Sorry to rekindle an old tread but I am having some trouble that I believe is going to lead me to toss all my wine equipment and start over.
I believe I have a real bad case of Acetobacter infestation. The classic high acidity, vinegar taste and nail polish/perm solution smell.
Four batches of wine ago I was in the middle of a move and did not clean a plastic primary fermenter out after racking. Left the lees and all in the bottom for over two weeks... Smelled awful and was a swarming mess of flies. I cleaned it out a little better than normal and went back to making wine. The next batch was so bad that I couldn't drink it. So I did a little research and cleaned the primary supper well, sanitized like crazy and tried again. Not quite at bad but still a definite vinegar taste. After that I purchased a new primary and tried another batch. Still like vinegar. I did notice that the smells and taste developed later in the process (week 3 or 4).
During my last attempt to sanitize everything I used almost a gallon of bleach... I was confident that i killed that stuff, only to come back a week later and sniff a few piece of equipment and I still get a whiff of vinegar. I cant get rid of it and don't know what else to do except throw it all out and start over.
Any thoughts, anyone else ever run into this?