floaters

[jerry]

Been making wine for years and never seen this, floaters looking like pieces of potato chips. They were not there after I bottled, a month later I noticed the floaters. I made 6 gallons of concord from juice, cleaned and sanitized like I always do. Made asimple sugar syrup, before that I used superkleer. Anyone have any ideas what it could be. Could it be mold or bacteria? I make sure I keep up with the K-meta. Could the juice I bought been bad?

 

[grapeman]

Chances are it is tartaric acid flakes you see. Did you cold stabilize before bottling? A lot of grapes were higher in acid this year than usual and have extra capacity for crystals. They can form on the top even in the carboy andfloat there until disturbed and then drop to the bottom. As the temperatures dropped after bottling, the acids precipitated out. Inside it takes longer but still can happen as it cools down a bit.


Did you add any acid to the Concord? Did you cold stabilize? pH? TA?, etc

 

[markg]

Will filtering eliminate them?

 

[PeterZ]

Yes.

 

[markg]

Will filtering eliminate the need to cold stabilize?

 

[grapeman]

Using Peter's lead "No".

The acid precipitates out when cooled enough, but filtering will not eliminate it on it's own.

 

[AlFulchino]

shoot....i saw the word 'floaters' and was thinking of something totally different...what was i thinking!!!