Mold in my Mead

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ZooBrew

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I looked at one of my 3 gal Mead carboys this morning and noticed mold colonies floating on top. They look like little white fuzzy buttons with a bluish center. Is this batch ruined? The airlock is still blubbing.

I sanitized everything and boiled the water before adding the honey but somehow I got infected. Or could this be something like 'Blue Cheese Mead'?

Drainpour?
 
You can go into your profile and there will be a window to you recently uploaded pics, right there is a link to upload pictures. Once you have uploaded it to the site, you can just copy and paste the link with
after
 
You may be able to rack from under it, and salvage part of the batch. If you do this, taste it afterwards. If it has a noticably bitter or sourness to it, and it was my batch, I'd toss it and weep a little.

if it doesn't taste funky, keep it going. You've already invested the bulk of the time and all of the money into it. Just decide before you bottle it (since that could be wasted time at this point if it is ruined)
 
I was watching a friend rack a batch of mead with mold in it. It was a great learning experience.
He racked from underneath to make sure he doesn't catch the mold into the new carboy and then he added a few crushes sulfite tablets to kill the bacteria int he new racked carboy.
Also Do NOT taste the mead with mold in it... Mold = BAD
 
I noticed that I have a little white pellicle looking formation and a slight layer of film on mine. Of course my carboy tipped over in the car bringing it home from the mead day and it was lying on its side in the car for a few minutes, so god knows what could have gotten into it. Mine doesn't have a blue moldy center, but definately has some strange white cluster in the middle.

I should take pics of mine as well. I'll try racking from underneath and see how nasty it tastes. If all else fails, it was my first batch ruined by the carboy falling over in the car and spilling half of it into the back seat...and it was a dry mead and I don't like any dry beverage.
 
Let us not forget that mead makes some very strange things. It usually doesn't foam up like beer....but will set what you'll swear is mold....and is usually bees wax and stingers and all of the organic stuff in honey. If you put any fruit in your mead....you're almost guaranteed globs of pectin to form and look a lot like mold.

Moral of the story....like Malkore said....rack gently from under the nasty stuff. In a few months....give it a taste....see if you think it tastes like it will kill you....then decide what to do....but don't declare it a loss just yet!
 
While packing, I noticed my latest mead has that on the top. :( I'll have to move and hope for the best, otherwise $65 of honey down the drain. At least it still smells like mead for now.
 
If you have that on top I would be concerned, thats a picture of my lambic mead, in which case it good to see. On a normal mead I would be saddened by its presence.
 
Yea it looks exactly like that. It's an infection I've been fighting on my beers ever since I moved into that crapass apartment, glad I'm moving soon.
 
Update since I first posted. I racked from well under the floating buttons to two one gallon containers. On the recommendation of my LHBS, I left little headroom and repitched with RED STAR MONTRACHET yeast and FERMAID K. The ensuing vigorous ferment glubbed up the airlocks (which I replaced with a clean-one 3 times) but insured a blanket of CO2. They're still going and no moldies detected.

One of the things I learned in the process are that yeast for Mead must have a nutrient cocktail from the start to get things 'rolling'.

I'm already planning my strategy for another batch next month.
 

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