I acquired some deer meat from a road killed deer(fresh), I ground it and aged in five gallon buckets, I did gas off with tubing epoxied into the lids, with the tubing emersed in a bottle of water. I only opened one of the buckets a couple of times until I thought it had a good taint. The meat had swelled a good bit with a frothy appearance to it, only on the bucket I opened there was just a slight bit of white mold on the top, I went ahead and stopped with SB, my question is should I add Methyl Paraben to stop the mold or is it too late?

Think I have found my answer by looking in the archives , maybe I panicked a little!

Mike Marsyada wrote a great article in Trapper's Post about mold in bait and I don't think your SB will stop it.

Methyl paraben will do the trick.

Thanks Paul and Lazarus, I didn't think the SB would stop it but was pretty sure the MP would after reading through the archives, I have some MP on the way.

How do you get mold during the tainting process? I thought that occurred after it was fixed, and bottled up.

I have never had mold after making different batches totaling 8 gallons of bait...maybe lucky? Or, have been doing something right.

I think it had something to do with the moisture that was forming inside the bucket and the fact that I opened the bucket up a few times to inspect, the other bucket that I didn't open didn't have any mold at all.

While I'm tainting, I open the bucket every other day to stir...or mix.

After it reaches the taint I want...3-4 weeks, I fix it. Never seen mold.

Will the Methyl Paraben kill mold that may have already started in a bait or is it more to prevent it from starting in the first place? Beaver season will be starting soon and with it will come bait making. I want to be ahead of the game this year. Threw part of a batch away last year because of mold and would rather not do it again this year.

Stirred into material thoroughly MP will stop active mold advancement as well as future development.