Possibly a sour mead problem (sanitation question)

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The5thHerring

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Yes, this is my first mead, and yes, I'm fairly new to brewing, but this isn't one of those "oh no I think it's infected because it looks weird!" threads. A distant relative, maybe.

So: I made a "ginger beer" (cider? wine?) according to this recipe for 3 gallons:

1.5 lb honey
1.5 lb brown sugar
3 lemons - juice and zest
8 oz grated ginger

Safale US-05

Left in the primary for 8 days, final gravity .995, 6% abv. Racked to secondary, tasted it, and it was quite sour.

So ok, no big deal. I sprayed out the primary fermenter, one of those plastic "Better Bottles," and then rinsed a few times with water and then StarSan. Then used it for 5 gallons of mead; I pitched yeast for that about 4 hours ago.

I just realized the sour flavor of the ginger-whatever might have been lactobacillus, and I might not have gotten rid of it properly (i.e. didn't scrub with a bottlebrush before sanitizing, since there were no stains).

So first question: is a sour/tart flavor common (without infection) in very young ciders etc.? Or should I actually worry about infection? I'm keeping the brew around in any case, just to see what it does.

And second question: If there is reasonable suspicion that the mead is in an infected carboy, what should I do? Will a campden tablet or two fix things? (I'm using Red Star Champagne and also Montrachet yeasts; I've heard that wine yeasts are resilient in the face of SO2).

Many thanks.
 
If I'm following you, you made a fairly low gravity ginger something or other, and that's racked.

You now have a full 5 gal batch in primary in the same better bottle, which was rinsed only, then sanitized w/ StarSan. Presumably this was all done on the same day?

I think best practice would be to to wash/clean the bottle first...a general rule of thumb is you can't sanitize something that's not clean first. I usually use either soap and water or some other cleanser (I kind of like BLC...it's rather caustic, so you have to be careful with it, but I find that it gets film/build up off plastics really well with minimal scrubbing...the chemical action is enough to strip the surface of the carboy/bucket.)

Once you have a clean surface, you can effectively sanititze.

All this being said, I'm not convinced you have an infected batch...many meads can taste sort of acidic, and certainly ciders can. (to clarify, is your second batch a mead or a cider...you used both terms). Also, your post makes it seem as if you may just have some sort of residual ginger flavor? Or are you just hypothesizing that the flavor you're identifying is as a result of something that came off of the surface of the ginger?

FWIW, I've put fresh, unpeeled, grated ginger directly into primary just as you did, and never had any sanitation/infection problems....

By the way, how does the ginger batch taste? If that batch tastes OK, I further doubt that you have an infected batch, assuming all your other sanitation practices are sound. I think it would be pretty unusual to have a carboy get contaminated in the course of racking and then putting a new batch right in, again assuming all your other brewing/transferring procedures are sound.
 
Make a bleach solution and let it sit in the fermenter for a few days; that should take care of things.
 
Its pretty dry so not much sugar to counter the lemon you added
On the other hand it is pretty low abv to not add any preservatives so its a chanse it soured shortly after completed fermentation

Question is if you would mark it as drinkable or vinegar (ofcourse it might werry well be both)
 
biochemedic: Yes, I did all that in the same day. I did spray out all the sediment before sanitizing, and there were no visible deposits. And my second batch is a mead -- 13 pounds of honey in 5 gallons has a pretty clear definition :)

janivar: I'd call the ginger stuff just this side of drinkable. I have a friend who made a cider that turned out comparably tart -- and it's true that there's pretty much no sugar left to counter the lemons.

Still, it tastes a little intense to be accounted for by just the lemons. So I'm a bit worried that the ginger thing maybe got pickled, and therefore the mead may have too. The carboy looked clean, i.e. no residues or anything, after I rinsed, so I just went right ahead and sanitized.

(Short history of this carboy: Before the ginger went in it, it belonged to a friend who brewed beer. When I got it, it had a stain or two, which I scrubbed off; no soaking afterward, though, just several rinses and a sanitization. So it's possible that something hung on and got the ginger batch. And if so, it's probably in the mead now :/ )

Which leads to the next question: will it destroy the fermentation if I stick a few campden tablets into the fermenting mead, to combat any bacteria? Again, I've heard wine yeasts are hardier than wild yeast/bacteria.
 
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