The Apfelwein that I made last August (Read it here) sat in the closet until February before I bottled it. I had noticed in October when I was bottling the JOAM and Jalapeno meads that there was a patches of film floating on the top of the Apfelwein. I figured that since I had racked it and left so much head space that it must have been contaminated or something and just left it to be tossed out at a later date. But in February when I was making the concentrate cider I decided to take a picture and ask about it on the brew forums.
People thought that it was just left over yeast or pectin that had risen to the top of the jug and that it should be OK. I gave it a taste and it tasted... strange. Not bad, but not really good either. It sorta tasted like apples, and the mouth feel almost as if it were waxy or something. It's hard to explain but that's the best that I've come up with. After I bottled it I left it in the fridge for a bit to see if that would help things. I tried it again and it didn't taste too bad and then I shared some with friends and they thought the same. But, that was it. The rest of the bottles were pretty terrible and I ended up tossing them out. I think that it had something to do with the order that I filled them in, the ones that took from closer to the top being the worse tasting ones.
I've made a batch of cider using the same type of sugar (turbinado) and it too had the film when I went to bottle it. I'm thinking now that it might have something to do with the sugar, maybe it doesn't ferment well or there's something else in it that's causing problems. The new batch is currently carbing, I primed it with the same sugar... >.>, and I guess that I'll see how it turns out. Worst case I've learned to never use turbinado again.
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