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 peruvian spark
Registered: 02/03/03
Posts: 656
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 Mead question...
#8841344 - 08/28/08 12:06 PM (3 months, 5 days ago) |
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I go downstairs yesterday to check on the progress of a sweet mead I brewed last friday and I notice a couple spots of green mold floating in my carboy. The mead itself is vigorously fermenting and there are no off smells coming out of the airlock.
Should I --
Re-rack it asap leaving the mold in the first carboy?
Re-rack after a few weeks letting the fermentation slow a little before siphoning?
Dump it?
Leave it alone and let it do its thing?
Any advice fellow brewers?? Honey ain't cheap!
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"The only unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain and everything is changeable."
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zorbman
Bush Recession2008
Registered: 06/04/04
Posts: 3,634
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What kind of recipe are you using? That is very unusual as honey is naturally antifungal and antibiotic.
It's your call. Do you want to risk it or not?
You can try racking it off the mold and maybe the higher alcohol % will prevent it from regrowing but it's your health. I sure wouldn't serve that to anyone else though.
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"I cannot morally blame all Americans for allowing, for instance, the birth of the Federal Reserve System (a private cartel with full control over the issuance of national debt) and the money destruction that has followed. They are simply ignorant about it and don't know what happened or what is happening. They think that prices go up rather than than dollars go down." - John Kenneth Galbraith
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 leftysurprise
Powdered Toast Activist
 
Registered: 06/21/05
Posts: 11,595
Loc: Florida
Last seen: 6 hours, 59 minutes
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Re: Mead question... [Re: zorbman]
#8856923 - 08/31/08 05:04 PM (3 months, 2 days ago) |
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yeah that is very wierd........ if it is still actively fermenting, the mold should not be able to colonize inside...... 
personally green mold doesnt scare me, when i find it growing on bread, yogurt or just about anything, i just cut or scoop it out/off and keep on trucking.
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"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. " ~Abraham Lincoln
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LunarEclipse
LE
Registered: 10/31/04
Posts: 2,472
Loc: O
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Post deleted by LunarEclipseReason for deletion: ?
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peruvian spark
Registered: 02/03/03
Posts: 656
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I used clover honey, yeast nutrients and Wyeast sweet mead yeast.
There was a 2 day lag time before the mead started fermenting and I'm pretty sure the mold started to grow before fermentation began. Normally my mead starts fermenting within 12 hours so the lag time was definitely strange. I usually boil the water before adding the honey and this time I only heated it up to about 170-180 before adding the honey and yeast nutrients. I most likely wouldn't have contams if I would have boiled first.
The mold hasn't grown or spread any since I noticed it so I think the newly formed alcohol is keeping it at bay. I think that the spots are actually getting a little smaller.
I've decided to give it some time and re-rack it this coming weekend. If the mold doesn't come back then I'll keep it and let it age until February or March. If it does come back, I'll dump it because I don't want mold growing in the bottles later on.
Edit - I use a copper wort chiller to cool the mead to around 70F before adding the yeast.
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"The only unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain and everything is changeable."
Edited by peruvian spark (09/01/08 04:08 PM)
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zorbman
Bush Recession2008
Registered: 06/04/04
Posts: 3,634
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Wyeast Sweet Mead yeast is known for being an extremely slow starter. Particularly so when no fruit is added. So it sounds like the delay allowed the mold to gain a foothold in the must before the yeast finally took off.
What is your complete recipe? How much nutrient did you add?
Did you repeatedly shake the carboy before adding your yeast to introduce oxygen?
In the future you might consider using another type of yeast and/or and back-sweeten your mead with honey after the primary fermentation is complete. You would probably want to add sorbate at that time to prevent renewed fermentation.
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"I cannot morally blame all Americans for allowing, for instance, the birth of the Federal Reserve System (a private cartel with full control over the issuance of national debt) and the money destruction that has followed. They are simply ignorant about it and don't know what happened or what is happening. They think that prices go up rather than than dollars go down." - John Kenneth Galbraith
Edited by zorbman (09/01/08 05:17 PM)
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