Ok, I'm in the process of letting my cider ferment and it's got a strange layer of brown ... sludge? snot? on the top of it ... it was put into the primary on Aug 29 ... OG was 1.070 ... i racked into the secondary on Sep 8 ... at that point, it was at 1.024 and the fermentation had settled down ...
(btw, i've brewed about 8 beers, but this is my first cider)
based on a recipe i found somewhere online, i added some "apple pie spices" since it have enough spice for my taste (otherwise, it was quite tasty) ... as soon as i added the spices, it started fermenting and formed a bit of a krausen which fairly quickly settled down as the spices (appeared mostly to be cinnamon) floated to the top (you could see it both sinking and then rising as CO2 bubbles attached to the spices) ...
after a day or two, fermentation seems to have stopped and then the spices on top started to develop a dark brown layer on the top of the cider ... (NOTE: this is also my first time using a carboy for the secondary, so i'll be the first to admit i'm not sure what it's "supposed" to look like) ... anyway, last night i decided to try to get some of that crud off the top, so i racked from the carboy into a bucket (trying to get as little of the crud as possible), cleaned and sanitized the carboy and racked back into the carboy, again getting as little of the crud as possible (which wasn't easy) ... at this point, the gravity was down to 1.008
well, the stuff is just plain NASTY ... it's basically the texture of snot or a nasty case of diarrhea ... it smells fine (just smells like cinnamon) ... the cider tasted pretty good too (a bit on the sour side, but it is still very young) ... last night, there wasn't a ton of the brown stuff on the top when i went to bed, but this morning when i woke up, the whole top of the cider was covered again as if i'd done nothing!
so, after that looooong intro, is this something to be concerned about? the cider tastes pretty good and it doesn't look like a mold or anything growing on the top ... any ideas? is there a way to filter this crud off the top? will it eventually go away? i'm afraid to bottle if it's going to grow that stuff on the top (NO ONE will want to drink my brews anymore ), even though i'm planning on letting it sit for a while yet before fermenting
if it would help, i can take a picture of it and post it
thanks a ton!
jesse
(btw, i've brewed about 8 beers, but this is my first cider)
based on a recipe i found somewhere online, i added some "apple pie spices" since it have enough spice for my taste (otherwise, it was quite tasty) ... as soon as i added the spices, it started fermenting and formed a bit of a krausen which fairly quickly settled down as the spices (appeared mostly to be cinnamon) floated to the top (you could see it both sinking and then rising as CO2 bubbles attached to the spices) ...
after a day or two, fermentation seems to have stopped and then the spices on top started to develop a dark brown layer on the top of the cider ... (NOTE: this is also my first time using a carboy for the secondary, so i'll be the first to admit i'm not sure what it's "supposed" to look like) ... anyway, last night i decided to try to get some of that crud off the top, so i racked from the carboy into a bucket (trying to get as little of the crud as possible), cleaned and sanitized the carboy and racked back into the carboy, again getting as little of the crud as possible (which wasn't easy) ... at this point, the gravity was down to 1.008
well, the stuff is just plain NASTY ... it's basically the texture of snot or a nasty case of diarrhea ... it smells fine (just smells like cinnamon) ... the cider tasted pretty good too (a bit on the sour side, but it is still very young) ... last night, there wasn't a ton of the brown stuff on the top when i went to bed, but this morning when i woke up, the whole top of the cider was covered again as if i'd done nothing!
so, after that looooong intro, is this something to be concerned about? the cider tastes pretty good and it doesn't look like a mold or anything growing on the top ... any ideas? is there a way to filter this crud off the top? will it eventually go away? i'm afraid to bottle if it's going to grow that stuff on the top (NO ONE will want to drink my brews anymore ), even though i'm planning on letting it sit for a while yet before fermenting
if it would help, i can take a picture of it and post it
thanks a ton!
jesse