Sanity check - trace mold in secondary?

[sansbury]

I have a few gallons of cider put away in secondary fermentation from the fall '24 harvest. Recently I was checking on them as I was getting ready to bottle and I noticed one of them had a small number of very small (think pinhead-sized) white circles floating on the top that looked more like mold than yeast. I think I saw some fur starting to grow but it was small so hard to say. I picked the vessel (1 gal glass jug w/ airlock) up to see if I could get a better look and photo, but the bits sunk.

Not wanting to toss it just yet I put it back in the closet and turned the A/C down in that room to 70°. It's been a couple weeks and nothing has reappeared. The other two jugs have what looks like normal yeast/scoby type stuff floating on top. I already tossed one batch because of blatant mold and this jug was a special batch of apples so it would pain me to toss it now, but I know mold can be bad news so don't want to be dumb. But, also don't want to be ridiculous if I'm not sering this to pregnant immunocompromised 95-year-olds.

For those wondering, the long secondary is due partly to a local cider maker (Berkshire Cider Project) advising me that they liked 6-12 month secondaries), plus me getting busy with projects and not getting around to bottling this.

Thanks in advance!

 

[slanderkin]

If I had to guess, it wasn't mold. If you left it in a 70 degree room for a few weeks and it did have mold, it would be going wild. If you are okay with it, give it a small taste. If it tastes and smells fine, it's probably fine.

 

[Raptor99]

Mold requires oxygen to grow. If your carboy was filled up into the neck and kept closed up, there is very little chance it is mold.