Mold in airlock

I have never experienced mold growth in an airlock.

My suggestion is to sample taste your wine and if it tastes OK proceed with bottling.

Cheers!

 

Mold and fermentation do not mix well. You have little choice but to follow Jacks advice. You would probably recognize quickly if the wine was soured, even visually.

It seems likely that your airlock was not clean prior to it being placed on the carboy. Mold spores do not crawl, and they would need to be good swimmers to crawl through an airlock under positive pressure (mold can't swim either of course). If you put away the airlock wet, if there were just the slightest bit of food source in there, yeast, hop, trub, just a tiny bit, and it sat that way then mold could find it's way to colonizing.

In the future you can mix a little cheap vodka and water and use that in the airlock. There is not really such a thing as "sanitized water". Once the water meets atmosphere it starts getting contaminated so to speak. Know too that if your wort is warm, and you place it in a cold spot with an airlock there is a chance the airlock water will be sucked in, so a bit of vodka is good insurance. Vodka is generally a great way to sterilize, not just sanitize but sterilize.

Cheers

 

My process for airlocks is that I sanitize them and then I just put tap water (municipal water which is chlorinated) in the airlock. This combination has always worked for me.

Cheers!

 

I buy cheap vodka specifically for filling airlocks

 

Same here, when I use airlocks (though that's not often).

 

I imagine the material burped up from the fermentation sent your neutral water into a state of bliss and what you are looking at is the result. Unless you got that stuff sucked back through. You're fine. And super lucky.

 

Interesting, I always just fill with star San solution

 

Same as vodka but no matter what they tell me star san is not the same as 80 proof alcohol. And if it were by chance to be drawn in to my beer no worries. I just like the idea of good old sanitizing alcohol. It is drinkable bleach so to speak.

That is how I feel anyway, regardless of best practice.
Oh yeah, I like to have a liter of rot gut on hand too.
Cheers

 

Mold in the airlock isn’t uncommon for longer fermentation’s. just keep an eye on it and

 

I have to disagree. It's pretty uncommon.

 

Mold is ubiquitous. No one should expect their brewery, kitchen, garage or garden to be mold free.

But you do not ordinarily see mold. It will colonize to a visible extent if the conditions are right. That is if there is a food source, moisture and reasonable temperatures. If you have mold in your airlock it means the airlock is not clean. That simple. It is no different than if you are getting mold in your glassware in the kitchen cabinet.

I want to add that dealing with mold ends at cleaning. You can't quite "kill" mold. You can't sterlize mold. The stuff is incredibly resilient. If you spray mold with bleach you will have bleach. But it can be phyically removed.

So clean everything in your brewery.
Cheers

 

Edit;

If you spray mold with bleach you will have clean mold.
What I meant to write.
Cheers