Sequoiacider
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- Joined
- Sep 4, 2019
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After many successful Wild Fermentations, I finally had a failed one. Time to see if I can salvage. Here's the story:
Typical Wild Fermentation experience: Press apples, pour aerated fresh pressed juice into clean and sanitized fermenter.. No sulfites or yeast added. Let it do its thing. White spots appear on surface, which upon inspection are conglomerations of very small bubbles, soon transitioning to full active fermentation. Full active fermentation starts 2-5 days after pressing.
This time: Followed my normal procedure (mostly, notes below) for 11.5 gallons, split into 3 carboys. OG 1.056, pH 3.11. 2 days later, nothing happening. Continue waiting and monitoring. Day 4, I stop at home during my lunch break and notice something I have never seen before in my fermentations: Strange white hair-like growths coming out of the surface in a couple spots (picture attached) in one of the carboys. I also notice a couple small white spots that are definitely not the normal conglomerations of small bubbles. At this point, I already know something bad is happening, but it is my lunch break from work, so I don't have time to do anything at that moment. Come home in the evening, inspect, and I find similar hairlike growths and white spots in the other two carboys as well.
Definitively some kind of infection. Damn! Time to see if I can salvage it. Might as well try instead of dumping it right now. If it doesn't work out, then I can dump it later, but if it does work out maybe I'll end up with something interesting.
I've now racked off the salvageable juice with a siphon. I generously avoided the top few inches of liquid in each carboy, for a loss of a bit over 2.5 gallons, leaving me with just under 9 gallons remaining. The juice looks good and smells mostly normal at this point, though I feel like there is a perceptible Sweet, Cloying smell to it, almost like the smell of honey. I then added Sulfites (K-Meta) to hopefully kill any baddies still lurking. Waited 12 hours, pitched with S-05 this morning.
What did I do differently this time compared to previous times? I have identified two main differences: 1) Due to the amount of juice i had, I initially left more head space in the carboys than I normally would. I don't think that is the main issue, but could definitely be a contributing factor. 2) I sanitized my Carboys with sanitizing solution that I had mixed up the night before and had left uncovered overnight. Normally I mix up solution fresh, but I was lazy. I think my laziness was the problem here.
My fingers are crossed. I'll post updates as it progresses.
Typical Wild Fermentation experience: Press apples, pour aerated fresh pressed juice into clean and sanitized fermenter.. No sulfites or yeast added. Let it do its thing. White spots appear on surface, which upon inspection are conglomerations of very small bubbles, soon transitioning to full active fermentation. Full active fermentation starts 2-5 days after pressing.
This time: Followed my normal procedure (mostly, notes below) for 11.5 gallons, split into 3 carboys. OG 1.056, pH 3.11. 2 days later, nothing happening. Continue waiting and monitoring. Day 4, I stop at home during my lunch break and notice something I have never seen before in my fermentations: Strange white hair-like growths coming out of the surface in a couple spots (picture attached) in one of the carboys. I also notice a couple small white spots that are definitely not the normal conglomerations of small bubbles. At this point, I already know something bad is happening, but it is my lunch break from work, so I don't have time to do anything at that moment. Come home in the evening, inspect, and I find similar hairlike growths and white spots in the other two carboys as well.
Definitively some kind of infection. Damn! Time to see if I can salvage it. Might as well try instead of dumping it right now. If it doesn't work out, then I can dump it later, but if it does work out maybe I'll end up with something interesting.
I've now racked off the salvageable juice with a siphon. I generously avoided the top few inches of liquid in each carboy, for a loss of a bit over 2.5 gallons, leaving me with just under 9 gallons remaining. The juice looks good and smells mostly normal at this point, though I feel like there is a perceptible Sweet, Cloying smell to it, almost like the smell of honey. I then added Sulfites (K-Meta) to hopefully kill any baddies still lurking. Waited 12 hours, pitched with S-05 this morning.
What did I do differently this time compared to previous times? I have identified two main differences: 1) Due to the amount of juice i had, I initially left more head space in the carboys than I normally would. I don't think that is the main issue, but could definitely be a contributing factor. 2) I sanitized my Carboys with sanitizing solution that I had mixed up the night before and had left uncovered overnight. Normally I mix up solution fresh, but I was lazy. I think my laziness was the problem here.
My fingers are crossed. I'll post updates as it progresses.
