Hi!
This is my first year of making cider. I made two batches, one that I pasteurized+yeast and one that I added champagne yeast to only. Temperatures about 15C at launch about 2 months ago, now somewhat below 10C . pH about 3.5 . No sulfites.
At first racking I moved the cider to 3 secondary fermentetion vessels. One pasteurized, and two non pasteurized (had to mix in some pasteurized to top up the last non-pasteurized, i.e. a "mix"). A week ago I noticed film yeast in the mix-carboy. I proceeded to remove the layer, added 30 ppm of sulfite. Went to reduce the amount of air in the neck by adding 95%-alcohol. I might have filled it up too much though, liquid went a couple of cm in to the air lock. but there was still air to the alcohol layer inside the lock.
Now it looks like this. Basically three layers from the bottom-up. Cider-Slime-Clear liquid.
It looked a little bit like ice, but here's a video that better conveys how it behaves:
https://zintranet.ddns.net/s/S4aZJPNYawNspQC (h265)
Smells ok.
Microbial haze? Can I save this? Killed off cells post-sulfite treatment?
The layering could make it viable to decant it. But if it's infected that might be no use.
Any ideas on how to proceed? Did I contaminate it during the intervention?
This is my first year of making cider. I made two batches, one that I pasteurized+yeast and one that I added champagne yeast to only. Temperatures about 15C at launch about 2 months ago, now somewhat below 10C . pH about 3.5 . No sulfites.
At first racking I moved the cider to 3 secondary fermentetion vessels. One pasteurized, and two non pasteurized (had to mix in some pasteurized to top up the last non-pasteurized, i.e. a "mix"). A week ago I noticed film yeast in the mix-carboy. I proceeded to remove the layer, added 30 ppm of sulfite. Went to reduce the amount of air in the neck by adding 95%-alcohol. I might have filled it up too much though, liquid went a couple of cm in to the air lock. but there was still air to the alcohol layer inside the lock.
Now it looks like this. Basically three layers from the bottom-up. Cider-Slime-Clear liquid.



It looked a little bit like ice, but here's a video that better conveys how it behaves:
https://zintranet.ddns.net/s/S4aZJPNYawNspQC (h265)
Smells ok.
Microbial haze? Can I save this? Killed off cells post-sulfite treatment?
The layering could make it viable to decant it. But if it's infected that might be no use.
Any ideas on how to proceed? Did I contaminate it during the intervention?