should i fine or not

im probably still early to even be thinking about this but. i brewed my first batch of mead on 2/01/09 so I'm rapidly approaching month 11 of aging. the top half of the brew is clear enough to see through. but the bottom half is still cloudy. i was planning on waiting till the end of this year before bottling. but seeing as I'm only 50% clear I'm having second thoughts. should i just let it sit a few more months and let it clear the rest of the way or add a fining agent?

wow. i've never had a batch of mead that wasn't crystal clear after just a month of aging.

what was the recipe? any fruit in it?

actually nothing special.

12lb. wildflower honey
sweet mead yeast
4 gallons bottled arrow head water

i think the reason its taken so long is because i fermented at way to high of a temp because at the time i didn't know any better. i also didn't monitor its PH or feed the yeast properly. that and i topped off with 1 gallon of must which woke up the yeast. i don't really have high hopes for this batch.

Here too, I've never ever had a batch not be clear in 2 months..8 months is better and don't move it... I have 2 meads here that are about a year old and really nice..

have you ever racked this off the lee's at all? I'd maybe rack it into a secondary and let it age a month more and see if it clears. If you wanted, you could add some isinglass to it to help clear it..but I think a racking may do it.

Dan

That long and not clear, id rack it off any less and degas it. You will ned to get the temp up to around 748 to properly degas this as colder temps hold C02 in suspension and being a mead it i more viscous also and all that trapped C02 in your mead can hold sediment in suspension.

Forgot to add I rack off the lees in a month... Unless I have a late fruit/spice addition..

malkore said:

wow. i've never had a batch of mead that wasn't crystal clear after just a month of aging.

what was the recipe? any fruit in it?

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Interesting. I must examine my own recipes and methods, for I have made more than ten meads and none have truly cleared in less than 8 months. Many have taken more than a year to become crystalline, and a few have simply refused to become crystalline.

Mead clearing is based on many factors, not the least of which is the rawness of your honey (more proteins contained in raw honey than in that which has been processed), and the variety of flowers visited by the bees when they collected the nectar. Additionally, your starting gravity will influence clearing time, pH will play a role, as will temperature and the presence (or absence) of tannins (from fruit or wood).

I've had many meads clear in a month or two. I've had many more (mostly high initial gravities) take upwards of a year to start to clear. Neither is outside of "normal" mead clearing behavior.

I had a JAOM that refused to clear and I wanted to bottle for the holidays. My LHBS recommended Super-Kleer, a two-part liquid that used chitosan and kieselsol. Within a few minutes of adding the second part I could see floc forming, and within 24 hours it was perfectly clear. I usually prefer to let mine clear naturally, but after seeing what this could do I may use it more often.

TipsyDragon said:

im probably still early to even be thinking about this but. i brewed my first batch of mead on 2/01/09 so I'm rapidly approaching month 11 of aging. the top half of the brew is clear enough to see through. but the bottom half is still cloudy. i was planning on waiting till the end of this year before bottling. but seeing as I'm only 50% clear I'm having second thoughts. should i just let it sit a few more months and let it clear the rest of the way or add a fining agent?

Click to expand...

I'd just wait & let it do it's thing; I mean if the top 1/2 is clear, it's just a matter of time before the bottom 1/2 is clear too. If the lees are over 1" I'd rack it though. You can certainly fine if you want, I just think that time will do the job just fine... No pun intended. Regards, GF.

I think wayneb (Hi wayneb) is wise. If I ever do "cheat", the Super Kleer product, as jcobbs discovered, is nothing short of amazing.

i racked off the lees LONG ago. i racked to a secondary after a month. and racked to another carboy about 3ish months after that (wasnt very much on the bottom of the secondary). its been sitting ever since. from what you guys have said its both normal and abnormal for my mead to still be cloudy. i guess ill just let it sit for a while longer.

Mead is a strange beast.

My english breakfast tea mead was clear in primary in about 6 weeks.

My lemonade mead (Homebrewer99's recipe in the DB) was made in june and is still super cloudy. I think i'm going to try some superkleer or something on it.

Just a note, I just put some sparkaloid in a just under 6 gallon batch that wasn't clearing at all and not even 2 days later I can read through the stuff in a 6 gallon glass carboy. I'm gonna bottle in a week or so.

If you're interested, I boiled 1 pint of water and added 5 teaspoons of sparkaloid and continued the boil for a few minutes. I removed the mixture from the heat for a minute or two, then while still hot I added it to the mead.

Side note here... Before I made up the sparkaloid mixture I racked into a ferment bucket. Then I made up the sparkaloid mix and added the mix into the mead while it was in the ferment bucket. Then I racked it back into the glass carboy. And the results a day and a half later are being able to read through it.

You can also pour it (slowly) directly into a carboy that has enough headspace to accommodate the additional liquid (a great excuse to pull a large sample for extended "tasting," IMHO!). I typically use a sanitized, long necked funnel to get the sparkolloid liquid right down into the must with a minimum of splashing and consequentially introduced air. Then I'll stir the must slowly with my stir rod (also sanitized), put the airlock and stopper back in place, and usually the clearing happens within a couple of days.