Stained airlock

[Kivanc]

I’m on the secondary fermentation of 10 liters bergamot tea wine. I just racked into secondary fermenter. The fermentation is vigorous and I just saw the airlock has become stained in color. I racked it when the hydrometer hit 1.030. It is been dripping through the airlock. So I dumped some into glass to drink to give the fermenter enough head space.

Smooth alcoholic taste of bergamot...

 

[Rice_Guy]

It should come clean with oxiclean, ,,,, well oxidizing cleaners don’t actually remove organic material they decolonize it so we don’t see it

 

[Kivanc]

I passed hot water

 

[Kivanc]

It finished at 1000. The initial reading was 1120. The ingredients are:

Bergamot tea - 400 grams
Water - 10 liters
Sugar - 2,5 kg
Molasses - 5 tsp
14% tolerance yeast

 

[Scooter68]

Well first of all I would suggest that perhaps you racked too early (I'd wait until it got down to at least 1.010) and secondly you have almost zero headspace and that's really risky given how much more fermentation your batch had left to do.
As long as a batch is fermenting well (Above 1.010 and some foam on the surface) I wouldn't worry about headspace in a carboy. 4-6 inches even isnt' bad. There is plenty of CO2 coming off the wine to keep oxygen pushed out.

 

[winemaker81]

Not that it helps at this time, but I switched to 3 piece airlocks as they are easily cleaned. I experienced the same problem with double-bubblers, couldn't clean them, and replaced them.