I'm making ACV for the first time. I started it last fall around November, with the scraps from my cider pressing.
Everything seemed to go fine and normal, but the cider wasn't strong enough for my taste so I bottled some but left the rest of the five gallons to keep going. The mother was thick, and had several layers. When I took it off to bottle some, the bottom layers were very fragile and mushy and crumbled apart into the rest of the ACV. I wasn't sure if this was normal, but I was in a rush to go on a two month trip so I just put the mother back on top and hoped for the best.
I'm back now and hoping to bottle the rest. A new layer of mother formed on top and everything smells and looks fine, but when I take off the top layer, inside the ACV is a ton of mushy remnants of the previous mother layers, making the remaining ACV almost the consistency of a very runny applesauce. Is this normal? Should I just filter it through cheesecloth and bottle it?
I seem to remember reading something about mother layers sinking as the sugar is eaten, and new mothers forming, and that this is normal if you leave it for months to age... can't find it again though!