem, that would give for of a dull, cardboard flavor, plus you were regularly blowing in CO2 which must have helped, although topping up would have been better, as Yooper said. Autolysis shouldn't make it taste like a pinot grigio either.

Maybe it went through a MLF? The malic acid would have been the tartness and added apple flavor, so when it disappeared, you lost both. Though 1118 yeast is usually pretty hostile to MLF.

Did you use any sulfites? They would have protected against both oxidation and MLF.

 

[msarro]

Sur lie aging is commonly stirred about once a week for white wines.

It's probably not an O2 problem, that would give for of a dull, cardboard flavor, plus you were regularly blowing in CO2 which must have helped, although topping up would have been better, as Yooper said. Autolysis shouldn't make it taste like a pinot grigio either.

Maybe it went through a MLF? The malic acid would have been the tartness and added apple flavor, so when it disappeared, you lost both. Though 1118 yeast is usually pretty hostile to MLF.

Did you use any sulfites? They would have protected against both oxidation and MLF.

I used p-meta in the original cider for 24 hours prior to pitching yeast (rate of 1/4 tsp per 5 gallons) to get rid of wild yeasts, but that was it.