Funky Sour Oaked Cider

So a funny thing happend on the way to bottling my oaked, aged cider. I think I wound up with an infection from not fully sterilizing the oak cubes I used (home toasted oak). This cider started as a variant of Graham's English cider about and kinda took off from there. It has aged for about four months in a carboy and was aged for about a month on oak cubes (light/medium toast).

Below are two photos of what has developed across the top of the cider during the aging process. One thing to note is that I experimented with using a layer of medical grade mineral oil as an oxygen barrier after removing the oak cubes, in addition to using a regular airlock.





In anycase today I syphoned off the mineral oil and took a sample of the cider waiting below. It definately has a slight sour taste too it that I find somewhat appealing. The only problem is that there is a fairly strong bubble gum aroma that is also coming off the carboy. I'd kinda like to see how this develops and would appreciate any input folks have.

My thoughts are kinda split:

1) Rack from under the mineral oil to a fresh carboy and leave it alone and see in the infection continues in a positive direction.

2) Rack as above and add a fresh layer of mineral oil as protection and see what develops.

3) Rack and hit the whole thing with potassium metabisulfite, and let it age to see if the aroma changes and the drink mellows. Unfortunately I don't know how much K-meta to use for a 3 ga. batch.

If anyone has any experience or suggestions as to how to proceed I would be highly appreciative. I hope no one minds the posting in the Lambic&Wild forum considering we're talking cider, but I figured this is where the most experience on this topic might be.

Interesting thought with the mineral oil. I've heard that sometimes the bubblegum aroma/flavor will dissipate with time, so I would be inclined to go with option 1 or 2, and see what happens. Alternatively, you could split the batch into three one gallon jugs and try each option.

My wife just attended a cider making class last week, and I'm pretty sure that some Spanish cider is intentionally sour. I tried some, and it was delicious.

Oh, you're in Tampa- what were the the fermentation temps you had?

Thakog, I chose option #4 and pitched the batch. I had another 3ga batch of Graff that turned that I bottled at the same time and there was no comparison. There was no way the batch that I oaken was ever going to turn out even half as good as the batch of Graf f. It was one of those cut your loses type of things. Strangely it wasn't the sour taste that made me do it. The base cider taste just wasn't good enough to carry it off even after 6 months or so of aging.

In answer to your question the ambient temp was about 74. I think I also would be willing to try to the mineral oil route again - it was probably the only thing that kept that cider from going to vinegar, as the airlock dried out while the batch was aging.