yellow-green ring?

[aczdreign]

Hello everyone--

I've been scouring these forums for a while now, I figured I may as well sign up!

I'm currently working on a 3-gallon batch of plum melomel spiced with rosehips, ginger, and lemon balm. Everything has been going very well, but I am beginning to notice a strange green/yellow ring around the glass of my carboy, along the top of the liquid.

You'll notice that the ring is a little higher than the liquid level, that's because I siphoned a bit to have a taste, and the lower level that is only slightly visible formed overnight. It's coming along wonderfully, it tastes great, smells great, Im just a little worried about this strange ring.
This is my first mead, and I've never seen a ring like this in any of my batches of wine.

Thanks in advance

 

[akueck]

Looks like yeast/sludge that got stuck to the glass. Nothing to worry about.

Welcome to the Forum!

 

[Chevette Girl]

Hmm, I make a lot of non-mead wines too, and I don't think I've seen this happen when using sugar, maybe it's a honey thing? I get it with all my Joe's Ancient Orange variations. I often swirl to get the yeast mixed back in and it re-forms by the next day.

 

[fatbloke]

Yeah, I'm thinking along the lines of honey protein or yeast as well.......

If it tastes ok then I'd go with ackueks "nothing to worry about" view.

regards

fatbloke

 

[sandman]

My money is on yeast sludge. You can even see the lines where the bubbles formed and then popped leaving the slurry high and dry (so to speak).

Swirl the bottle a few times and it'll mix back in. No worries.

 

[aczdreign]

sweet, thanks for the responses guys!
this mead is really great tasting so far, the rosehips give it a very fragrant taste, I think it will age well.
Another question though.
When I first filled the carboy, there was a LOT of fruit pulp. A week later I racked it and added water and honey to replace the volume lost from the pulp. Two weeks later I racked it again because there was still a lot of pulp, once again adding water and honey.
Each time I racked it, I passed it through a nylon stocking (i know, not good) because I was losing so much good stuff. It was bubbling like crazy between both rackings, but now I'm down to one bubble about every five minutes or so (too long to watch it, lol). Is this normal? does this mean that my fermentation is almost complete?
It's nowhere near clear yet, all of my wines have bubbled steadily throughout the process, up until they begin to clear out.
Just me being worried

 

[AToE]

Yeah, I freaked out when I had this problem in my early batches and lost a lot of mead thinking it had been contaminated - It's generally a mix of yeast and random gunk from the honey. When I use cheap uber-filtered honey I don't get very much of that yellow stuff (mine is white), and when I use raw honey I get way more.

 

[aczdreign]

When I use cheap uber-filtered honey I don't get very much of that yellow stuff (mine is white), and when I use raw honey I get way more.

Ah, okay, that makes sense. I used clover honey (from wal mart) for the primary fermentation, and everything I added after that was local, raw honey, probably wildflower honey, I didn't get to ask. It's about half and half now.