Is this an infection?

[dmf38]

I have a half-gallon secondary container here with a white, chalky film on top. And I have another 5 gallons in another container. I made the cider about 3 months ago and racked into these two secondary containers about 2 months ago. I first noticed the film today, and used a turkey baster to remove some of the cider under the film. It tasted fine and didn't smell like vinegar at all. Does it look like this is an infection? Should I rack into another container, or does anyone have any advice?

 

[Scrumpy!]

That is probably film yeast which is indeed an unwanted infection. It is easy to treat. It doesn't hurt to remove it with a turkey baster so long as you have completely sanitized your turkey baster before sticking it in your cider. Even though you have removed the film yeast you can see, you can't get it all so it will just grow back until you change the conditions in your fermentation vessel.

Film yeast requires oxygen which is the reason it likes to live on the surface of your cider. If the picture is representative of how little headspace your fermenting vessel has, there must be something else wrong with your system to keep out oxygen. A leaky or dry fermentation lock would do that.

Your cider looks clear so maybe it is done fermenting and time to put in bottles. When you put in sulfite at bottling time, it will probably prevent film yeast from growing in the bottled cider. The CO2 in the headspace of your bottles should also prevent more film yeast from growing.

 

[dmf38]

Thanks Scrumpy. I racked it to another secondary jug, and added k-meta to it. So I hope that will solve the problem.