Why is the top of my cider black?

Hey guys,

This cider has been in the secondary at my friends house for about a month while he's been out of town. When he came back he showed me a picture of it and something is definitely wrong. The top 3 or 4 inches of the cider is black, here's a link to the pic.

It was made with Safale S-04. Despite the sticky note on the carboy saying Fruit, there is no fruit in it yet. The other batch of this that is exactly the same looks fine and it was definitely not like this when I racked it.

What the heck is going on?

Well, it's hard to tell from a picture but it looks like it's got about 6 inches (or more) of headspace and wasn't topped up. So my bet is that it's oxidized.

The other possibility is that cider, like all wines, clears from the top down. Maybe (hopefully) it's not black and discolored from oxidation but instead just clearing from the top down so the bottom looks so much lighter. If the top isn't really that dark, just darker than the bottom, than it might be ok. It's so hard to tell from a picture.

But the lesson here should be always, but always, top up to the bung. If you need a smaller carboy, then so be it. But oxidized cider is terrible.

Eee yeah that doesn't look good. I'm sorry I can't provide any input to what is the issue but I can say that I just got done kegging my cider and I forgot to bleed the o2 off of the keg after I pressurized...

Thank Yooper for reminding me (Its only been 5 minutes)

There's a gallon of head space; it's a six-gallon carboy with only 5 gallons in it. I was planning on adding fruit to it later so I purposely left that extra room for the fruit to fill later. I guess that was a bad idea. Do you think I can rack the cider on the bottom out from under it and it will still be good?

Does it smell funky? Also, what kind of juice did you use?

What kind of sanitizer did you use in the bottle? Iodophor? Just trying to think of as many things as possible.

KB12 said:

snip

Do you think I can rack the cider on the bottom out from under it and it will still be good?

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According to my "Guide pratique de la fabrication du cidre"
If a sample clears after adding a drop or two of lemon juice the problem is iron oxide. The treatment would be to dissolve 50 grams of citric acid for 100 liters into a sample of cider, and then add that to the cider.

*Kiosque* - IFPC - cidre, pomme, pommier


Cider Workshop | Google Groups
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If the citric acid is the indicated cure...
I would rack into another carboy to get the cider off of the lees and add the acid. but I'm new to this stuff

The juice was from an orchard in Pennsylvannia, unpasturized. When I got it it was about 4 days old but had been refridgerated the whole time.

I used Star San to sanitize the carboy (better bottle) and it was the first time using the carboy. I did rinse out the new carboy pretty thoroughly before using it.

I don't know about the smell because I haven't been over to investigate. I will be over there this weekend to work on it.

The is a second batch that is exactly the same, only difference being 5 gallon carboy instead of 6 so I'm kinda leaning towards the oxidation theory although I never knew cider changed color so dramatically when oxidized.

The cider did have yeast nutrient and pectic enzyme added in the primary.

Just looks like it's clearing to me - take the picture again without the flash!

markcurling said:

Just looks like it's clearing to me - take the picture again without the flash!

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Take another look at the photo. You can see the second carboy next to it that looks fine.

I'm assuming that is the "other" carboy...

I had Safale S-04 do that to me as well, only my "black" space was only about an inch deep. It also went away, and the result was tasty.

Rdwhac

markcurling said:

Just looks like it's clearing to me - take the picture again without the flash!

Click to expand...

+1 Hard to tell from a picture, but clearing from the top down would be my guess as well.

Joe is right, thats iron in the juice, reacting with O2 in the headspace. The orchard must use milling equipment that has some exposure to mild steel. The iron itself won't effect the flavour but is a good way of showing where oxidation is occuring.