Green tea wine issues - what is this cloudy stuff?

[Mattekat]

I am a relatively new homebrewer (though my mom was always experimenting as I grew up) and am having some issues with a batch of green tea ginger and peach wine that won't clear. This is the first batch im having trouble with so i have no clue what to do. Any help would be appreciated.
I assume it is a pectin haze but am not sure how to tell. Over the last few days though an even cloudier substance has formed at the top centimetre of each bottle and there seems to be something white collecting at the very top. It doesn't look or smell like mold but I am still concerned.
I started it in a 5 gallon bucket and have racked it into 1 gallon bottles once. I used a campden tablet at the end of fermentation before racking. Here is a photo of some of the white substance collecting at the top of one of the bottles:

 

[jgmillr1]

The cloudiness may just be suspended yeast. You can try using the fining agent pair (kieselsol + chitosan) sold as Super-Kleer (https://www.midwestsupplies.com/super-kleer-kc-finings) to help remove proteins and clarify the wine.

If the peach was fermented then the yeast have probably taken care of any pectin issue already. See the EC Kraus article here (http://blog.eckraus.com/clear-pectin-haze-pectic-enzyme) for details.

Have you measured the pH for your wine? Without knowing the details of the recipe you used, I am concerned the pH may be quite high. Wine typically is in the 3-4 range and the sulfites in your campden tablet won't be effective when the pH gets above 4. The sulfites are there to help keep wild bacteria & fungi from growing. Many of these require oxygen to grow and can form a film on the surface of the wine.

Be sure to keep the headspace to a minimum to reduce available oxygen. Purge the headspace with inert gas if you have that available. Nitrogen, CO2, Argon all work fine. I can't tell if there is any headspace from the picture attached above.

 

[Mattekat]

The cloudiness may just be suspended yeast. You can try using the fining agent pair (kieselsol + chitosan) sold as Super-Kleer (https://www.midwestsupplies.com/super-kleer-kc-finings) to help remove proteins and clarify the wine.

If the peach was fermented then the yeast have probably taken care of any pectin issue already. See the EC Kraus article here (http://blog.eckraus.com/clear-pectin-haze-pectic-enzyme) for details.

Have you measured the pH for your wine? Without knowing the details of the recipe you used, I am concerned the pH may be quite high. Wine typically is in the 3-4 range and the sulfites in your campden tablet won't be effective when the pH gets above 4. The sulfites are there to help keep wild bacteria & fungi from growing. Many of these require oxygen to grow and can form a film on the surface of the wine.

Be sure to keep the headspace to a minimum to reduce available oxygen. Purge the headspace with inert gas if you have that available. Nitrogen, CO2, Argon all work fine. I can't tell if there is any headspace from the picture attached above.

I don't have any way to check the ph right now but I can get some testers next week. The recipe I used was this one: winemaking.jackkeller.net/request216.asp scaled up to 5 gallons. I just replaced some of the ginger with a couple pounds of peaches. I used a bit more tea as well since I like strong tea.

As far as headspace goes I did leave only about 1 cm of air at the top of each jug and every single jug has the same whitish scum forming at the top. Is there any way to test the stuff on top to see if it is mold or yeast?

 

[jgmillr1]

The peaches should help with getting the pH down and I wouldn't expect the additional tea to result in any issues. The wispy white in your image doesn't concern me. If you wanted to really know what it is, you'd have to swab a sample of it onto a microscope slide. It could be some protein coagulation, peach pith, or any number of things that are innocuous carried to the surface as the wine de-gasses. Fungal activity is controlled easily with sulfites but the effectiveness is lower at higher pH, which is why I inquired about the pH. One crushed campden tablet per gallon contains plenty of sulfites unless your pH is over 3.8, in which case you could go with 1.5 tablets per gallon.

I don't see any reason for worry. I'm sure the wine will be fine. Oxygen is your biggest enemy at this point.

 

[Mattekat]

The peaches should help with getting the pH down and I wouldn't expect the additional tea to result in any issues. The wispy white in your image doesn't concern me. If you wanted to really know what it is, you'd have to swab a sample of it onto a microscope slide. It could be some protein coagulation, peach pith, or any number of things that are innocuous carried to the surface as the wine de-gasses. Fungal activity is controlled easily with sulfites but the effectiveness is lower at higher pH, which is why I inquired about the pH. One crushed campden tablet per gallon contains plenty of sulfites unless your pH is over 3.8, in which case you could go with 1.5 tablets per gallon.

I don't see any reason for worry. I'm sure the wine will be fine. Oxygen is your biggest enemy at this point.

Thank you for your input! The cloudy substance has thinned out a bit. I also took a sample and smelled, rubbed and tasted (living on the edge!) The whitish stuff and it seems to just be some yeast that floated instead of sank. I think that what is left is a protein haze or pectin haze?

I made this wine as a quick batch to satisfy my many eager roommates so I don't mind so much if it doesn't look perfect. They just wanted something to try while we waited for the really good stuff to age (although I will save a couple bottles to age for a while just to experiment).

Does a protein or pectin haze seriously affect the taste of the wine or is it mostly cosmetic?

 

[jgmillr1]

Protein and pectic hazes are purely cosmetic. What will likely have a taste is the residual floating yeast. So it is best to let it settle or use fining agents (such as the super kleer product) to remove them from suspension. But some people like or at least don't mind the yeast flavor, so it is up to you of course.