Is my wine infected? The weirdest looking stuff!

[calmingapple]

So I posted awhile back about doing a Zinfandel wine kit.

I made the kit according to directions (never failed me yet) and kept up to snuff with extremely good sanitizing practices (what I do is probably overkill even, so this is why I am reluctant to call this an infection, but it is weird looking alien gunk).

So here is my wine in a one gallon carboy (the other 4 carboys are CLEAR and do not have this problem!). I added a darker hue to the photo to bring out the wispy red stuff sitting near the top. It is red because of the Rose, of course. Again, photo was altered to make the wispy stuff easier to see.

THIS particular carboy had a strawberry mix added. I believe this to be the culprit. I regret adding it. However, the mix contained invert sugar, potassium sorbate, and strawberry flavor, so I figured it was worth testing it out.

Lastly, it does not smell off or taste off... but it is just plain gross looking. I am trying to figure out how to get it to drop to the bottom so I can rack the wine off it.

Simply put... do you think my wine can be salvaged?

If I can successfully rack it away from that gunk and treat it with stabilizer - perhaps it can be drank young and not a total loss?

 

[KangerBrew6]

If you have 4 gallons that look ok, why don't you just watch this and see what happens? It looks kind of like acetobacter thing-ummy what's it. I'm no expert, but I love experiments. Otherwise rack off it and see. Could it be brett'? If it is aceto', make pickles.

 

[cannman]

You might simply be looking at the skeletal cellulose of the the strawberry berry because I don't see any surface aerobic activity. To be sure, PM me so that you can send me a 750ml bottle when it's done.

Good job

 

[calmingapple]

As per another individual's advice I cold crashed this (it's only one gallon and fit nicely in the fridge) and whatever it was, it dropped nicely to the bottom. Though this wine never clarified the way the others did (after clarifying agents were added).

I am beginning to think it was something in the strawberry daiquiri mix I added. I added about 1.5 oz or so of a strawberry syrup meant for daiquiris. Looking back there were way too many ingredients in that "mix" and one of them must have caused this issue.

I did rack it off the sediment as best I could and threw it into some plastic wine bottles. Will taste it later today. I definitely won't chuck it out but I am moving it to the "experimental" section :-D

Thanks for the help!

If you have 4 gallons that look ok, why don't you just watch this and see what happens? It looks kind of like acetobacter thing-ummy what's it. I'm no expert, but I love experiments. Otherwise rack off it and see. Could it be brett'? If it is aceto', make pickles.

 

[calmingapple]

Haha! Good try ;-)
I would love to ship you a bottle but I am in Canada. It would cost me the equivalent of a nice bottle of merlot to send to you
Too bad we weren't closer to one another!

Yes I think it was caused by the daiquiri mix. It just just one gallon and was meant for "experimentation" in this sense since I happened to have the syrup lying around.

You might simply be looking at the skeletal cellulose of the the strawberry berry because I don't see any surface aerobic activity. To be sure, PM me so that you can send me a 750ml bottle when it's done.

Good job