Plumeja

Recipes 

so after a week of oaking my first large batch i take a look just to see if the sack of oak has sunk yet. i went and got a pair of nylons and marbles to use to hold the oak chips. soaked them in star san for about 30mins then put it in carboy and racked over top. well now it has been a week and there is the most finest white layer on the top of the mead and i go "oh ****" so i clean out another carboy and right as i type this i am racking it into a clean carboy. is this going to help me or is it dead as soon as the infection happens? should i wait it out, i'm going to just to see if it comes back. i just hope it didn't get wrecked...i hope i clean everything thoroughly, so i don't know where it would have come from. an help out there?? and i didn't take a picture you wouldn't have been about to see it is was such a think skin on the top. i thought maybe the oak chips could have caused it through their oils or something like that heres hoping!!!

fatbloke

Recipes 

Well, I can see why you're worried.

Yet had it not occurred to you to sanitise the tights and marbles and then to add sulphite before racking the mead onto it/them ?
It's entirely possible that if you sulphite the batch with the oak, marbles etc, then any possible infection that may be present will be killed off. In any case, if the mead is over 12% or so, then its not final, its acetobacter that you'd need to think of, so you need to be tasting for any hint of vinegar.......

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Insomniac

Recipes 

It sounds like he did sanitise in starsan but a bit hard to tell. A pic would have been really useful, but I would recommend adding sulphites to your nearly racked mead and taste for vinegar.

Plumeja

Recipes 

i did sanitise the tights and marbles in the star san. what are the sulphite would we be talking about???? i need to make sure this makes it to see bottles. will the sulphates stop it from bulk aging? i am a bit worried i need so reassurance.

fatbloke

Recipes 

Sulphites = potassium sulphite or sodium sulphite. Are the usual wine sanitiser//preservative chems (from home brew shops etc). They kill off harmful bacteria and stun any yeast, either wild/ingredient bourne or added (wine yeast).

__________________
"What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away". Tom Waits.

Oh, and here's some blog stuff!

Plumeja

Recipes 

so i put in the sulphite i hope that it will not hurt the aging. it seemed to be done fermenting. i tasted it as well i was not bad at all. just needs time now. bulk aging for a few months and then bottle age for an other few months..oh ya tasty things to come