White flower tops and nail polish joy

So it appears bacteria snuck into my 1 gal experiments on cantaloupe and a frozen berry carboy.

I just read up on it here, and yes, little white flakes are growing on the surface of my 1 gal carboys, for a month. And the sweet smell of cantaloupe wine is over powered by a nail polish aroma.

I filtered with a fine mesh and added 1 campden tablet, racked... will this help? Also, if the nail polish is to stay, would bottling for a year help in any way?

Thanks.

Hmm... I think that's known as a petrol smell? Could it be a petrol aroma?

I could be wrong but, could it be too much sulfur?

the flowers of wine are bacteria . I would double dose the so2. the wine if still drinkable should be for immediate consumption. next time make sure the ph is correct and follow a good so2 dosage regime post fermentation.

I need to correct, its not white flowers, but a thin coating of gel or flakes at the surface that grows. These are in my fruit wine attempts. I thought I put enough campden tablets, 1 per gal. Before fermentation, then added good yeast, then waited that out with net, then removed must and racked.

I wouldn't say I sterilized everything perfectly either but always rinsed thoroughly. I'm assuming some bacteria got in? Hmm.. bummer.

How long have they been sitting?

SO2 dissipates over time, so while wines are aging, it needs to be added every 3-4 months, to keep the wine protected..

I'd still double-dose the SO2 and consume it, one way or another, fairly soon..

All we can do as winemakers, is sanitize.. Which is a far cry from sterilization.. So it's safe to assume that these types of spoilage micro-organisms are always-present, and therefor, we must stay on top of our SO2 additions to keep our wines pristine.

Its only been 4 weeks.

How old is your camden? Melons can have bacteria on the blossum end so it might have just come in with the fruit. Did you mash up the melon or just cut it into chunks that maybe the sulfur couldnt penetrate? What does waited it out with a net mean? Sounds generally like you are not keeping things sanitized well really. We had the nail polish on some cherry wine once, dropped in a double dose of sulfur and stirred it in good and it took care of it. You say this is in all your fruit wines? What do they all have in common so that they are all contaminated? WVMJ

what you described is flowers of wine. SO2 should be added prefermentation to kill any wild bacteria. wait one day then add yeast. once fermentation is complete and first racking off of gross lees , add SO2 again . I would suggest the powder form of potassium metabisufite rather than tablets. tablets might not dissolve properly. Also as noted before insure your acid and ph values are correct before fermentation. flowers of wine will attack wine that have a high ph.

Yes I did the so2 to kill off wild yeast/bacteria, then day later added wine yeast and nutrients.

For the cantaloupe I ended up using a juicer. I wanted to crush but was like... ahh.. that's enough. But I figured the so2 would kill off anything. Other fruit I hand crushed. All of them, campden tablet per gallon. I used a mortar & pestle on tablet with water to rinse into juice.

I have wine kits with no problem. So definitely something I'm doing with my own fruit attempts.

I wonder if??? Using the so2 1st day, with just a nylon net over it, isn't sealing it enough to kill off initial yeast/bacteria???