White spots and film developing...

[piers]

Good evening all,

I’m a little way into my first two batches of cider. Both have fermented and are now ageing.

One, on the right, made with commercial yeast and sulphites, cleared relatively quickly and is now entirely transparent. It stills carries a slightly pungent, sulphurous smell, however.

The second, on the left, is a wild ferment, and remains very cloudy. Furthermore, it is developing, albeit slowly, white spots and a very thin film. Also, there are small patches of what looks like some kind of calcification on the inside of the bubbler.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there, my questions are: what, if any, of these points is cause for concern, and what, if anything, can be done?

Thank you for any advice you may have!

 

[Rick Stephens]

If you are done with primary, and now in secondary, you should top your bottles off 1/2 or 3/4 inch from the stopper and fill the airlock with vodka. Goal is limit oxygen contamination as much as possible. When you top off, if you use fresh juice, it will ferment a little and outgas enough C02 to get rid of the little bit of air on top. If you leave all that airspace and top surface on the must, you will end up with some oxygen.

Clean your bubbler and go to vodka and age to your hearts content.

 

[piers]

If you are done with primary, and now in secondary, you should top your bottles off 1/2 or 3/4 inch from the stopper and fill the airlock with vodka. Goal is limit oxygen contamination as much as possible. When you top off, if you use fresh juice, it will ferment a little and outgas enough C02 to get rid of the little bit of air on top. If you leave all that airspace and top surface on the must, you will end up with some oxygen.

Clean your bubbler and go to vodka and age to your hearts content.

Interesting Rick, thank you. I’ll do that. In your opinion the batches are saveable then? Any opinion on what exactly the white film is?

 

[Rick Stephens]

It is called a pellicle. Indicates a bit of oxygen contamination combined with yeast activity. You can skim it off when you rack off to bottle.

I recently racked off a 5 gallon batch of Grahams English Cider that was coming up on 3 months. Had a significant pellicle formed that week, I believe because I used big mouth bubbler which has a lot of surface area to let O2 in. I intend to replace those big mouth jars from now on with traditional narrow mouth for secondary fermentation.. Used a ladle to get as much of the dry pellicle off as I could before racking. The next container reformed the pellicle in one day. So I skimmed it again and bottled. I own a welding shop, so always have lots of C02 around. I hooked up a nozzle and purged the air on each bottle as I capped. Still see a few bottles have a teensy bit of that dry looking film. Not dangerous, doesn't usually even effect taste.