Causes of mold on homemade wine and what to do with white film, how to prevent spoilage
When making homemade alcoholic beverages, mold often appears on the wine, which can spoil the wine product if measures are not taken in time. It is always better to prevent a problem than to deal with it later. But if this happened, and the mold still appeared on the surface, you should get rid of it, fix the situation and save the future wine.
Can grape mold be noble
If homemade wine is covered with mold, then it must be fought, because it cannot be useful in any way, but only harmful, which will spoil the finished product. But the noble mold still exists. It appears on ripe grapes in a specific environment. This occurs in areas where morning fogs give way to warm dry weather during the day.
Under the influence of noble mold, the concentration of sugar increases and the acidity in the grapes decreases. The aroma from the peel of the berries passes into the juice and is further preserved in the wine product. Obtaining such a drink is a complex and laborious process.
Berries covered with Botrytis cinerea must be intact to prevent the grape pulp from coming into contact with oxygen. Otherwise, there is a rapid transformation of noble mold into gray rot.
What can do harm
If the technology for making wine is violated, a plaque in the form of a thin, almost transparent film may appear on its surface. If you do not notice in time and do not take measures to eliminate it, then in the future the neoplasm grows moldy, becomes denser, darkens. The drink smells bad.
When the formed fungus sinks to the bottom of the container, the wine cannot be saved, and the wine product will be irrevocably damaged.
Mold can appear not only on the finished product, but also during fermentation.
Reasons for the appearance
There are several factors that can cause fungus to enter the wine.
- Poorly washed containers are one of the causes of blooming in the drink. Visually clean containers or tools can become contaminated with fungus, leading to mold growth on the surface of the wine.
- Oxygen penetration into the container with wort. Most often, the wine bloom appears under a glove or cotton stopper. For example, if a medical glove is not tightly fixed on the neck of a can, air enters in the process of fermentation, which leads to undesirable consequences.
- Blossom also appears due to a lack of sugar and strength. The percentage of alcohol in the drink should not fall below 12 degrees.
- If the wine is moldy, then the temperature regime has been violated.The temperature in the room where the drink is in the fermentation stage should not fall below 22 degrees and rise above 27. The finished product is stored in a basement or a cool room.
- Mold formation in young wine can be caused by high humidity, over 85%.
Knowing the reasons why the fungus appears, you can avoid this trouble.
How to recognize fungus when making homemade wine
To recognize the fungus in time, you need to closely monitor the wort. At this stage of preparation, the wine can still be saved. If winemakers notice that a white film has appeared on the surface of the wort or the finished product, they are definitely in front of mold. The growth of the fungus is just beginning at the top, and the mold has not had time to sink to the bottom.
At the second stage of the development of the fungus, you can see the compaction of the white film and the appearance of moldy centers. Having found wine in such a state, you can still try to save it, but if the particles of the fungus had time to sink to the bottom, the taste of the drink will be spoiled.
The final stage is the loss of fungal colonies in the wort. Wine turns into a mixture of water and mold with an unpleasant odor. This drink can only be poured.
What to do with wine mold
There are several effective methods of fighting mold, but in any case, if a white film appears on the wine, it must be carefully removed with a spoon. If mold has formed in a bottle with a narrow neck, you can resort to using a tube with which you need to pour its contents, leaving sediment and a little drink at the bottom of the container.
- Wine cleared from mold is poured into a container for further heat treatment. The juice is heated to 70 degrees, but not higher. At high temperatures, degrees evaporate, the drink loses its taste.
- Vodka or alcohol will help get rid of mold. A strong drink is poured into young wine, increasing the degrees to 15, which leads to the death of the fungus.
- You can also correct the situation by starting the fermentation process a second time. To do this, add sugar or fresh grape juice to the wine.
When making a drink, special attention should be paid to dry, dessert and semi-dry wines. They are at risk.
How to prevent fungus
In order not to try to save wine from fungus in the future, it is better to prevent its appearance. To do this, you should adhere to simple rules that will help you make a grape drink at home without any problems.
- The first mistake a winemaker can make is if berries with rotting get into the must. Therefore, in order not to spoil all the wine, you need to carefully sort out the grapes before pressing the juice.
- The container where the fermentation process will take place must be thoroughly washed and treated with boiling water.
- To prevent the appearance of mold on the pulp in the first three days, it must be stirred twice a day with a dry cutlery.
- A hermetically installed water seal prevents fungal spores from entering the container.
- Wort diluted with plenty of water can lead to mold growth due to a decrease in yeast concentration.
- To prevent the fungus from getting into the finished product, it must be stored in a cool place, after closing it with a lid.
If mold appears at the initial stage, the wine can still be saved, but it is better to resort to advice that will help to avoid the development of fungus in the drink.
