What is turning blue?

[Katnip]

Thankfully, I only rarely need to post on these lovely forums since lurking and searching topics answers most of my questions.

Now, I am stumped, and so is the search bar.

I bottled my first wine yesterday. It's the Winexpert World Vineyard French Cab. Everything went as expected per instructions (timetable, readings, clearing, etc).

Bottling, however...

Thank you all for the warning that hand corkers suck. They do. That was awful, and my wrist still hurts where I wrenched it when the bottle slipped free.

The dog might have gotten a bit tipsy as he tried to clean that mess up before me.

One thing I noticed during clean up was traces of blue where the bottles had stood on the counter top. I would see some traces of blue when I I tested gravity and washed out the thief. All along, I'd chalked that up to the bentonite that I added (per kit instructions) at the beginning of the ferment.

When I saw how much of it was around during bottling, I began to wonder. I used B-brite to sanitize since I have it handy from my last beer brewing. Is that some sort of chemical reaction?

I'm pretty sure I'm not crazy, but I probably should have taken a few more photos of it...

Thanks for all the help you all have (unknowingly) been to this point!

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

I don't have an answer for you, but it does sound odd.

 

[porterpounder]

Not sure about the blue, but B-brite is not a sanitizer, it's a cleaner. Still need to rinse and then sanitize with something else (iodaphor, sani-clean/starsan, or even light bleach solution) after use.

 

[theDREWery]

I would assume it's the carbernet itself. I get red wine stains on my whiteish formica, the red comes off pretty easy but there's quite a bit of blue pigment in red wines that seems to stay for awhile. Oxyclean or something similar should help, but mine just seem to fade with enough cleanings.

 

[Katnip]

Thanks, sorry, yes. I used b-brite to clean, and then starsan after.

I mention the b-brite since that was the only point where I did anything not as-instructed (I store all my brewing stuff in a box in the closet, so I give it all a wash when it comes out.) I figure a reaction to a sanitizer was unlikely, but maybe it was some residue from the cleaner.

I'm not worried about it staining, the marks did wipe right up, but I am curious what it is.

below - picture of weird blue-ness (looks green, my kitchen walls are yellow)

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

It is from the grape.

 

[lukebuz]

Gross dude. Clean that stove!

 

[WVMJ]

ph dependent color shifts, alkaline cleaners turn anthocyanins in the wine bluish which more acidic cleaners turn them more red. Easy to test for yourself, just add a few grains of your cleaner to a spoonfull of wine and watch the color change. It would seem you need to maybe rinse your bottles a little bit better or clean up the spilled cleaning solutions from your work area. This might be possibly what is causing your color change, if the insides of the bottles are very well rinsed out I dont think you are going to have a problem. WVMJ

 

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

WVMJ for the win!

 

[Katnip]

Ooh that makes a lot of sense WVMJ! Would also make sense why I would see it on the counter tops or spots where some of the cleaner might have splashed.

I usually dunk the necks of the bottles, and pour the sanitizer inside rather than dunk the whole bottle, so that might explain it.

All the wine is currently in bottles, but I'll give it a try once I open one. Thank you for the insight!

 

[Laowai]

I have found that B-brite turns white wine blue. The same may happen for red wine if the amounts are small. Did you use a filling wand and slightly overfill the bottles? The runoff could travel to the bottom of the bottle where it came in contact with the B Brite, turning it blue.

 

[Katnip]

Yup, I think that's pretty much exactly it. The blue would show up mostly on the cleaned surfaces, where I'd set something down for a moment, so I was either transferring it while working, or it had collected on a surface, and I was moving it around. It was only a few drops here or there