Bigsky406

Recipes 

I thought I had appropriately sterilized my equipment prior to brewing but I'm starting to suspect something might be wrong. After 7 days of fermentation I'm noticing some pretty suspicious growth forming on the surface of the cider and on the top of the inside of the glass fermentation vessels. This light-brown growth looks very similar to the foam that forms when I first press the juice, but I'm concerned it might be bacteria or some other not-so-good organism.

I used campden tablets and a pectin enzyme as directed before pitching the yeast and I washed the jugs with B-Brite as directed and cleaned all of my other supplies with a bleach solution as recommended elsewhere on this site.

In other words, I thought I did a pretty solid job of keeping my stuff clean throughout the process.

How do I know if the growth I'm seeing will harm my cider or if it's just a natural yeast bi-product? I did swirl the jugs to mix the yeast so it's feasible that what I'm seeing on the is just yeast growth on the inside of the bottle, right? Should I be concerned? Is there a way to test? Is all lost? HELP!!!

Thanks!

Devo9

Recipes 

A picture might help...

Bigsky406

Recipes 

I'll post pictures later when I get home. I should say that I used champagne yeast in one carboy and cout de blanc in the other. I should also say that I'm a newbie, having only made small one-gallon batches of cider in the past...

Bigsky406

Recipes 

Here are some photos I took from various angles.

Other useful info:

Pitched the yeast On 8/17/12.
Temp is a consistent 65 degrees in dark basement.
The cote de blanc is slowly bubbling still but the champagne is not seeing much action in the airlock.
The strange growth (if it is strange) is much heavier in the champagne than the cote de blanc.

Yooper

Recipes 

That just looks like yeast clumps, and shouldn't be anything to worry about.

Once fermentation slows down, (should be now, or anytime now), top up to within two inches of the bung and just let it sit.

__________________
Broken Leg Brewery
Giving beer a leg to stand on since 2006

Bigsky406

Recipes 

Seems pretty slow now. When you say top off, do you mean with more juice?

Also, how long do you recommend letting it sit before I start thinking about racking it, tasting it, etc.

AND... should I test the specific gravity again soon?

Thanks for all the useful info. This site is great for a relative beginner!