Other How easily is it to accidentally spread MLB?

[jsiddall]

I have a cider, which appears to have undergone MLF, aging in a carboy. Next to it I have some kit wines aging. All carboys have airlocks installed.

I do not have separate equipment for cider and wine so how cautious do I need to be about preventing the spread of MLB from one to the other? I clean (B-Brite) all the equipment after use and and sanitize (K-meta) everything, typically spraying solution on things, before use but is that enough to prevent the spread of MLB? Do I also need to worry about it spreading through the air?

 

[ibglowin]

Not very IMHO. Only way to know is to test for MLF. Is your cider properly sulfited?

 

[jsiddall]

Not very IMHO. Only way to know is to test for MLF. Is your cider properly sulfited?

Good to hear.

No, the cider is not sulfated. I am going to bottle carb it so it will never have sulfites.

The only reason I think it underwent MLF is that it had fermented dry and cleared, then a week or two later it was all cloudy and bubbling away again. It still hasn't cleared some months later so I will hit it with superkleer. Maybe I need to buy some of those Accuvin strips but even those are pricey ($40 for a 10 pack).

Without sulfites, will the MLB stay alive in the carboy for a long time (months, perhaps years) like yeast does, or does MLB die after it has eaten all the lactic acid?

 

[ibglowin]

It might be possible to just be degassing so without any sort of test its just a guess but, no sulfite (bad), cider has lots of malic acid (bad again)…….. Very well could be MLF through cross contamination of sorts.

MLB is a bacteria which will survive (almost) indefinitely just lying dormant while it waits for something to munch on. Only way to get rid of it is through proper sanitization of all associated equipment etc. Sulfite, lysozyme can keep MLB from reproducing but doesn't really kill the MLB, just keeps it in check.

 

[jsiddall]

Hmmm... that MLB is more persistent than I thought.

As you say, I cannot be sure, without testing, whether I even have it in the cider. I have never used commercial MLB and so if I do have it the only sources I can think of are the fresh cider I purchased (theoretically pasteruized but who knows how well) or the used carboy I purchased for it. The carboy came from a LHBS and since they only do kits I can't imagine they had MLB present. I cleaned and sanitized it before use so it should have been OK.

I just want to be sure I am not ruining any kits by inadvertently introducing MLF. For that matter I don't really even want it happening in my cider. Maybe I need to get some strips to be sure. If I move to making wine from grapes I will probably need them anyway.

 

[ibglowin]

OK, didn't realize you had never done MLF in your winery etc. If you have not worked with or introduced MLB in your winery then its doubtful that what your seeing is MLF. The Accuvin test strips should work in your situation. I am betting on degassing (still).

 

[GreginND]

My apple wine underwent spontaneous MLF even after an initial dose of sulfites after primary fermentation. I let it go all winter last year and in the end it turned out to be a delightful dry wine. I had only used MLB one time in my basement prior to that and all the equipment was cleaned and sanitized.

 

[grapeman]

I have had apple go through mlf on it's own before. It really smoothed it out from the sharper malic.

 

[Turock]

I have no scientific "proof" of how easily it spreads BUT because I was trained in the medical profession, I'm always suspect as to yeasts and bacteria becoming resident. We are very careful and do our MLF's away from the winery "just in case." We then give all the tools a good meta bath before returning them to the winery. It's easier to err on the side of caution than to have that bacteria in a winery and possibly cause MLF's to things like fruit wines where you don't want it.

 

[GreginND]

I have had apple go through mlf on it's own before. It really smoothed it out from the sharper malic.

I like it so much I'm tempted to always do MLF on my apple wines. The problem is in order to sell it I'm sure I'll have to sweeten it. I like it dry but 80% or more out there will want it sweeter. I'm worried about stabilizing it. I don't trust sterile filtration in my winery.

 

[Runningwolf]

Greg you would have to send it out to see if it went through 100% before adding any sorbate. If you have a true sterile filter you could do a bubble test to make sure your filter is not compromised but you still have to make sure everything down stream from the filter is 100% clean and sanitized. I thought I was there until I bought some protein swabs and started swabbing everything and found out how wrong I was.

 

[grapeman]

Greg one consideration you can do to ensure against unwanted malolactic action so you can sweeten it without being sure of the sterility of the wine would be using Lysozyme on any suspoect wine. For a simplified explanation of it see the following article from WineMaker Magazine written by Tim Patterson and all credit goes there.

http://winemakermag.com/407-it-s-lysozyme-time

It will not prevent it in all cases as in having a resistant strain of the mlb present. Because of the uncertainty and since I do small batches of apple wine, I keep the sulite levels up good on the apple because I do find Ineed to sweeten apple for the general public. If I could test it thoroughly I might get away with it, but I just can't justify the expense for those small batches.

 

[GreginND]

Thanks all for the very useful information. I realize we are straying from the original topic and I apologize for that. But I do find this discussion very helpful.

Lysozyme can inhibit ML bacteria. It is often used to prevent MLF and keep MLF from happening in the bottle.

Lysozyme does not inhibit yeast. So a sweetened wine would need sterile filtration or sorbate.

I don't trust my sterile filtration capabilities so any sweetened wine I bottle must have sorbate.

If I desire to produce a wine with MLF and sweetened in the end, I am not confident in keeping it stable from being ruined by geranium taint.

Will lysozyme guarantee the ML bacteria will not metabolize the sorbate? I suspect it should inhibit all MLB activity but I am not sure. Is there any literature confirming that?

Ruining the wine with geranium is my greatest fear - not ML fermentation in the bottle.