White flakes in wine

[catfishhoward]

I just raked my strawberry wine from the secondary into a new gallon jug at 2 months (0.99) . I went ahead and added 1 campden tablet to the gallon jug and after 5 days there is a lot of white flakes at the bottom of of jug, about 1/8" thick. I am new to this so I don't know what these white flakes are? During the secondary I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary but some of my strawberries did have a little white hairy mold on them so I washed them off before using them (money tight so I tied to save them). Could this be mold? If so, is it still good?

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[RPh_Guy]

Nope, that's just yeast flocculating.

 

[Yooper]

Did you dissolve the crushed campden tablet in a little of the wine (or water) first? Those white flakes don't look like yeast to me.

 

[catfishhoward]

I just noticed my blackberry and grape juice wine has the same thing so it not mold.

I crushed the tablet between my finger in the wine pretty good and there is way more stuff in the bottom than just 1 tablet.

 

[Mallerstang]

I just raked my strawberry wine from the secondary into a new gallon jug

I don't think you're supposed to use a rake.

 

[catfishhoward]

I don't think you're supposed to use a rake.

So I shouldn't mow it to bottles yet?

 

[Mallerstang]

So I shouldn't mow it to bottles yet?

You should use a leaf blower - it's faster lol

 

[catfishhoward]

Nope, that's just yeast flocculating.

Will the yeast flocculating ever go completely to the bottom? I'm wanting to back sweeten and bottle and would hate to loose over an 1" of wine to avoid this stuff going into the bottles.

Also, I have some more 1 gallon jugs of wine that have been sitting for 5 months and were all around 0.99 to 1.00 when last bottled, do I have to use a campden table before back sweetening? If so, will this white stuff be in those bottles as well? where I might have to rack them again?

Photo attached from today

 

[RPh_Guy]

Tap on the glass or gently spin the fermenter to see if it will unstick from the sides. ... Or just rack to another vessel and it'll settle pretty quickly in my experience.

Backsweetening requires both sorbate and sulfite.

 

[catfishhoward]

Tap on the glass or gently spin the fermenter to see if it will unstick from the sides. ... Or just rack to another vessel and it'll settle pretty quickly in my experience.

Backsweetening requires both sorbate and sulfite.

The white flakes seem to be free and move when I rotate the glass, they just won't go to the bottom so I will rack again. How long should I wait after adding the potassium sorbate and candem tablet to be sure these white flakes don't show up in my other wines?

 

[RPh_Guy]

My guess is that once you added sulfite it caused wild yeast in your wine to flocculate. If there is wild yeast in your other wines, the same thing may occur when you add sulfite.

You should leave it until it's clear enough to bottle. Rack whenever a substantial amount of lees form.