Small white floaters before pitching?

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detlion1643

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So this morning I rinsed out my ale pail plastic bucket in order to put together another batch. I poured 5 gallons of cranberry apple juice in and then sugar and stir to dissolve up to 1.05ish...

I put a towel over it with intention to pitch yeast in the evening. A few hours later I wanted to double check the SG just in case and ended up seeing these small white pieces floating around.

I scooped up a few in a ladle and they feel hard, they obviously don't dissolve.

Now I'm worried, what could this possibly be? Should I pitch anyways or is it too risky? Should I just take the safest option and dump it?
 

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Two thoughts pop into my head -

Did you use Campden tablets? Sometimes they don't dissolve completely in a timely fashion.

Do you have an electric water hater? The anode or cathode (I can never remember which) will degrade over time leaving white specs. (That's also a sign to replace soon.)

Okay, a third thought - could they have been in the juice?
 
I did not use campden tabs on this batch.

I have a gas water heater and have not noticed these while filling pots and washing dishes. I also did not use water in the batch, only the juice.

Hmm, you could be right about being in the juice. There wasn't a lot of them but they are noticeable by eye. It could've been that only 1 bottle was bad but I'll never know.

I guess that leaves 2 options. The ale pail bucket started flaking or the juice was bad.

Either way, thanks for the suggestions.
 
I tried.
The great thing about this forum is we try to help each other. What a valuable resource!

Perhaps you can help me!
Have you made cranberry-apple before? I have 6 lbs of frozen cranberries and 3 quarts of organic unsweetened juice. It's certainly enough for a 2 gallon batch but I have my doubts about a 3 gallon. I'm thinking about stretching it with apple juice if need be. Heck, dealing with a 3 gallon carboy is just easier than multiple 1 gallon jugs. If you made it before, did you like it? I would certainly prefer to stretch with juice than water.
 
No worries, I appreciate it.

I have 5 gallons of cranberry-applebjuice and no fruit. Found it on sale so I figured why not. I have no idea how it works with fruit. I can say that I don't like stretching anything with water.

I will say I added 1 gallon of apple juice to a concord grape juice and it wasn't that good. Adding apple juice to cranberry is pretty normal though so I would suggest it's okay, but that's just my opinion and I must state mine was already mixed as juice.
 
@BigDaveK I have made cranberry-apple cider, but I used cranberry concentrate. Cranberries have a strong flavor. For cranberry wine, I can get a nice cranberry flavor with 3 lbs/gal. It depend on the flavor profile you want. If you want to be able to taste the apple juice as well, 2 lbs./gal. of cranberries would probably be enough. I would suggest adding apple juice and not any water.
 
@BigDaveK I have made cranberry-apple cider, but I used cranberry concentrate. Cranberries have a strong flavor. For cranberry wine, I can get a nice cranberry flavor with 3 lbs/gal. It depend on the flavor profile you want. If you want to be able to taste the apple juice as well, 2 lbs./gal. of cranberries would probably be enough. I would suggest adding apple juice and not any water.
Thanks!
One of my earliest wines (at the end of 2021) was a cranberry made with 4 lbs fruit. I loved it and don't have any left. My small local Kroger only sells groceries (no clothing, furniture, etc) and doesn't carry cranberry concentrate. I've pretty much decided on a 3 gallon batch and want options when the time comes. I'm thinking now that having apple juice and organic dried cranberries on hand will give me options.
 
* commercial juice is unlikely to have floaters. It gets filtered in the process.
* how clean was the pail you are using? There could be something flaking off the container. This leads to what have you used this container for. General comment is if it is a good grade at the start and you haven’t used it in the garage or for bleaching laundry it should be good.
One thought is if this was your fermentor last batch you could already have some foam from yeast activity.
* my biggest guess would be something off the fabric. Lint? Again fabric isn’t toxic so not a lot to worry about.
* looking at wine and juice production the process is cleaning/ removing things that spoil/ cosmetic issues. I would filter as with cheese cloth or a coffee filter or nylon or stainless mesh.
* wine with 5% alcohol is a preservative, a commercial juice is sterile. I would have washed the containers with hot water and soap > rinsed to remove soap residue > melted sugar in the microwave with a bit of juice > immediately mixed juice and yeast

The wrap up of all this is if everything is known to be food grade, taste it and use it if it tastes OK
 
I agree with @Rice_Guy's advice.

If the bucket is flaking, replace it. Not because of any danger from the particles -- you're fermenting in this bucket, so the material is not a problem.

My concern is if the bucket is deteriorating. A crack during fermentation may be catastrophic for that batch.
 
The pail was used to ferment previous batches, never noticed this before. The pail was not used for anything else, only wine making. The pail is always washed with hot water and soap, then rinsed, before being put away for storage. I guess it could be flaking and my guess would be from being too aggressive while stirring, hitting the sides and bottoms.

I skimmed the top and got as many as I could out, pitched the yest and it's happily bubbling away 24 hours later. I'll find out in a week or so when transferring if the bucket is compromised at all when cleaning it.

Thanks for all the suggestions!
 
and got as many as I could out, pitched the yest and it's happily bubbling away 24 hours later. I'll find out in a week or so when transferring if the bucket is compromised at all when cleaning it.
I would encourage you to consider fermenting to third or half of the sugar is gone and then filtering with a washable nylon coffee filter. This will 1) let you remove it if it is a hard particle that doesn’t dissolve, 2) have active CO2 production to keep the wine anaerobic / can ignore extra metabisulphite 3) oxygenate the must early enough to reduce stress on the yeast.
 

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