Is this normal looking for cider?

[mrwaffles]

Made 3 batches of cider on Fathers day last month,

This is the blueberry apple juice one that fermented on frozen/thawed berries.
I racked it off last week and just noticed this ghost looking stuff floating around yesterday. Is it normal? Do not think it is an infection but not sure since this is my first batch of cider. Is it just yeast / fruit particle clumping? I did top off with unfiltered un-pasterized cider from the local health food store. I did use same juice to top off my other 2 ciders (blackberry and ed's apfelwein) but they do not have same thing going on.
Thanks

 

[MarkKF]

Was the juice pretty much clear before it appeared? I've done a few ciders with fruit and always get a funky fruit mush floating but never after I rack the berries out.

 

[mrwaffles]

it was for the most part clear but I may have sucked up some debris not wanting to waste any of the precious liquid.

I am going to rack it again this weekend when I have time and see if it reforms.

Thanks!

 

[LeBreton]

Those are the natural pectins from the berries congealing together in your ferment. For more details and similar pics look up cider keeving. Try adding pectic emzyme and/or racking out from underneath.

 

[mrwaffles]

thanks for the keeving info. That is exactly what it looks like.
Not sure how I accomplished that without adding the necessary PME and salts. Must be the unfiltered and unpasteurized apple cider I used to top off carboys with at first racking. The initial juice was store bought brands without preservatives.

The brain looking mass is interesting to say the least.

 

[mrwaffles]

so i racked the cider tonight from underneath the brain matter. Surprisingly most of the brain matter had settled.
The cider tastes a little on the acidic side/ vinegary. Smells good tho.
Do you think it got infected and is turning into vinegar or does it just need a few more months of aging?

 

[LeBreton]

I've attempted to keeve a batch by adding PME and CaCl only to have it fail, while my only successful batch self-keeved spontaneously and unexpectedly without any additions. The additions only increase the chance of a successful chapeau in modern juice, but folks have been consistently keeving ciders using traditional methods of grinding, waiting, then pressing long before any additives were developed. The PME helps coagulate the pectins and CaCl increases the juice density in an attempt to overcome the lack of control most modern home cider-makers have over the juicing process.

I would suspect the pectins are mostly coming from the blueberries, so so much the juice.

Without a personal sensory evaluation of what you're tasting it's hard to say if you have an infection. What is your OG and SG and how fast did you get there at what temperature?

When in doubt add some sulfites/campden tablets to help protect your cider from infection and oxidation. ~50ppm is a good target.

 

[mrwaffles]

Recipe:
2lbs frozen/thawed blueberries
1.5 lbs of corn sugar
32 fl oz blueberry juice
2.5 gallons of apples juice (from big box store)
S04 yeast
Fermented around 74 degrees entire time
6/12/12 OG - 1.070
7/13/12 Racked off fruit SG= 1.002 tasted pretty good just lacking age
Topped off with unpasturiezed unfiltered apple juice from the health food store. It bubbled again for about 2 days upon topping off, but all 3 batches did so figured that was normal

Spontaneous keeving occured and racked again 7/28/12
SG-1.00
topped off with 30 fl oz of blueberry juice. Tasted little on the acidic side and vinegary. Not overwhelming vinegar but something more than just tartness.Figured I would check it again in a month and see.

Did 2 other similar batches at the same time that taste good and are bulk aging next to this one.

I am not super worried about it, if it does go to vinegar I will have some nice blueberry vinegar to use but hoping it just needs to age some more for the flavors to round out.