White Spots During Primary Fermentation

So this is my first ever homebrew. I'm making a small test growler of wine and it's been fermenting nicely for about 4 days now. However, today I have noticed that the neck of the growler seems to have these white spots developing. I'm hoping their just yeast clumps or some non-serious deposits. I'd really hate to waste my first ever batch! Here are some pictures. What do you guys think?

Ohhhh no!!!! Those look like the cultures of the dreaded Saccharomyces cerevisiae. I say the wine is toast. Just mail it to me and I will dispose of it.

Lol but seriously it does look like yeast is all. As long as it is not hairy you are fine. I would however say to go ahead and top off with some more juice. There is a lot of headspace there. After about 4-7 days you can usually top those off well without much threat of it erupting on you. Just shake it around a bit to degas it a little before topping off.

Arpolis said:

Ohhhh no!!!! Those look like the cultures of the dreaded Saccharomyces cerevisiae. I say the wine is toast. Just mail it to me and I will dispose of it.

Lol but seriously it does look like yeast is all. As long as it is not hairy you are fine. I would however say to go ahead and top off with some more juice. There is a lot of headspace there. After about 4-7 days you can usually top those off well without much threat of it erupting on you. Just shake it around a bit to degas it a little before topping off.

Click to expand...

Oh that's a relief. I sure hope it's yeast (doesn't look fuzzy to me at least). Would there be any harm in me taking the airlock off and scraping it out? Will the oxygen damage the fermentation? Thanks again!

JeanRalphio said:

Oh that's a relief. I sure hope it's yeast (doesn't look fuzzy to me at least). Would there be any harm in me taking the airlock off and scraping it out? Will the oxygen damage the fermentation? Thanks again!

Click to expand...

I wouldn't worry about it. It's not hurting anything. Opening and scraping just introduces the possiblity of some contaminant.

When you poured in the dry yeast, a few particles must've stuck to the glass. Since it's a warmish damp environment in there, they absorb some water and voila, weird spots on the glass.

stonecutter2 said:

I wouldn't worry about it. It's not hurting anything. Opening and scraping just introduces the possiblity of some contaminant.

When you poured in the dry yeast, a few particles must've stuck to the glass. Since it's a warmish damp environment in there, they absorb some water and voila, weird spots on the glass.

Click to expand...

That's what happened to! When I first put in the yeast, some of it got stuck on the side. I guess the residual yeast just multiply on the glass and form glob colonies. Ahhh, well thank you guys for the relief. Being the first time I've ever made any alcohol at home, I get nervous from every little thing. Can't wait to enjoy my brew!!

Off topic: how long do you think it'll take for the fermentation to complete (ready to drink)? Thanks!

What is the recipe? What kind of yeast used? That affects a lot. In general a wine can be done fermenting if the yeast is feed properly in about two weeks. Place a growler like that in the fridge after that and you will see a lot of tan sediment forming at the bottom after several days. "Lees" then after a couple of weeks of that use a racking cane and siphon off the clear liquid off the lees. You can bottle then or place in another growler and check it in 30 days. There is usually a little more sediment you can rack off of. But if you do not want it perfectly clear you can bottle strait off of the first set of lees as long as you are careful and it just needs a couple weeks to get out of bottle shock and it is fine to drink then.

Time means everything to wine and the longer you wait, generally the happier you are. But good recipes can be good in 6 weeks easy but amazing after a good 12 months.

This all assums you like a dry wine. A sweet wine is another matter. Just more steps to follow possibly. So post your recipe and process so far and how you want this to end. Dry, off dry, semi sweet or sweet.