First mead finishing up help~

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athhsan

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Hi all, South east asia noob brewer here.

After brewing a batch of Bornean rice wine and a batch of apple hard cider I am ready to move on to mead.

I've made Joe's Ancient orange mead my 1st mead attempt and it is currently been racked once off the sendiments and is about 2 months old.
Now I know JAOM request for bread yeast but I decided to go with the local brewer's yeast anyway. (No choices here).

Since I've taken out the ingredients and without a hydrometer now I have no way to know if fermentation is 100% complete.
Can I have some advice on how should I bottle this stuff? I think I'll take the risk and rack it again off the lees and bottled it when its clear to read through like they all say?
Or is bulk aging for 6 months in the carboy after racking a better option?
Thanks for the advice.
 
Hi all, South east asia noob brewer here.

After brewing a batch of Bornean rice wine and a batch of apple hard cider I am ready to move on to mead.

I've made Joe's Ancient orange mead my 1st mead attempt and it is currently been racked once off the sendiments and is about 2 months old.
Now I know JAOM request for bread yeast but I decided to go with the local brewer's yeast anyway. (No choices here).

Since I've taken out the ingredients and without a hydrometer now I have no way to know if fermentation is 100% complete.
Can I have some advice on how should I bottle this stuff? I think I'll take the risk and rack it again off the lees and bottled it when its clear to read through like they all say?
Or is bulk aging for 6 months in the carboy after racking a better option?
Thanks for the advice.
Well as you used a brewing yeast, you would have to take a taste. Bread yeast leaves residual sugars, which balance out the pith bitterness that comes from the orange. I wouldn't know the alcohol tolerance of the brewers yeast, but wine yeasts will often ferment dry and remove the residual sugars so that all you get to taste is the bitterness from the orange pith.

If it's still reasonably sweet tasting, you should be fine to rack it, so that you can store it for bulk for 6 months in a carboy type jug.....
 
FB is spot on. With no hydrometer give it a taste and go from there. Since we have an unknown yeast I also suggest to bulk age for at least the 6 months because if it is still sweet your yeast may still be slowly fermenting. After 6 months and it is crystal clear then you should be safe to bottle.
 
Alright. Thanks for the tips guys. Been stuck at either to rack it or just leave it or just bottle them and pray there's no bombings, mayybe pasteurise when bottled. I'll take the advice to taste n rack. It tasted dry with no residue sweetness. But there's still fine bubbling.
 
Fellas, one more question regarding tannin addition.

The meads is still cloudy in it 2nd month in the carboy after 1 racking.

Is it possible/necessary to add tannin in the form of soaking a cup of the must with a strong tea after heating it up, and added into the carboy after, say 20mins of steeping?
 
Entirely up to you.....

What tannin actually adds, has always been some I struggle with. Phrases like "bite" or "complexity" are relative. Meaning something completely different to me than you......

It could help the flavour etc, but it's unlikely to help with the clearing....

Give it a go...... its unlikely to damage a brew even if there's no perceivable improvement or difference.......

Well IMO anyway........
 
Some say that tannin helps with clearing but I have yet to see if that is actually true or not. I have come accustom to using earl grey in all my meads/wines and some clear real fast and others take months. There are many factors involved with clearing.

Like FB said you can try it as you like and it should not hurt your brew. But I would not expect adding a cup of tea to clear out the mead.
 

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