Brewenstein
Well-Known Member
A few days ago I was checking on two meads / melomels that I have going - a raspberry and pineapple. I noticed a film starting on both, but worse on the raspberry. I was under the impression that meads and wines were almost immune from infection, but perhaps that is incorrect.
Some back story. These are my second meads having made an AOM a couple years back. For these I started with a 4 gallon batch on 11/6/16 consisting of the following:
8 pounds 9 ounces of honey
3 gallons spring water
1/2 tsp each of yeast nutrient and energizer
1 cup Lipton tea
Juice from 3 limes, lemons and oranges
Zest from two of the lemons
Lavin 71B-1122 yeast
This made 4 gallons of must at 1.086 OG. I followed the nutrient and energizer schedule I found on these forums (adding at each third drop of SG) until an SG of 1.026. Then I split the batch and racked onto 2 pounds thawed pineapple chunks for one and 4 - 12 ounce packages of thawed red raspberries (both fruits from Trader Joe's) - this was on 11/13/16. Let these continue to ferment until SG hit 1.000 for both then racked off the fruit and lees on 11/19/16. All fermentation temps were 70 - 72. On 12/11/16 racked both off lees and added 2 campden tablets per fermenter for stabilization.
The film was noticed within the last two weeks (don't check it often), but since then it has grown mostly on the raspberry one. I decided to rack again today, and did so with another addition of campden - 2 tablets per fermenter.
There was some head space on each fermenter for the past two months, and the fermenters are food safe plastic containers (originally pretzel containers from Sam's Club). Perhaps the head space is part of the problem even though I used campden tablets? Maybe the plastic doesn't keep all O2 out?
I racked the raspberry to a smaller container, and topped off the pineapple one with a bottle of AOM so that there is very little head space on both of them now. My plan is to observe them over the next month, and if no issues, I will bottle.
Thanks for reading and your thoughts.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1486927752.338590.jpg
Pic of film.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1486927779.144310.jpg
Closer view.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1486927805.560048.jpg
Residue after racking.
Some back story. These are my second meads having made an AOM a couple years back. For these I started with a 4 gallon batch on 11/6/16 consisting of the following:
8 pounds 9 ounces of honey
3 gallons spring water
1/2 tsp each of yeast nutrient and energizer
1 cup Lipton tea
Juice from 3 limes, lemons and oranges
Zest from two of the lemons
Lavin 71B-1122 yeast
This made 4 gallons of must at 1.086 OG. I followed the nutrient and energizer schedule I found on these forums (adding at each third drop of SG) until an SG of 1.026. Then I split the batch and racked onto 2 pounds thawed pineapple chunks for one and 4 - 12 ounce packages of thawed red raspberries (both fruits from Trader Joe's) - this was on 11/13/16. Let these continue to ferment until SG hit 1.000 for both then racked off the fruit and lees on 11/19/16. All fermentation temps were 70 - 72. On 12/11/16 racked both off lees and added 2 campden tablets per fermenter for stabilization.
The film was noticed within the last two weeks (don't check it often), but since then it has grown mostly on the raspberry one. I decided to rack again today, and did so with another addition of campden - 2 tablets per fermenter.
There was some head space on each fermenter for the past two months, and the fermenters are food safe plastic containers (originally pretzel containers from Sam's Club). Perhaps the head space is part of the problem even though I used campden tablets? Maybe the plastic doesn't keep all O2 out?
I racked the raspberry to a smaller container, and topped off the pineapple one with a bottle of AOM so that there is very little head space on both of them now. My plan is to observe them over the next month, and if no issues, I will bottle.
Thanks for reading and your thoughts.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1486927752.338590.jpg
Pic of film.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1486927779.144310.jpg
Closer view.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1486927805.560048.jpg
Residue after racking.