white spots (?mold?) on top of lacto-fermented beverage

[rosewater]

I made a lime-honey drink (see previous post about lemon honey beverage, but limes are cheaper now) and I just checked it after 2 days and there are white spots floating on top......looks like mold and an amorphous see through colorless shaped thing floating on top, just under the surface.

This is my first attempt at this. I also did beet kvass at the same time and that looks fine.

I can see that there was a tiny amount of air space at the top, I thought I filled it up all the way, but when I opened it, I could see there was, say a millimeter or two of space from the top of the liquid to the jar's lid. Maybe that did it?

Any ideas? Throw it out? Skim the top?

[Taedareth]

Well if it truly looks like mold to you, I'd say throw it out. Even though the mold is only on top, it will have contaminated the whole jar.

But are you sure it isn't just froth? That seems to happen whenever I make lacto-fermented veggies. Just a thought.

[CholoMama]

I get that on my beet kvass when I fill it up for the second time. I tend to skim it off and drink it anyway, as I learned at a TF course recently that apparently white/grey mold is ok, but red/orange/black molds are nature's big warning signs not to touch it. I'd be interested to hear what others have to say about this.

[saratc]

If it smells tangy, and the stuff is only on top, I would just skim off the mold and drink it. Funny, my second beet kvass fermentation also gets a strange layer on top but it's never gone fuzzy. In Wild Fermentation, the book talks about how it's pretty common for fermented foods to get a "bloom" on top, that is a white mold of some sort. Once the product has fermented, the mold can't survive in the liquid, so it's usually a surface phenomenon. I would worry about stuff floating in the liquid though. It's possible though that you got some wild yeast strains from either the lime or honey causing stringy growths in your ferment.

[rosewater]

So the amorphous clean thing, after checking again, floating on the top, but the white spots now have bluish centers. I think I'll compost this try and start over knowing a little more of what to expect now. Maybe if I skimmed it while it was still only white spots?

Thanks for all the help.
The beet kvass turned out great though. But man is it salty.....could I add less salt next time, or is that really integral for the process or healing experience?