Floating Lees

Hey guys,

I recently started up two batches of apple wine about 3 weeks ago, loosely following jack kellers recipe. 64 pounds of minced apples, 4 gallons water, champagne yeast, some pectic enzyme, etc...

I now have two 5 gallon carboys full of this stuff. They were racked off the lees from the primary already, and strained through a paint strainer bag. There was no pulp left in either of the two carboys.

Now, the carboy in question is almost done fermenting, and is currently at a gravity of 1.002 and still bubbling away. The weird thing is that large chunks of lees are floating up to the neck of the carboy. Chunks measuring half an inch in diameter, and some even bigger. It looks like soggy bread. The bottom is kind of messy looking with chunks of lees scattered about. The other batch has none of this going on, is also still bubbling, with the lees looking "neat" and level.

The large chunks in the carboy stay mostly on top, but I have seem some floating down to the bottom after moving/shaking the carboy a bit. The batch with the floating chunks also looks like it's beginning to clear up abit.

Should I be worried about bacterial infection? It smells ok, but I haven't tasted it. And it is still bubbling the airlock vigorously.

Well it's most likely just bits of buoyant fruit. During the fermentation yeast/bacteria will work their way into the fruit and make CO2 bubbles that become trapped in the fruit causing them to float. This is nothing to be worried about unless so much builds up at the top that the fruit "cap" starts to push it's way out of the carboy. If this starts to happen DO NOT remove the airlock/cap. The rapid release of pressure will almost certainly result in a nearly volcanic in magnitude eruption.

Side note: The term "lees" generally refers to the yeast sediment that drop out of the solution rather than chunks of fruit.

Be sure to let us know how the batch turns out!