Mead trouble

Hi all, I'm a new member here and I'm having some trouble.

I started homebrewing about 2 years ago and have had great success with fruit wines. However, I've now tried mead twice with very mixed results.

1) 2008 dry mead. Still slightly cloudy and tastes quite yeasty
2) 2009 sweet mead. Still very cloudy, haven't tasted it yet

I've put isinglass in both, and never have this sort of trouble with fruit wines. Is it just patience I need, or is there something I should add to clear it? As I said, isinglass hasn't worked.

Thanks in advance,

Neil

While patience is the best answer for clearing meads, at 2 years, my patience is gone and I'm ready to take action.

If you provide us your recipes in some detail, you may get better answers.

How long did they sit in the secondary? I have my first mead sitting now and have been told not to bottle it until you can read a newspaper through it (6 months AT LEAST). I can read a newspaper through mine and will bottle it at the end of the month probably to let it age for another 6 months.

Don't remember the exact recipes. The dry one was from Mrs Beeton and included some cinnamon sticks and nutmeg. Nothing left to do but wait on that, as it's already bottled.

The sweet one was simply honey, nutrient, yeast, water. The then gradually added more honey until it had stopped fermenting (i.e. too strong for the yeast), then when I racked it, I topped up with neat alcohol just to make sure the fermentation was stopped.

The sweet one is still in the demijohn

One effective way to speed clearing is to put it in the fridge. Keeping it there at near freezing temps for a few weeks may drop a lot of particulate matter out.

If that doesn't get it clear, I'd consider fining agents (sparkolloid would be my first choice) if it more than 9-12 months old.