Bubbles and Foam

Hi,

I've been brewing a cherry cyser for a couple months now. The first month I had these crazy bubbles that would continuously grow and go up into the bung. Someone had mentioned that it could of been a little left over starizan (sp? cleaning stuff) that I didn't get out causing the bubbles. Now I'm starting to age in the carboy and still have foamy bubbles. They're not growing as high but
if I dont shake them back in they almost get a little hard. At this stage in mead I've never had issues with foam or bubbles.

Do you think a good degassing is in order? How can I make them go away? I guess my concern is that if I go away for a weekend and come back to crusty bubbles I'm not gonna want to shake them back in.

I think we need a bit mroe about you're recipe. It sounds like standard carboy fermentation action. Since its months past what primary would be, I'm wondering if you added the cherries recently. If so its just new fermentation krausen from the sugar in the cherries.

Maybe you can even get a picture to us.

Thanks for commenting....here are some details:

4 gallon recipe:
14.5 lbs of wildflower honey
1 - 96oz of Vinters Harvest Cherry
1-250 ml tart cherry juice concentrate
1tsp of tannin
1.5 tsp of nutrient
EC-1118
SG. 1.118
SNA
Step fed another 2.2 pds of honey - from my original notes the alcohol should
of stopped around 17.85%

After the main ferment was done I moved it into a 5 gallon and topped
off with apple juice. As soon as the cherries were ready in my area I racked onto
6lbs of cherries for about 2 weeks (they pushing up every day)

Now I've racked off the cherries and had to add a little water/honey mix to remove
head space. FG 1.008

I haven't stirred since SNA time which was all in the first week or two.

It looks more like krausen - more of a beer thing? almost like whipped egg whites a bit
with random big bubbles

well I say Kruasen in that its mead's version of it. Its just yeast gunk and air + any fruit bits that might be floating around. But I think I've found the solution in your details.

Now I've racked off the cherries and had to add a little water/honey mix to remove
head space. FG 1.008

Click to expand...

Even though your yeast had a specified tolerance of X, it is not uncommon for you to be able to go above that when slowly adding more food in steps (Step feeding). This is likely a rebooted fermentation from the honey-water mixture. Nothing to worry about here. When you're ready, you can add sulphite and sorbate to kill all the yeast, age it out, and enjoy after bottling.

Think I should give it a degassing? This mead hasn't' been stirred since the first week or two during SNA. Since then its had about 4 litres of apple juice, 6lbs of cherries and honey water (1/4 of honey tops) added to it.

On a side note. I have a wildflower mead that has been sitting for about 5 months. I was going to sulphite and sorbate it and maybe add sparkloid to get it to finish clearing. What order do you usually do it in?

I say you can go for it, just be ready to clean up. If there's an excess of Co2 in there and you give it the means to escape, that small amount of head space may end with you mopping mead off the floor. I think you should wait for this round of fermentation to begin, then focus on degassing the rest.