Does mould always = drain

[Bartek Knapek]

Hi,

 

  Natural yeast failed me and after 2 weeks the situation looks like below.

 

I am curious how it will affect the final cider, so I thought I would rack clean juice and add some yeast.

But I am concerned if it would still be safe to drink such a cider. I bet there are plenty of mould  spores in the juice, even though it looks fine.

 

I guess it is not uncommon to get some mould on the juice every now and then.

Does mould always = drain? What is your experience / knowledge?

 

It is a pretty white mould, with a nice smell of blue cheese (for what it matters :)

 

//Bartek

 

[Andrew Lea]

It is impossible to say just what mycotoxins will be produced by that mould and how they might be metabolised by yeast. However, you will not drop down dead from the odd glass of the resulting cider.

I would think more about the flavour impact. Generally mould taints in juice (which are not the same as mycotoxins) don’t disappear after fermentation. As an experiment though you could ferment it through to cider and see what it’s like. If it’s not nice and still tastes of blue cheese, then chuck it away. 

It is quite unusual to get mould growth starting before wild yeast growth. What’s the history of the apples and juice? Did you do something unusual to this batch?

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

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[Bartek Knapek]

This is coming from an experiment where I want to learn how maceration and addition of a pecto-enzyme can affect properties of the final cider.

Primary goal is to check if the enzyme I use could be the reason for a slight bitterness of my last season ciders.
Secondary objective is to see how the cider color is affected.

I made several samples:
1. pressed without maceration, right after milling (2 samples)
2. as above, with addition of pectic enzyme to the juice
3. pressed after maceration, but without pectic enzyme
4. pressed after maceration done with addition of pectic enzyme

In addition I did 3 extra samples: 1A, 3A and 4A - analogous to the above, but the juice was additionally oxidised for a couple of hours (with a small air pump with an air stone). I want my ciders to be dark-brown - that's why.
I only started to play with hyper-oxidation this season, so no conclusions yet - except that, depending on apple variety, such treatment can change a pale juice into porter-brown; and following SO2 can revert this change completely. Previously I observed that non-macerated juices tend to get darker than these macerated, that's what I wanted to verify here, but in this particular case the juices did not respond at all. Still looking forward to verifying the effect on flavor.

All samples are coming from the same apples, single dessert variety: Rubin. No SO2 addition. No yeast added. No nutrients.
SG 1.060. Before maceration: pH 3,27, TA 7,4 g/L; after maceration:  pH was 0,25 higher and TA 1 g/L lower.

I believe I treated all the demijohns the same way, the same sanitation protocol, etc.

These 2 that failed to start and developed mould contained juice pressed without maceration (#1).
Sample #1A did start, but it developed a pellicle on the surface, which suggests non-Saccharomyces took over the fermentation; it also smells odd.
Other samples, including #2, seem to be performing well.

What I make of it is that with maceration more yeast make their way to the juice, hence the initial population is bigger.

Regarding mould, yes I am a bit concerned with mycotoxins, basically because I have no background in this matter. I reason there are good moulds, there are bad - same as mushrooms.
On the other hand some select wines are made from rotten/moulded grapes...

I did have one issue with mould before, when I attempted to ferment outside, but 2 days after pressing came winter and the juice froze for 3 months.
Some weeks after it has eventually thawed, the situation looked like this:



So I racked the bottom half of the fermener, the juice there had SG >1.100 average (!), and after adding yeast I eventually got a clean cider. Now, 6 months later, I tasted a small sample and I did not find anything wrong about it, except that there was a distinct fruity aroma/taste, but I was unable to associate it with any fruit I know. Still, I consider turning it into Calvados :)

//Bartek

W dniu 2017-10-22 o 11:54, Andrew Lea pisze:

[Tom S]

I hope its appropriate to tag this on, but I saw Andrew's comment and I think I've got some pre wild yeast growth mould issues and if this is unusual I'm wondering if I've done something clearly wrong:

I popped open my fermenter today to have a look and this is what I found. Is this film mould or the normal foaming of the initial fermentation? Or both?

this is a 3 gallon fermenter filled with juice from an assorted bunch of desert and cooking apples. The apples were pressed on the 14th of October, this was done outside, however all of the equipment was sanitised with vwp. Since then the fermenter has been sat in the dining room, where the temperature ranges from about 15 to 20 degrees Celsius. I have left some head-space for the initial foaming, however the airlock was filled. The readings are SG 1.042, 2.8-3.2 pH (crappy testing strips so hard to be more precise) and I've sulphated with half a Campden tablet per gallon, so 1.5 over all and I haven't added anything else. 

I've also got a small demijohn of extra juice, which has been kept in the same place, has had the same treatment and nearly identical readings. There has been no signs of fermenting but I've noticed its developed a couple of mould spots (pictured above), not film mould as far as I can identify, so I'm guessing not a major problem? I'm going to siphon the juice into a spare, sanitised demijohn, as I can't think of a better way of getting the mould out, unless anyone has any better ideas? I tried to siphon off just the mould but it didn't really work.

Any advice would be great, thanks in advance

[Matthew Moser Miller]

Hi Tom,

I can't say absolutely, but that first picture sure looks like a well-developed film yeast going- it's got that white flakiness and the distinct, stable bubbles forming. I'd skim off as much as I could, for starters; were it me, I'd spray a sulfite solution on the top and the next day pitch a cultured yeast. The second is definitely a mold; I've never had to deal with that, but it looks like it's above the liquid level on the glass. How clean was your vessel? And have you had a different batch in the fermenter that might have gone too long and had a very well-established film yeast that could have lingered in the harder-to-sanitize plastic?

 Your sulfite levels seem pretty high for that pH if you were hoping to get a wild ferment; do you mean US gallon, or imperial? Either way, I usually sulfite lower than that if I'm going for a wild or mixed ferment (closer to 1/3 dose); I always have way higher pH than that, and have never had any noticeable mold issues. Even then, I tend to delay a day or two before sulfiting to let the apiculates get a head start before knocking back with the sulfite unless I'm really concerned about the fruit (i.e., it was a bit past its best). How clean were your apples/ could they have had some mold? Did you press them yourself?

I realize there aren't many answers for you there, but I would probably give up on a wild ferment for this batch and get an active culture going.

Good luck,

Matt Moser Miller

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[Andrew Lea]

I agree with Matt that from the unfocused pictures it’s hard to tell. However, film yeasts don’t generally tend to take hold until later in fermentation. My feeling in the first picture is that you have incipient yeast fermentation scum with small pinhead colonies of a blue mould on the surface. These often develop where specks of apple debris or skin have crept through. These are seen in the second picture as pure colonies.

 I also agree with Matt that the best approach  is to skim off the surface with a slotted spoon or sieve. If on close examination the first cider is actually fermenting, I’d leave it be to continue. But if not, I’d pitch a cultured yeast. 

I also think that at pH 3, you are adding rather too much SO2. At that pH I add the merest smidgin, or even none at all. It’s also worth considering just where the wild yeasts you need are coming from. There are two sources. 

1. The apiculate yeasts are orchard denizens and multiply in and around the fruit itself. There are more of them, the longer the fruit is stored and if it’s been lying on the orchard floor in traditional British manner. If it’s hand picked, very clean, not stored, no leaves or grass etc, your apiculate numbers will be quite low.  

2. The Saccharomyces are in the environment all around us. If you have made cider or wine before, they will be living from season on your equipment. If you sanitise everything to within an inch of its life, which is quite unnecessary, your Saccharomyces levels will also be very low. 

If you want to do wild yeast fermentations successfully , you need to step away from the brewer’s mindset of absolute cleanliness and be a bit more relaxed about environmental contamination. Wild yeast fermentations need that contamination to work successfully, since it’s your only source of organisms. 

I realise that sounds heretical to many people, but it’s the way it is!

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

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[Tom S]

Thank you both for the reply. 

In terms of the fermenter, a batch was made in it last year, the cider looked ok at bottling and tasted fine, but I left the vessel and the residue contents outside for about a week before washing, it probably could have been contaminated then. However, I did give it a good clean then and sterilised it well before adding this years juice to it. In terms of the apples, they were a mixture of windfalls and picked that I washed and cut out any bad bits, so I'm fairly confident that the apples were ok. My choice of sulphating is partly based on advice and partly out of fear of contamination as Andrew pointed out, but I did think that the wild yeasts could tolerate sulphating, hence why it is ok to do so and still wild ferment, if that makes sense. 

But, there is something dodgy going on as you both have pointed out so I'll skim off the froth, spray it and add a yeast. 

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[Andrew Lea]

There is nothing dodgy going on. It’s all quite explicable. 

First, you have sanitised all your equipment so there will be very few residual Saccharomyces left over from last year’s cidermaking. Second, you have probably used rather too much SO2 for the apiculate yeasts which are carried in and on the new apples. Your pH measurement is not very accurate so it’s hard to be sure where you should have been aiming. See my sulphite addition table on my page here http://www.cider.org.uk/sulphite.html. (If you are only using Campden tablets then I wouldn’t add any at pH 3.0 - 3.3 if trying to do a wild yeast fermentation). 

The result is that very few wild yeast cells, whether apiculate or Saccharomyces, will be alive in your juice. There will be some but they will take a while to grow to a fermenting population. Hence your long lag phase. 

In the meantime, mould spores which are also carried on the apple and typically attach themselves to small particles of flesh, have germinated on the top of the juice. They are not affected by the SO2 because they are strictly aerobic and are floating on top of the liquid. So they are obviously growing and they are blue because they are sporulating. The wild yeasts are also growing but their growth is not visible since they are in the body of the liquid and you won’t realise they are there until the whole liquid is saturated with carbon dioxide gas which will take some time. 

I hope this helps.  It’s all entirely logical. Btw please note the correct spelling of sulphite. Sulphate is something quite different. The vowels are not interchangeable. 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[luis.ga...@gmail.com]

Just to understand Andrew, what is the level of cleanliness that you suggest for the scratter mill/press and the fermentor in order to get a satsfactory wild yeast fermentation? Is washing all the equipment with clean water sufficient?

Louis

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[Andrew Lea]

That’s an interesting question! 

I’ve been doing wild yeast fermentations for the best part of 30 years and I only ever wash my press cloths and racks with clean water. The same mostly goes for juice containers, funnels , fermenters (HDPE), hoses and taps. Just occasionally I will clean some of these with a chlorine based formulated cleaner largely for cosmetic reasons, because dirty HDPE looks a bit unloved. My fruit is also picked off the ground in the British fashion and stored at least until a starch test is negative. It’s then water washed before milling. 

I use “half dose” SO2  according to pH. My fermentations are a mix of apiculate and Saccharomyces yeasts. I know this because I see both down the microscope. The apiculate  yeasts presumably originate from the orchard as received wisdom tells us. I ferment outdoors under an oak tree which I like to think may be the source of some of the Saccharomyces eg http://www.wfcc.info/iccc12/presentations/jsampaio.pdf but that is just romantic speculation on my part. Otherwise they have drifted in from elsewhere in the environment or as residues from cultured yeast fermentations. My fermentations are typically active within a week, maybe just 2 or 3 days. I rarely see mould growth but I scoop it off with a sieve if I do. 

Although my fermentations are wild, they seem to be consistent. I use a similar blend of fruit from year to year and the combination of fruit and ferment seems to develop a “house flavour”. When I use cultured Saccharomyces yeasts I’m always surprised how different they are from my wild ferments. 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

[Claude Jolicoeur]

As a side note, this year, my early batches started fermenting really fast. Even a half dose sulfited batch started a vigorous fermentation the following day after sulfite addition. This might be due to extraordinary high temperature we have seen this fall here in Quebec.
However, thinking ahead for my late batches for which I will want to keeve, I decided to boil my clothes to sterilize them, hoping this would reduce the yeast load on the fresh juice.
We'll see if this helps...
Claude

[luis.ga...@gmail.com]

Andrew, I find very interesting the fact that you only clean your fermentors with clean water. I always use a sodium percarbonate based cleaner. Last year, I went to Spain and met a small scale traditional winemaker. He told me that he always keeps the lees from the previous season's fermentation in his oak barrel and he never cleans it. This allows him to reuse the same yeast for every year's natural fermentation. He also told me that he was seeing an evolution with the yeast caracteristics. I guess the advantage of using such a soft cleaning method is, like you said, the development of a house flavor.

I am wondering, when you say you let your fermentors in the wild under an oak tree for yeast innoculation, do you mean that you let them open, without an airlock airlock or anything?

Claude, I have seen the same. I pressed for the first time of the year last week (with an outside temperature of around 20 degree on a sunny day, which is pretty incredible for my part of the country at this time of the year) and in less than two days, my wild ferment were vigorously fermenting.

When are you approximatly going to press for your keeving batches? I did try one last week but I am pretty sure that with those temperature, it will ferment too fast and not work (even if I sulfited a bit). I am willing to achieve one this year (as last year's attempt failed) so I would like to do it in the best condition for a success (even if my apples aren't the best one for this purpose).

Louis

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le vendredi 27 octobre 2017 20:41:30 UTC-4, luis.ga...@gmail.com a écrit :

Claude, I have seen the same. I pressed for the first time of the year last week (with an outside temperature of around 20 degree on a sunny day, which is pretty incredible for my part of the country at this time of the year) and in less than two days, my wild ferment were vigorously fermenting.

When are you approximatly going to press for your keeving batches?

I am harvesting my late varieties these days. So in about a month they should be ready for pressing.
In fact, it is by he smell that I know the apples are ready... They tell me when time has come!
Claude

[Andrew Lea]

> On 28 Oct 2017, at 01:41, luis.ga...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> I am wondering, when you say you let your fermentors in the wild under an oak tree for yeast innoculation, do you mean that you let them open, without an airlock airlock or anything?
>
>

Oh no, the fermenters are closed and everything has an airlock. What I mean is that my whole working area, including the press, is under the leaf canopy of an oak tree. So there is plenty of chance for all sorts of organisms to drop in. But as I say, the relevance of the oak tree may be an entirely fanciful and romantic notion!

Andrew

[Handmade Cider]

I also never use any sanitiser on my equipment or tanks, glad I am in good company! 

Claude, over here, as opposed to last year when all fermentations seemed to take ages to get going, everything is starting really fast. I have only pressed 1/60th of my output for the year so far as I am really worried about the stories I am hearing of cider pressed one day starting fermenting the next. I have seen IBC's used as spent pommace containers that were fermenting before they left the yard for animal feed, as were drums that contained the debris from wash tanks. As I am planning on keeving 95% of my output this year I find this worrying especially as all the fruit is coming in very early.
I have been handpicking fruit where I would normally machine harvest it in order to make it keep long enough for the temperature to drop  so I could keeve it.

Boil washing cloths is a good route, I started doing this 4 years ago, all my cloths would go though a boil wash over the weekend (not an easy task as my press has a cubic meter cheese and it takes 3 x 3 hour washes to do the lot). Juice pressed on the Monday would start fermenting after the juice pressed on the Friday.

This year I am losing my control on the yeast count on the equipment as I am contracting out all my pressing, so I am leaving all my pressing till the very last minute hoping it will cool down.

I am wondering if I inherited my strain of wild yeast when I bought my press. As I have used it some of the racks have disintegrated and between the mating surfaces of the individual slats there is a massive build up of yeast. I believe this dries once the season has finished and is re activated once the racks get wet. On the Monday after a boil wash the racks infest the cloths, the colony grows and the lag phase diminishes.

Now I am contracting out my pressing I am also worried about taking on the yeast strains of the press houses I will be using. I have even considered running all the fresh juice over a pile of my old racks sat in a juice tray on route to my fermentation tanks.

Denis

Denis France   www.handmadecider.co.uk   07590 264804  Company. No. 07241330

White Label – Champion Farmhouse Cider, Bath & West Show 2015.

Spring Surprise - Cider of the Festival Chippenham Camra Beer Festival 2014 - 2016

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[Max Nowell ( Steilhead Cider)]

Luis, very interesting, but how come the lees don't just turn to vinegar?

[luis.ga...@gmail.com]

This is a good question. I don't know. 

[dhma...@gmail.com]

Andrew,

You note that the mold spores germinate at the top of the juice which is at this point an aerobic environment since fermentation hasn't yet begun. Would the addition of something like wine preservation argon gas at this point in the process be advisable to minimize/inhibit mold growth? Something like this?

Thanks,

David

[Wes Cherry]

I flood the headspace of my wild ferments  with co2.  Some goes into solution over time so I hit it a few times until fermentation starts.

Argon is quite expensive.   Nitrogen will work just as well for much less $$$ and also not appreciably dissolve into solution.   Co2 is even cheaper (and free if you use another active ferment as your co2 source - bubble through a sanitizer solution to minimize the chance of inoculating with yeast from the source fermenter if that's a non wild ferment)

-'//es Cherry

Dragon's Head Cider

Vashon Island, Wa US

www.dragonsheadcider.com

[Martin campling]

On Saturday, October 28, 2017 at 10:50:53 PM UTC+1, Handmade Cider wrote:

This year I am losing my control on the yeast count on the equipment as I am contracting out all my pressing, so I am leaving all my pressing till the very last minute hoping it will cool down.

I am wondering if I inherited my strain of wild yeast when I bought my press. As I have used it some of the racks have disintegrated and between the mating surfaces of the individual slats there is a massive build up of yeast. I believe this dries once the season has finished and is re activated once the racks get wet. On the Monday after a boil wash the racks infest the cloths, the colony grows and the lag phase diminishes.

Now I am contracting out my pressing I am also worried about taking on the yeast strains of the press houses I will be using. I have even considered running all the fresh juice over a pile of my old racks sat in a juice tray on route to my fermentation tanks.

Hi Denis,

While it may be be the case that wild yeasts may originate on the equipment used to process the apples, I rather think that a lot will also come from the orchards used. Even a thorough washing of the apples will not remove all detritus so some orchard-originated yeasts (and bacteria) must be coming though.

Martin 

[Handmade Cider]

I am not sure I agree with that Martin. In my opinion my yeast lives on my equipment.

My press racks were all unvarnished wood and as they slowly disintegrated under 170psi I observed a build up of yeast on the mating surfaces of the slats. I believe my yeast comes from there and during the press week would build up in the cloths. I reckon the yeast dried out at the end of the season and then was re invigorated at the beginning of the new year.

I have considered taking one of my old racks to the belt press I will be using and putting it in the juice tray to innoculate the juice.

There may also be apiculate yeasts that come from the orchards but I think the Saccharomyces is now a house strain.

Denis

Denis 

Denis France   www.handmadecider.co.uk   07590 264804  Company. No. 07241330

White Label – Champion Farmhouse Cider, Bath & West Show 2015.

Spring Surprise - Cider of the Festival Chippenham Camra Beer Festival 2014 - 2016

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[Martin campling]

On Wednesday, November 1, 2017 at 2:54:35 PM UTC, Handmade Cider wrote:

I am not sure I agree with that Martin. In my opinion my yeast lives on my equipment.

 

This reminds me of a trip I made to a Belgian brewery many years ago where they made lambic beers, brewed with natural yeasts in open fermenters. The brewery had had the roof rebuilt and all of their fermentation stopped. In an attempt to resolve the issue, they went to the local dump and retrieved some of their old tiles which they nailed to the new rafters. The fermentation restarted and everything went back to normal.

So, maybe nail your racks to the rafters of the new pressing location?

 

[Petr Vacek]

Hi,
really bad season this year. Almost no apples and at the start the same mould issues as on your pictures, in my case it did not spread that much.
I racked the juice immediately, after the first one I still spotted some mouldy parts. Second racking followed and now the fermentation runs as usually.
I tasted the juice today, 4 days after the rackings and there is no hint of mould in the taste.
Good luck!
P.

[luis.ga...@gmail.com]

Denis, I am wondering,

You say your wild yeast probably comes from your equipment (press, racks, etc.). Do you have an explanation for this? It might well  be true but a wonder how in the process they could have acquired this property, being only in concact with fresh apple juice. Might it be, like Andrew suggested, because they are made of oak (I suggest), where might origin the saccharomyces yeast?

Louis

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[George Norman]

I also have mould issues with an 8 day old keeve attempt. I have 130 litres of mixed Belle De Boskoop, an unknown variety, a wild apple and some crab apples. They were stored and macerated for a few hours. pH 3.0, SG 1055 at 7-9 oC. Nothing else added, not even sulphites. The stainless steel containers are new and have been sterilised. If I understand correctly from Andrew's comments, I probably have "incipient yeast fermentation scum with small pinhead colonies of a blue mould on the surface" and the best course would be to at least to skim off the mould to avoid possible flavour taints. 

However, running a pH strip through the surface, I noticed that a gel had begun to form. Presumably I don't want to disturb the gel too much, now that a chapeau brun is beginning to form, so should I just leave it and hope for the best? Or do a racking now and hope that a secondary chapeau brun forms before fermentation starts? Can I assume that if I have a gel forming, this indicates the presence of carbon dioxide and so fermentation has started giving some protection to the must? I would rather avoid sulphiting if possible, but would resort to this if it looked like I would lose the whole batch.

How do you check if a keeve is complete? I've read that you can use a turkey baster and you want to draw some liquid from under the chapeau brun to check the liquid is clear of gel. In my mind that sounds unreliable but is that the status quo?

George

[Andrew Lea]

On 06/12/2017 10:31, George Norman wrote:

>
> I also have mould issues with an 8 day old keeve attempt. I have 130
> litres of mixed Belle De Boskoop, an unknown variety, a wild apple and
> some crab apples. They were stored and macerated for a few hours. pH
> 3.0, SG 1055 at 7-9 oC. Nothing else added, not even sulphites.

Did you add any PME or calcium salt? If you didn't, at pH3, I think it's
very unlikely you will ever achieve a successful keeve. The pictures you
show are not promising and the gel is mighty thin.

You have a lot of mould there, not just the odd speck. I would advise
cutting your losses, sieving off all the mould and getting it into a
regular fermenting vessel with an airlock PDQ.

I would also taste the juice. If it tastes mouldy or woody already,
sling it, because it won't recover. But if it's clean then go ahead. If
it's not already fermenting then I would add a cultured yeast and raise
the temperature a few degrees to speed things along.

Andrew

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Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

www.amazon.co.uk/Craft-Cider-Making-Andrew-Lea/dp/1785000152

[George Norman]

Thanks very much for your wise words Andrew.

I didn't add any PME or calcium salt, I was hoping to avoid additives if possible though I can see the pH is an issue. I have skimmed off the mouldy gel and put the airlock on. The taste and smell is much the same as at pressing.

I have another 30 litres of an earlier batch which is well under way with fermentation. Would it be an option to pitch this in and let the wild yeast do it's work on the newer batch? Otherwise, I will see if I can pick up some cultured yeast today.

George

[Andrew Lea]

Everything that we know scientifically and historically about keeving tells us it won’t work spontaneously at a low pH. The reason for that is that the natural PME in the apple simply isn’t active at pH much below 3.6. See the keeving page and links on my website. 

However the PME that you add from a kit will work at pH typically down to 3. That’s because it’s from a fungal source, not a plant, and has been carefully chosen to work in acid conditions. 

Also, if you have low soluble calcium in your juice, you will never get a good keeve. Calcium levels will depend on soil conditions. That’s why people add calcium as an insurance policy unless they know the fruit is coming from calcareous soils. 

If you have a good wild fermentation going elsewhere, then you can indeed use it as an inoculum for this “failed keeve” batch. Makes a lot of sense. 

Andrew 

Wittenham Hill Cider Portal
www.cider.org.uk

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