curious stuff on my cider

[sugargrange]

Hey everybody,
I'm new to brewing and i'm endeavoring to learn cider from store bought juice for the time being. I'm just doing one gallon batches and have four batches going but haven't tasted finished cider yet. A week or so ago I transferred my first two batches over to secondary vessels and about three days later noticed little specks that kind of look like snowflakes floating at the surface. I've been watching it for about a three days and it is very slowly growing but nothing like I would have expected to see from mold. although that seems like most likely what i'm dealing with.

What I did:
purchased a couple gallon containers of juice, used the gallon jugs as primary vessels.

poured off a little head space (5 oz), added 1/3 cup of white sugar to one, 1/3 cup of light brown to the other, teaspoon of yeast nutrient and pectic enzyme into each, pitched lalvin EC-1118.

Sealed up with airlocks. Brown sugar brew bubbled up into the airlock on day two, cleaned and replaced. put in a dark room.

After two weeks at around 68-70 degrees F, I added 1/8 teaspoon of wine tannin, teaspoon of acid blend and transferred to secondary. I didn't take a starting gravity but it was around 1.000 at this time.

trouble showed up about three days later, has been growing (like my sadness) for about 3-4 days.

Where I suspect I went wrong:
equipment and measuring utensils were kept clean and sanitized but I added all my ingredients (sugar, acid blend, etc) raw. probably should have heated them in some water to 160 degrees F for a time?

The juice I took out for head space in primary and the juice I left behind when racking off the lees made too much head space in my secondary. The cider at that point isn't going to be able to blow off that much oxygen and what ever mold spores might be present in it? use more juice and a larger primary vessel next time?

hope these images work! this one is current, have to shine a light in there to pick it up on camera.

three days ago

head space

I'm just looking for some wisdom from the group here. Hoping i'm on the right track diagnosing my problems. It's going to be a bummer dumping this stuff, i'm sure anxious to try some cider.

another quick question:
I started with unfiltered juice that had a lot of solids in it. If I'm taking hydrometer readings and then adding pectic enzyme is that going to make it look like i've got a higher ABV than I in fact have? just curious, not terribly important to me to know exact ABV.

I've enjoyed following the forums
Thanks everybody,
sugargrange

 

[sugargrange]

 

[buMbLeB]

Hey everybody,
A week or so ago I transferred my first two batches over to secondary vessels and about three days later noticed little specks that kind of look like snowflakes floating at the surface. I've been watching it for about a three days and it is very slowly growing but nothing like I would have expected to see from mold. although that seems like most likely what i'm dealing with.

I can't tell from the pictures, so I'll have to trust your read on that.

poured off a little head space (5 oz), added 1/3 cup of white sugar to one, 1/3 cup of light brown to the other, teaspoon of yeast nutrient and pectic enzyme into each, pitched lalvin EC-1118.

Sealed up with airlocks. Brown sugar brew bubbled up into the airlock on day two, cleaned and replaced. put in a dark room.

After two weeks at around 68-70 degrees F, I added 1/8 teaspoon of wine tannin, teaspoon of acid blend and transferred to secondary. I didn't take a starting gravity but it was around 1.000 at this time.

trouble showed up about three days later, has been growing (like my sadness) for about 3-4 days.

Where I suspect I went wrong:
equipment and measuring utensils were kept clean and sanitized but I added all my ingredients (sugar, acid blend, etc) raw. probably should have heated them in some water to 160 degrees F for a time?

I do my cider with sugar and 1118, and have never had anything like mold. I don't add tannin or acid, nor anything else that late into the process, so I guess you might have introduced a contaminant at that point, especially if CO2 production had died down by then leaving available oxygen to feed something else.

I started with unfiltered juice that had a lot of solids in it.

So this made me wonder - any chance your juice wasn't pasteurized?

 

[Maylar]

That's a lot of head space.

 

[sugargrange]

Thanks for the feedback! Good to know the head space is pushing it. I wasn't sure what you could get away with there. The juice was pasteurized so that isn't a concern.

I'm watching it with cautious optimism. It seems to be growing smaller since I posted originally. I noticed it keeps a good 1/2 inch from the glass at all times, which has me crossing my fingers its just a bunch of bubbles? I can't see why mold would care about being near the glass.

further investigation with my flashlight revealed a distinct layer of bubbles about 3/4 of an inch from the surface last night. Just suspended there. Tonight those are gone but there is a bubble layer 3 inches from the bottom. lol, I don't know what I've got going on here! it's keeping me entertained at any rate.

I've realized since posting this is a somewhat common post. It makes me that much more grateful for the responses, thanks again!

 

[nbstl68]

I had the same snowflake like floaters in my batch last year...got a few guesses from my posts but nothing conclusive.
I racked off into clean carboy and left the top inch or so including all the floating funk behind.
That left even more air in the next carboy than before so I shot c02 into the top then added my bubbler.
Did not have the issue after that and it sat a few more months and turned out just fine.

 

[Greghark]

Cider krausen is a bit different from beer because there are a lot fewer proteins to bind the foam. But there are still some. Most likely that is what your seeing. If it shows up in the first few days and then settles or disappears there shouldn't be a problem. If it shows up later and looks either more substantial or like a solid white mold then you would have some problems.

The headspace isn't much of issue while the fermentation is active and it is bubbling vigorously. This will provide a solid layer of CO2. Once that bubbling slows the headspace becomes an issue and the chances of oxidation go up.

Also, I agree that it is interesting to watch what is going on with the batch over time. Going from a cloudy mess to a crystal clear elixir can be interesting to watch. It takes time but it will all settle out eventually.

 

[sugargrange]

This is great stuff, thanks everybody! I'm encouraged to hear there is some hope! I'm going to bottle it over the weekend and just keep an eye on it. That'll give me a chance to investigate a little more, give it a taste and so forth. It doesn't seem to be dropping out anymore these last couple days, but its not growing. so fingers crossed. I'll let you know what I learn. This is fascinating stuff, i'm grateful for everyone sharing their knowledge!