Should I bottle it?

[z-bob]

I started some cider back in January. I've been out of town most of the year, dealing with back-to-back family emergencies. Meanwhile the airlock dried out on the cider and it has fungus growing on top. I'm wondering whether I should dump it or bottle it. If I bottle it, I assume I need to add more yeast at this point (probably K1V-1116 because it's cheap and it's a "killer" strain) I don't remember what I used to ferment it; probably Cotes des Blanc because that's what I usually use. I don't have much invested in it; it's cheap storebought apple juice. OTOH I hate to throw anything away.

 

[Broken Crow]

If you can draw from under the fungus, let your own tastebuds be your guide... If it tastes off, maybe consider using some to add a bit of mother-vinegar to, or perhaps throw a pork-roast or chicken into for a good soak before cooking. If it tastes OK, I'll leave it for others to recommend possible yeast addition.

 

[z-bob]

Thanks for the reply. What I'm thinking about doing is tasting it using a long wine thief; if it sucks I dump it. If it's okay, rack to another carboy and add a half gallon of new juice and half a packet of killer yeast. Let that go for a week and then bottle it. There is so little nutrition in apple juice, and then the yeast ate what was there and made alcohol, I'm surprised anything could grow on what was left.

 

[z-bob]

I finally got around to doing something with this. The wine thief is stainless steel and the powdery stuff on top stuck to it. I dipped it in, pulled it out, rinsed it off, wiped it dry a bunch of time (almost sounds like I'm talking about something else ) and removed most of the pellicle that way. I tasted the cider and surprisingly it's fine. I transferred it to another carboy and added a half gallon of apple juice and half a packet of wine yeast. I'll bottle it in a week.

The original yeast was BV7. The airlock dried out, and I wonder if BV7 forms a pellicle if it has oxygen, like sherry yeast?

 

[z-bob]

Well, it seemed fine when I sampled it in October. When I added the apple juice and yeast it clouded up and I thought that was a good thing. I bottled it, and it got even cloudier. Eventually the top half of the bottles cleared but the bottom halves didn't, and the plastic bottles never hardened. Seems like it had a bacterial infection, (perhaps the bacteria were starving when I sampled it the first time) and the bacteria ate all the priming sugar before the yeast could get to it.

I just opened a bottle. It tastes interesting. No carbonation at all. Slightly vinegary, not really in a bad way. And the smell is kinda spicy. I might actually finish this one that I opened, and I'll dump all the rest and bleach the bottles.

Edit: I didn't finish the bottle. Drank about half and poured out the rest.

 

[Broken Crow]

Wait!! How about a marinade for pork or chicken? Maybe use as the vinegar for a cole slaw?

 

[z-bob]

Wait!! How about a marinade for pork or chicken? Maybe use as the vinegar for a cole slaw?

Too late, it's gone. I thought about saving a few bottles for making pickles, but decided I didn't want the stuff around to possibly contaminate a future brew.

 

[Broken Crow]

oh well... here's to the next one!

 

[Beermeister32]

Dumper

 

[Zambezi Special]

Just wondering:
You say you added yeast and apple juice and left it for a week.
The yeast will have eaten all sugars again, so nothing left for carbonation, unless you used sugar at bottling?

 

[z-bob]

Just wondering:
You say you added yeast and apple juice and left it for a week.
The yeast will have eaten all sugars again, so nothing left for carbonation, unless you used sugar at bottling?

I did add sugar at bottling time. It just got cloudier and did not carbonate at all. There was no vinegar mother on top, I don't know what the infection was. I thought the cloudiness was the bottling yeast (K1V-1116) but it wouldn't settle out even when refrigerated.

 

[Zambezi Special]

I would probably have kept a bottle. Just for curiosity sake