Homemade Wine / Mold?

Question

so last night i put together my first batch of home brewed wine. Now i'm wondering, i hear that i'm not supposed to get mold in the wine but what keeps the mold away? how come when i leave a cup of juice sitting out for a few days it looks nasty with mold all over it but leaving wine fermenting for a months it not going to mold up on me...?? how is this so?

Answer 1

It all depends on your setup. The absolute key is using sterile equipment (for preventing mold or bacterial infection). Beyond that, if you're using freshly pressed juice, you add sulfites to kill wild yeasts, mold, and bacteria that occur naturally. If you're using juice from a bottle or concentrate, they've been pasteurized (never use juice treated with preservatives like sodium benzoate) and that process kills unwanted bugs.

So, provided you're starting clean, when you add your yeast, you're doing so in such quantity that it essentially muscles out any competing organisms and goes to work doing its thing fermenting. Provided you keep a tight seal on your fermentor and allow the escaping gases out only through your airlock, there's no means for other contaminants to get in, thus you are protecting it from the mold and such you normally get when you leave a cup of juice out.

It's of utmost importance to keep everything that comes in contact with your wine, including the bottles that it ultimately gets put into, completely sanitized or you WILL eventually get mold, bacteria, or other nasties in there.

Answer 2

Wine Mold

Answer 3

the wine that you are brewing is in a sealed container with an airlock .either by pressure or a pipe in a bottle of water.(the air cannot get to it ,if it did it would turn to vinegar very quickly) as it ferments gas is produced that has to escape ,or the containers will burst from the pressure

i have had hops and beer all over the cealing when i made mistakes or bottled the brew too early when it was still fermenting too strong as i bottled it.
mold cannot live in these conditions
one must work with the discipline of a laboratory everything must be clean,

i usally fast brew in 20 litres or a 45 gallon drum.
for about 2 weeks ,
then by syphoning taking care not letting too much air in i put it in bottles and leave therse standing in celler conditions for beer 2 to 3 months and for wine 6 month to a year minimum

if the wine/beer is sealed properly (corked or i usually use cooldrinks bottles )it will keep on fermenting slowley and become stronger with time ,
beer gets more and more foam and wine becomes more carbinated

i have made beer with Hops ,and wine from all kind of fruit not only grapes ,
passion fruit makes a very good ,very dry white strong wine ,
stawberries,cherries ,peaches,and many more all make wine
the flower called jamaica makes a strong red wine
Apples makes cider and always works well

none alcoholic fermented drink that is carbinated
is ginger for ginger beer ,and Pine apple which makes something similar as ginger beer ,these you only ferment for a day .its gassy has foam ,but has not fermented long enough to make alcohol
if you leave it to ferment much longer it will also become
ginger wine or pineapple wine (although this can easily turn into vinigar)
generally for 20 litres i use a tea spoon of yeast and 3to 4 kilos of sugar depending the sweetness of the base

Cheers

Answer 4

Simple answer:

Yeast are very competitive little critters. They eat sugars and produce carbon dioxide and alcohol, and basically don't let any other microorganisms survive long, IF the yeasties get well established before anything else does.

Your cup of juice doesn't have a thriving yeast colony, so it's still vulnerable to molds (and worse).

Unless fermentation is super-active, though, you need to take measures to keep oxygen off the wine. A certain bacteria consumes the alcohol, in the presence of oxygen, and produces vinegar. -m

Answer 5

There is ONLY ONE WAY to make homemade wine.
If you do it your way, you'll get fifty-fifty alcohol and vinegar yeast (What you call mold) and... Well, you can drink it - Or put it on your salad.
Do a web search and look for wine kits. You don't have to buy their concentrate, you can use your own juices, even grape juice from the store, but you must sterilize it first, kind of messy sometimes.
For a few bucks, buy one of their wine yeast packets. NOT Brewer's Yeast!
Most importantly, you'll need like a sanatized 5-gal bucket with a sealed plastic tube on top that leads to a jar of water, through another hole in the top. When it's warm, it bubbles and lets the gas out. When it cools at night, it sucks back in some water, but not air yeasts, like vinegar mold.
It takes a good month for the first fermentation, and you'll find it very yeasty, don't drink that, you'll get a monster hangover. Siphon out the good stuff, wash out the rest, resanitize, then put your good stuff back in with boiled sugar water to taste, then go for it.
Put what you have in a few months in old bottles into the fridge to settle before you try it.
It took me a long time to learn this... From Guavas on Maui to grape juice at the store. If you want the healthiess mix you can make, use cranberrys as at least part of it.

Answer 6

im making strawberry wine with no yeast,after a day the strawberrys have some mold on them, should I be concerned?