Infected Cider? Mucus like glob in secondary.

I think my first attempt at cider may have gotten infected. It was a simple recipe, apple juice, dextrose, and Nottingham yeast. I racked to secondary today after five days in primary.

Here is where I think I went wrong. When I racked to secondary, I added a splash of extra apple juice to the fermenter from a half empty bottle of apple juice from the fridge.Two hours later I noticed there was a glob of mucus like goo floating in the top of my cider. I tasted the apple juice from the fridge
as well as the cider and they both tasted fine. I am wondering if I infected the cider by using the opened juice from the fridge and not boiling it.

I have attached two photos of the nefarious globule. Does anyone think this might be an infection?

Two hours doesn't seem like enough time to create an infection that big. (IMO) I'd give it some time and see if maybe it's not just yeast kicking in an eating the new juice.

I'm not saying it's NOT an infection, because it does look suspect. But I just can't imagine that you would go from no infection to...that...in such a short amount of time.

Never seen an infection that looks like that. Doesn't mean it isn't one though, but cider tends to form a skin-like pellicle across the surface. Relax & wait to see what happens.

Roughly twelve hours later and there is no spread of the mysterious snot. I think I am going to sanitize a turkey baster and remove it. If there is no reappearance of the cider sneeze, should I be good to consume this?

haha...the "cider sneeze"

I think that sounds like a great plan. Get it out and keep an eye on it. Check your gravity readings, if you have alcohol in there, it will be fine to drink. If it smells or tastes horrible...thats a different story.

So I just drew off the fermentation funk and it looks even more heinous up close. There is alcohol there, roughly 6%.

yah that is pretty rough looking. Maybe that was growing in the container that you had open in the fridge? You mentioned it smelled and tasted fine, hopefully it was just some pectin or something that formed and plopped into the secondary.

Keep us posted. If it starts up again in secondary, I'd rack it out of there and maybe consider bottling and pasteurizing or just drink it rather quickly. There's nothing wrong with cloudy 'still' cider if it tastes good.

Thanks for the advice pickled_pepper. I will keep my eye out for anymore goop in my cider.

I've got some stuff like that in my apple wine, it's been bottled now for 2 months and I just checked it today and seen the same but more stringy. Any ideas?

My best guess is something that had grown in the apple juice pre-fermentation. Everything tastes fine, and it is not spreading.

did you figure out what it is? I have the same in mine and I'd like to avoid it in the future!

I never did figure out what it was. I just sucked it out with a sanitized turkey baster. The cider didn't taste off or anything.


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