Mold on fermenting acai wine?

[Brewsmithy]

Hello! I recently discovered winemaking, and so I've naturally decided to try and make wine out of unconventional things. Four days ago I started fermenting 1 gallon of an acai juice blend made by Sambazon. I made a yeast starter, which I pitched after about 36 hours when it was cloudy and smelled yeasty. I'm using Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast, which has already served me very well with a strawberry wine I just drank. Tonight I looked at my fermenting acai wine and saw small black globs floating on the top around the edges. Here are photos:

I'm very much hoping it's not Aspergillus Niger, because that is apparently one of the few molds that can actually hurt you.

It's still fermenting, and the airlock is bubbling about once every 2 seconds. Any thoughts? I'd be very sad to throw it out. I've seen numerous other posts where people just let it finish or rack it somewhere else and add Campden tablets, so I'm hopeful.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Brewsmithy]

Hmm, I'm just now reading that A. Niger is used in nearly all commercial production of citric acid. It would certainly be nice if that's all it produces in my wine.

 

[Bluespark]

It would be very unusuall to have mold in an a, airlocked, actively fermenting container. I would transfer the wine to a new container, leaving the spots behind.

 

[saramc]

If they are fuzzy you have mold. But these spots appear to be globules that are also below the surface. What exactly are the contents of your acai blend? I would be tempted to rack this from the bottom, then pouring the remainder with the black blobs into a wide clean/sanitized bowl for a better look.

What is your pH?

 

[Brewsmithy]

Thanks for your responses. I, too, was thinking that it's weird to have mold in an airlocked, actively fermenting container.

Here are my acai blend ingredients: organic acai juice (filtered water, organic fair trade acai puree), organic agave syrup, organic lime juice, contains less than 0.5% of: organic natural flavors, organic soy lecithin, citric acid, fruit and vegetable juice (for color).

I have some pH strips somewhere, so I'll do a test tonight when I get home from work. I'd like to wait a little before racking it because there's still some undissolved sugar sitting in the bottom. I was so excited to use fresh (flash-pasteurized) juice that I didn't want to heat it up and possibly ruin the flavor, so I just dumped 4 cups of sugar into the gallon jug and swirled as I poured the juice from its cartons. Most of it has been eaten by the yeast, but there's still some left.

 

[Brewsmithy]

Could these black globules actually be oil of some kind?! I just swirled that jug, and some of the globules joined together like bubbles of oil would. I also discovered that my pH strips are for pools/spas, not wine, and they only go down to 6.4. I think I might just go ahead and rack it and leave the undissolved sugar behind. I think I used too much anyway, so leaving it behind will probably make the wine taste better.

 

[Brewsmithy]

Ok, I just racked it. Looking into the bottle, these globs totally look like oil, which is really odd. I racked it until the globs nearly got to the tubing, and then stopped. It looks like a tiny bit of them got into the new fermenter, which is irritating. We'll see if they grow or not. Here are pictures through the top of the jug. Any clue what this is?

Thanks!

 

[jhoson]

I have seen acai corporal oils. (My sis is nut's about this type of stuff )

And its said that the acai oil is great anti oxidant + other's medicinal stuff.

 

[saramc]

Soy lecithin is typically made from soybean oil. I would grab some clean lettuce leaves and wave or float them on the surface, the oil will attach to the lettuce and just toss the lettuce. This is a very old technique for removing fats from sauces, etc. I did this to grab oil globs from a batch of Skittles wine, worked like a charm.

 

[Brewsmithy]

So it's oil after all! Thanks for the diagnosis. I'll do the lettuce trick at some point, but for now I'm just going to let it ferment. Acai oil is supposed to be really good for you, so maybe I'll use it for cooking or something.

Skittles wine?! How was that??

 

[saramc]

Skittles wine?! How was that??

It was just fine actually. Quite a novelty batch!