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Contamination Pictures

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mjl3434

NewBee
Registered Member
Jun 16, 2011
33
0
0
I'm not proud of these but thought I would share it for everyone's sake. This is some left over mead I had from the champagne mead I was making. At the time I did not want to waste it so I saved it in this 1 gallon bottle. I do not recall what sanitation method I used. Since I had no plan for what the mead I forgot and let the air lock seal evaporate.

When I bottled the mead it was 100% clear and there was no yeast in suspension, so all of that crap you see there is contamination.

IMAG1711.jpg


IMAG1712.jpg


I shook up the bottle a bit to get stuff floating around. This video is from my droid phone:

http://www.marklarwill.com/downloads/VIDEO0028.3gp
 
Khan

Khan

Worker Bee
Registered Member
Apr 11, 2012
93
2
8
South jersey
Is that contamination? I sometimes get a sediment like that with meads that I make with dark berries. But that's usually after I stabilise and bottle; before that it is all clear. I just thought that it was stray proteins that took a bit more time to fall out of suspension.
 
Chevette Girl

Chevette Girl

All around BAD EXAMPLE
Moderator
Lifetime GotMead Patron
Apr 27, 2010
8,447
59
48
Ottawa, ON
I sometimes get funny things like that too, tannins or proteins do sometimes come out, if it's tannins, they often stick to the bottle... I generally figure I'm OK as long as it doesn't smell or taste weird. Of course, I don't consider anything truly clear until I can't see a flashlight beam in the mead, so if I bottle it before that, I expect some stuff to collect in the bottles eventually...
 
M

mjl3434

NewBee
Registered Member
Jun 16, 2011
33
0
0
I have to say I'm not 100% sure. Like I mentioned earlier I had no real plan for it so I just left it there. But the yeast from the same batch was sort of a light golden brown, whereas this stuff was a bit darker. When I poured it out it did not look nearly as offensive as it did in the bottle. It looked more like some kind of sediment.
 
K5MOW

K5MOW

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 2, 2011
262
0
0
Friendswood TX
I have seen something like this with one of my meads. It tasted great so I just saved all of it for me to drink by my self. It was after bottling when it showed up.

Roger



Primary: Blackberry Melomel
Primary: Weches Grape Wine

Have a great Mead making day.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
G

GDP

NewBee
Registered Member
Jul 13, 2012
57
1
0
Hmmm weird looking. This kinda makes me think I can only imagine what ye oldie day meads looked like lol.
 
M

mjl3434

NewBee
Registered Member
Jun 16, 2011
33
0
0
False Alarm?

Okay so I dug up a few other bottles of the stuff, and lo and behold it's just some really scary looking sediment. Take a look at this:

2.jpg


The first bottle on left is on it's side the same as it was stored. The middle bottle is the same thing but was just set upright a few minutes before. You can see the same junk floating around. So maybe it was just my inexperience which led me to assume it was contamination when it's just some old dead yeast / sediment.
 
P

Pewter_of_Deodar

NewBee
Registered Member
Sep 23, 2004
1,867
0
0
68
Cedar Rapids, IA
Unless you filter prior to bottling, there is always the chance that there will still be something in suspension in the batch that will settle out later. You have to analyze whether what you have is "sediment" or "some sort of growth".

The few bottles that I have had go bad, since I do not use chemical preservatives/stoppers, have had very tiny black spots that looked like the bottle was "rusting" where it seemed like it was a growth, not something that had settled. These were on the sides, not the bottom of the bottles.

The second sort of spoilage I have had looked like a large shadowy dark twirling shape (hard to describe) that had the same color as the mead but much darker. Once disturbed, it mixed into the mead, leaving the color darker than other bottles of the same batch.

Finally, I look at your last picture and I would be worried about the bottle on the right that is cloudy, not the two that seem to have small amount of particulate.
 
Chevette Girl

Chevette Girl

All around BAD EXAMPLE
Moderator
Lifetime GotMead Patron
Apr 27, 2010
8,447
59
48
Ottawa, ON
Mouahaahaahaa!!!! ....Naah, Vincent Price does it better...

I think the real difference between an infection and sediment is whether it affects the taste... and as Pewter said, spots or clumps... are more likely to be a worry than deposits. Tannins coming out will coat the bottle...
 
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