Floaties in Cider

[gabeb123]

Hi everyone,
I started a 5 gallon cider about two months ago from cider I bought at Wally world. I added honey to sg of 1.09 and used safale us-05 yeast. I planned on transferring it to a secondary after fermentation was complete but it took a whole month for it to ferment dry and then life got in the way and I wasn't able to get it transferred till about a month and twenty days. The potential problem is there has been a huge mass of something floating on top of the cider. It was there the first time I checked it (at a month) and I figured it was just a weird krausen and that it would drop. Well after a month and twenty days it was still there so I transferred it to a carboy and tried to leave the floaties behind by wrapping my racking cane in a sanitized nylon brew bag. It smells good and tastes young but not "bad" and I have used this same cider and recipe for multiple one gallon batches that turned out fine. Do you think this is a contamination?

 

[mikerlynch26]

Doesn't look like an infection to me. Depends on the amount of particulate that was in your juice to begin with, it's possible the yeast simply clumped up with it and it floated to the top like a typical krauzen. it looks the same as the ring on the bucket, so I'd say it's a by-product of the sacc ferment.

 

[fall-apart-dave]

Looks normal to me.

 

[IdiotBrewing]

I've done a few ciders with ale yeast and they can act a bit different to how they act with beer. For example, I've had S-04 drop clean in beer every time I've used it. However, my S-04 ciders were clear but there was slurry up the sides of the FV to the top. It looked like a dirty protest!

It'll be fine; just don't meddle with it while it ages.