help... what is this floating at the top... It is an off white and dissolves

[cellarguy]

I am making a batch of muscadine wine for my first batch of making wine. I had about 30 pounds of crushed white and added about a 2 lbs of purple ones from my late grandfathers farm and about 1 lb of pears to it. Here is my log so far.

9/27 Added two gallon water (he had already added the other gallons of water at the store)
30 drops of pectin
Add six teaspoon of nutrient
3 table spoons of acid blend

Added yeast mix at 9:30 on 9/29 fermentation had already started naturally prior

9/30 9:42 pm 1.075 sg

12:30 noon 10/2 1.045 - 1.05

9:17 on 10/4 1.015
Racked it into secondary
Added small amount of sugar and yeast nutrient. About 1/4 cup of sugar and tbl of nutrient cooked down to syrup

10/5 1.01 tasted fine but a slight bitterness

They put the camden tablets in when I bought the 30 lbs of crushed muscadine grapes. I added my water, sugar, acid blend, pectin enzyme, then yeast and nutrient after about 24 hours. I got nervous yesterday and added a crushed camden tablet to the secondary. It is still fermenting but any ideas what this is on top. It does not appear to the be the pure white crusty vinegar spoil like I have seen. It floats around and if I rock the carboy gently it dissolves. I have tasted it and it is drinkable.

Is this normal. Should I add more enzyme since I added pears. I only put in what the guy and recipe said for the amount of muscadines.

Making 6 gallons.

 

[CBell]

normal. yeast. don't worry about it.

 

[cellarguy]

Great news, thanks!

 

[cellarguy]

Should I rock the carboy every so many days and knock it down or leave it?

Thanks

 

[LoneTreeFarms]

you should be fine leaving it, a gentle rocking helps remove some of the suspended co2 but you can get rid of that by degassing later on.

 

[cellarguy]

Thanks for all the help! If finally stopped coming back up to the top. Everything looks good so far. I plan on adding some oak chips to it tonight and possibly some slight baking spices suspended in a cloth bag. Check the pH and SG as well while I have the air lock off. Then rack it after a few more weeks.

 

[jswordy]

It's probably just me, but I'd go easy on the oak and forget the spices. This is your first wine, and muscadine will do fine on its own. The key to bringing up the flavor is to stabilize and back sweeten to your taste.

I usually take a vial full of wine, add sugar to taste, then get a hydrometer reading and just duplicate that reading in my carboy. Saves a bunch of calculating.

Do save a bit of test wine and keep sugaring it past your "like" point, just to find out where the flavor stops coming forward as you add tiny bits of sugar.

Like I say, this is how I do it. Your mileage may vary.