Film on Cyser Surface

More likely than not you should be fine if the taste was ok . If it bothers you take a turkey baster and suck it off the top

I agree with squatchy -- you're probably fine. The added apple juice has been fermenting for a month, and that probably accounts for the layer of crud on top.

Based on your numbers you were probably around 18% ABV before adding the apple juice. You diluted that with the juice, but then the juice started fermenting as well... no wonder it's dry By now the yeast has probably eaten most of the available sugar, which probably accounts for the loss of the apple flavoring.

As a side bar: I stir my batches tio keep the yeast suspended in solution rather than getting buried at the bottom. This does several things. Allows the yeast access to what ever sugar is left in the must. Helps them float around ad absorb left ober crap in the must from the work they did. If they're not buried they wont autolyse so soon. And it will keep stuff from forming on top.

This may seem counter intuitive, but it will actually cause your mead to clear faster when you are ready to rack and stop stirring.

BTW, Your pic tells me your ok as far as the film on top.

Squatchy,

When do you stop stirring? Right up until racking? A couple of days before hand? I've been following the advice of aerate/degas up to the first sugar (1/3?) break and stir/degas until the second (2/3?) sugar break, and then leave it alone at that point.

Thanks. dave

I believe people rack usually too soon and too often. I'm not sure where people started racking before the fermentation is even finished. Then they complain that the process has slowed down. LOL

Even once fermentation has stopped, the yeast still work and will clean up some of the residual things left behind in fermentation. Sometimes, if one wants to try to lower the gravity just a bit more they can warm up the batch just a few degrees for a period of time to see if they get one last push forward.

I don't like things bone dry. SO I usually have to stabilize and then add other things on the back side. So generally I will let it go dry, and will stir up everything every couple days so the yeast won't sit on the bottom and rot. I might do this for a few weeks. Now I will add stabilizing chems and cold crash it for a couple weeks. I do this without stirring it so everything will drop out. This then is usually fairly clean when I rack it off of all the fallout. It's now fairly clean, clean enough to add what ever adjuncts I plan to use to make whatever style I am shooting for. If I plan to add fruit I will continue to keep it in the fridge so I can leave it in there for 3-4 weeks and not worry about getting vegetal notes from the fruit.

Same thing applies. Keep lightly stirring things up a little every few days. At some point stop stirring so things will drop out so you can rack again.

I believe it actually clears faster once the stirring stops than what it takes to do it how others do. Now, I have only racked twice before bulk ageing it. Because I have a filter, I fine it and filter it, one last time and bulk age until bottle time. So 2 racks and a fine/filter and I'm finished. This saves product due to less product loss at each racking.

Iv'e seen pics of a clear sided barrel with mead inside sitting on 71-b lees for many years and apparently it doesn't taste bad from the autolysation of the 71-B lees in sur lie. I tried to find the pics of the clear barrel head with a few inches of lees on the bottom of a semi full barrel but didn't have time to find it.

I think that beer guys and wine peps have carried over into the mead world things that are considered true by mazers and are passed off as "truth" without any personal experience. I don't think following those practices are a bad idea, but I also think it has caused undue concern for mead making.

I have only experienced oxidation twice. Both were with intention, and I probably couldn't have done it if I had added sulfites. I didn't sulfite it because I was trying to make a maderia style mead. I think wine practices (not stirring things much) don't necessarily hold true in mazing.

I think infections are not much to be concerned with. If we follow good sanitation practices, and because most things we make (other than hydromels) have high ABV% I think some of the concern people have (especially when new to mead) isn't near as relevant here as in the beer world.

At one time the world was flat. If we say things that are not true, enough times, people will eventually begin to think they are because it gets said enough. This is where many things become dogma that are really not the case.
ded

As usual, a great answer.

Thanks! dave

I'm not too sure I agree squatchy. The thing is, once there's a consensus on these forums that oxidation is not a real problem in mead I'm pretty sure newbees will start oxidizing mead. Sometimes I see practices which I can't figure out on these forums and I realize just how many mazers have no idea about making mead, haven't read the newbee guide, and have just read an outdated recipe or 2 and decided to follow it. Couple that with experienced mazers or a whole forum saying that they should not be concerned about oxidation and I bet someone will prove us wrong. Not to mention: up to which point does this hold true? Are melomels affected? Are jaoms affected? (the first mead recipe many are introduced to) how much fruit and which type before the mead is winelike enough to have oxidation concerns?
I don't want to be responsible for that so I'll say be wary about oxidation, especially in the newbees section of these forums.
Same goes for infections. I just can't be sure new mazers know exactly what good sanitation practices are and I don't know exactly at what point the abv is high enough for me to say don't worry about it.

For your next batch you might want to start off with more volume to compensate for racking losses. This would ensure that you can rack into a carboy rather than a bucket. The reduced headspace means less contamination and oxidation potential. Once you get into this habit it barely takes more effort over using buckets. On the plus side you'll get the hang on good practices which will help you once infections and oxidation really are a concern, even if they might not be for this particular batch

Hi brother

Nice to hear from you. It's been a while. I totally agree with you. I might not have portrayed my message correctly. In no way did I intend to say we can become lax in good practices. What I thought I was saying is we have some people polarized in the extremes.

Recently, many times over I read where people are afraid to even open a vessel to take a gravity reading because of fear of contamination or oping to finish dry.

These are things, if/when we practice good hygiene skills should not draw alarm. Certainly, we shouldn't have any fear of stiring up our must to keep the lees in suspension.

I'm glad you pointed this out. It is good to keep things in Balance, and framed in it's proper perspective. Apparently failed at this and am lucky yo have good people like yourself to jump in and challenge my reply.

I know I have offended a time or two here. And I am still learning this thing called Mead, just like everyone else is in this community. But please rest assured my intentions are always for the good.

Back in college I lived in a farm house. I learned to home brew beer while living there and after a year or so my brews started getting that powdery stuff on top. I sanitized everything with beach and/or heat but it still kept forming in the fermenter. I thought it was probably some wild microorganism in the air in the old farm house. No one could tell me what it was (I never took it to the microbiology lab) but the beers tasted fine so I didn't worry about it. I moved to my current house and it hasn't been a problem here.

BlackFriarsMonastery said:

Thanks! Funny, although I did a search before I posted to see if anyone else had posted a similar question, I couldn't find one, but now there were several "similar threads" posted afterwards and the answers have been similar. That's a relief. Thanks again for your time and I'll get that stuff off the top.

Ah! I seem to have figured out the image posting...

Click to expand...

That looks an awful lot like a pellicle to me...

BlackFriarsMonastery said:

Yikes! And what, pray tell, is that?!

Click to expand...

http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Pellicle

True, but it's a sign of non-Saccharomyces organisms in this batch (Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus, or Pediococcus). Whether or not this is a good or bad thing is a matter of personal taste.

I recommend letting this batch finish normally and seeing how it ends up. No need to stress as long as it tastes good! Going forward, however, I'd thoroughly scrub down and sanitize every nook and cranny of your bucket and any other pieces of equipment that came in contact with this batch to avoid carrying over the non-Saccharomyces organisms to the next batch. Scrub plastic items with a soft cloth or a sponge without the scrubby pads on them--the scrubby pads can leave scratches on plastic where microbes can hide.

Thanks for the link Zac. I was shocked when I looked at the pictures that you could click on the link to view. Haven't ever seen that in any of my matches. But you may be correct in thinking that that's what it is. Kinda looks like it. I hope fryers batch turns out okay

I'm not sure but as much mead as I have sitting around the house I would be very afraid to keep that around. I would move it to a totally different part of the house or maybe just get rid of it. And also get rid of everything that ever touched it. I would hate for that to get in all that tons of gallons of things that have sitting around.

I used to brew kombucha, but I don't do that anymore for fear of cross contamination.

Black Friar, don't do anything rash just yet. Certainly don't dump the batch! I was on call at my hospital last night, hence the short responses. I have a full day today, but I'll write about my thoughts on wild microbes, Brett, and sanitation when I get home.

I've had something looking exactly like that form on the top of my carboys. However these were large 54 liter carboys with narrow necks, so there was less proportion of mould to liquid. I *think* this is something rather common in wines and when this happens I used to remove it with a tissue paper and add a little metabisulphite so the top of the carboy is purged from air again. I rarely saw it return and even if it did there was no taste difference between those carboys and ones which never got any mold at all.
I was looking at mould to make sake (koji-kin) and stumbled upon these tablets which claim to sterilize the air above the wine in a carboy. This seems to suggest that this mould cannot be prevented in some environments just like 58limited thinks because the mould is in the air. Even though this mould might not have not been preventable and *maybe* it will not do any serious harm you should probably still take precautions. Even though I was confident my wines would be ok, such that I never even bought such tablets I still took measures to remove the stuff