Contagion prevention?

[zweitracht]

Last night I did the ritual 'tasting of the carboys'. One of them
came up with a taste that can only be described as
"tasting like ass". I'll examine it further later, but as I drove
into the office this morning, I had a nightmare realization:

I didn't wash the thief between samplings. If there's
something in the carboy-of-ass, it now has about a 24 hour
head start spreading to other places.

Should I dose all the other carboys with campden as
a preventative? I'll worry about the initial carboy later, right
now I want to save what I have!

Thanks!
Z

 

[ScottS]

Is there another possible reason it might taste like ass? Young mead? Etc? I wouldn't want to overreact and add something unneccessary to your other carboys.

 

[zweitracht]

Is there another possible reason it might taste like ass? Young mead? Etc? I wouldn't want to overreact and add something unneccessary to your other carboys.

Glad you asked. It's approximately a 5-month old, wildflower traditional with a pound of buckwheat. It definitely tasted
'young' a few weeks ago at last tasting ... still a little fusel.

But now it tastes worse. In the back of my head, I also think
I see a greyish film at the top of the carboy, but this could
be bad memory. (I'm trying to think how to elaborate on
the assness of it. I'll have to retaste it tonight. Somehow
I don't think the wifey is going to waltz and there and draw
off some and elaborate upon the nature of assness for me.)

 

[Talon]

Well, descriptors to use would include bubblebutt and flatass...

 

[zweitracht]

Well, descriptors to use would include bubblebutt and flatass...

Hrm. Well, now that I'm home.. it tastes like many flavors of chemical-ass,
not biological-ass. So that leads me to the question .. what does autolysis taste like?

 

[Jmattioli]

Wild flower and buckwheat are a heck of a combination. Wildflower can be such a mixture! Sometimes its good and sometimes not so desireable. You never know what you will get. Stick with straight varieties. Buckwheat is great tasteing but strong and in my experience smells like barnyard before fermentation. Sometimes also after fermentation. I don't believe there is anything wrong with your mead. The high alcohol probably killed any germs on your thief at this point. I believe your are tasteing a lousy combination of wild flowers and buckwheat mixed together. Not an infection. By the way, I use buckwheat in almost all my meads but recommend staying at 20% or less and never with wildflower.

Joe