Contamination with...worms??

Hello all,
I made two 1-gallon batches of cider about 2 weeks ago from unfiltered apple juice from the store. And in one of them, I notice these little worm-shaped things floating around.



Now what can these be? I am not completely sure that they are worms, but that was the first thing I thought of. They don't appear to be squiggling but it is hard to tell; bubbles from fermentation are slowly moving things around. Most of them look like little brown worms, but they don't look all the same (some just look broken into pieces).

I only notice them in my second batch, which I felt I had done a much better job sanitizing things. Other things in the cider are honey and ground spices. Could it be some yeast sediment mixed with spices floating?

Scared and confused,
Foon

It looks like they could be spices. If your sure they are not moving then its probably spices. I would definitely take a sample of the "worm" to see if its spices or a worm.

I hope so too. The strange thing is that I don't see any of that in my other batch even the recipe is very close. I will probably pick up a big pipet and take a sample tomorrow. Can yeast form clumps like that with ground spices?

foon said:

I hope so too. The strange thing is that I don't see any of that in my other batch even the recipe is very close. I will probably pick up a big pipet and take a sample tomorrow. Can yeast form clumps like that with ground spices?

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I cant tell you for sure, but I know that I haven't seen yeast clump up like that... with that said I dont do too many spiced ciders / beers after a disaster that I am still "aging" to when it might be drinkable.

Tom Robbins wrote a book, B is for Beer, a kids book about beer. In it he talks about a worm that used to live in breweries, off the spilled fermenters.

Don't put it past yeast to make some strange shapes. I had some similar shaped yeast before. If you didn't notice it coming out of the bottle this way, it could be exactly what you are suspecting (floating lees and spice). Unfortunately it could also be bacterial...I haven't seen bacteria like that first hand but I've seen pictures where it clumps into string shapes. Wine thief and taste test to be sure.

If it is actually worms that would be insane.