"Scott L" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hello everybody, beer brewer here moving into wines. My first attempt
went wrong, getting infected with a thick, mucus-like membrane on top
of the must. If this were a batch of beer I'd diagnose it as
brettanomyces, but my experience with wine is zero so I'll leave that
to the more experienced...

My sanitation procedure for the carboy was iodophor and drip drying.
This is a carryover habit from beer brewing, and I've read several
places that iodophor is not the ideal sanitizer for winemaking, so I
realize this may have been a mistake.

I used a large can of elderberry concentrate, with 4 gallons of water.
I added four crushed Campden tablets to the must. I think I crushed
them wrong. There were a few medium-sized, intact chunks which went
into the must along with the powder. The next morning I saw some of
those chunks floating on the surface of the must, apparently buoyed up
by the SO2 bubbles clinging to them. I suspect the must didn't receive
an adequate dose of SO2. That evening (24 hours later) I added a dry
cuvee yeast. Even at that time, things were not looking good, with a
weird film on the surface of the must.

You may have done nothing wrong at all. I've heard that elderberry leaves a
nasty scum behind in fermenters and maybe that's what you're seeing.

How about an assist from one of you experienced country winemakers? I can't
really speak authoratatively on this topic.

Tom S
www.chateauburbank.com