Back sweeten 'haze', would bentonite help?

Hi,
I've just back-sweetened one of my first batches of mead with a fair amount of honey (about 300g in a 1 gal batch) and topped up with some orange-juice (it's a JAOM wine-yeast variant).

Not surprisingly, my previously crystal-clear mead is now pretty much opaque again from all that honey. I understand from a few posts that this should clear over time, even though I've stabilized.

Would adding bentonite help with removing this haze or do I have to depend on time? How much time are we talking?

Cheers

Bentonite will help, but cold crash it first and a lot of the haze will precipitate out. Bentonite works better when the liquid is cold anyway, so if its still too hazy and you don't want to wait, that would be the time to use it.

I've taken to back sweetening after stabilising, that way, you only have to clear the batch once.

TGoT's suggestion of cold crashing is also good, plus bentonite is quite a gentle type of fining.

Thanks for the replies. Yeah the batch was being suborn about fermenting-out and ended up clearing before I stabilised. At the end of the day extra ageing is no bad thing I guess.
I wasn't sure if bentonite just affects yeast or not (what with having to consider charges and all that) but I guess I'll give it a try after a bit of time in the cold. I'll just be sure not to over-dose it, as the mead has a pretty delicate flavour as it is.

I've never noticed bentonite affecting the flavor of my wines. It does a great job of getting the super small particles out, which is why you want to cold crash first. Cold-crashing will make the yeast settle to the bottom as well as any larger particles in the must.

Cold crash it and you'll probably see a huge difference right away.

Try sparkolloid instead.

huesmann said:

Try sparkolloid instead.

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