Sterilizing mead bc of mold on top
 

Batch of chocolate mead cocoa and nibs ( nibs in the secondary) has mold on top in the secondary. There is liquid in the lock and it smells good, made back in sept is in a cool cupboard


Can we save this, it was a lot of honey

In the cupboard there is sodium metabisulphite, potassium metabisulphite and potassium sorbate.... All in powder form....no idea how much of any of these to use.... Or which ones.

The mead was one big batch , but will be split into small gallon carboys to make it easier to manage

What should we do now
it is one big batch

shinning a flash light thru it there is still a lot of bubbles coming up the sides... is it possible its not mold just some scum.... what do you guys think



Thanks!

Are you sure its mold and not something that came floating off of the nibs? Do you have it in one carboy or a bunch, if its in a bunch are all the carboys affected or just one? Mold needs air to live so are your airlocks filled right, is there an air leak around the seal between the bung and the bottle or the airlock and the bung?

Is the metabisulfite new or old? If its old it might not work.

You know a picture would really help out a lot.

WVMJ

Is it fuzzy, furry stuff?

no fuzzy just white, hasnt changed in the last 5 days or so..... at a loss as new to this!

You can reach in there with a papertowel and swab out the gunk on top if you want, then add some potasium metabisufite just to be sure. What you have there looks just like residue from the wine, maybe some protein from the honey etc, the little rim of white stuff is common. Does the mead itself smell funny? You can probably chill out and stop worrying. WVMJ

Here's 1 way to tell that has worked for me. Draw a sample of the 'stuff' with a baster. Put that drawn sample in some small container with a honey/water (or water/sugar) mix, place it in a warm, preferably dark spot for a few days. If you have growth in your sample, it's a mold. If no growth happens, it's just some 'floaty' material, and not harmful. Sounds like a lot of work, but that's nothing compared to losing your whole batch!

How much k meta... Would you add, we have powder....
Will swab the stuff up first

Thanks!

1/4 teaspoon in a 5 gallon batch, dissolve in a quarter cup of water and gently stir it into your wine, or rack your wine, add the dissolved KM, stir and top off. The KM is just insurance, especially good for newbees or winemakers like me who never ever think its acceptable to loose a batch of wine because we didnt add $0.05 worth of insurance. WVMJ

Skim it and rack into clean sterilized carboy

Terminology issue here......

We will all have enough kit to "sanitise" glassware and other kit, but to actually "sterilise", most of us don't have access to an autoclave or similar, or even 95.6% ABV spirit so give a carboy a "slosh round".

Hence being a bit picky, I'd say skim/swab out the white stuff, then rack it a "sanitised" carboy, onto sulphites.

That way, you've removed all the visible white stuff. Racked off any sediment and then the sulphites should take care of any other stray mould spores that might be in there - but it'll stun any yeast as well, so hopefully it's finished fermenting........

Ok, now returning to "pedants corner"..... :D