Basic / easiest way to filter.....?

Ive had the mead there for a while now i know its done to my liking BUT im not to sure how i can actually filter out the ....well particles or chunks floating around in it when i pour it...if someone could tell me how i could do it preferably without going out and buying 100's of dollars of equipment ...i appreciate any responses.

Well, there shouldn't be any particles or chunks to filter out. What I do is make the mead in primary, then siphon it off to a new container each time I have 1/4 inch or more of lees (sediment). All of the "stuff" in it settles to the bottom, and I siphon from above it.

When I bottle it, it looks like a commercial white wine. If it's bottled early, or not clear when it's bottled, though, all the stuff floating in it will fall to the bottom and be stirred when you pour. You definitely need to siphon it off each time you move the mead. You don't want to oxidize it by exposing it to oxygen like you do when you pour it, and you don't want to stir up the lees.

There isn't much to do if it's already bottled. But for your next batch, don't bottle it until it looks like Summersoltices' meads! (I'll find a link to a pic in a minute).

Here's a pic of Summersoltice's mead from his gallery:

+5 on aging until crystal clarity like Solstice's mead. Where's a pic of one of yours Yoop?

travestyofnature said:

+5 on aging until crystal clarity like Solstice's mead. Where's a pic of one of yours Yoop?

Click to expand...

My meads (not too many- I prefer wine) are in the basement in dark green bottles. The clear bottles are long gone, I don't have even ONE left with a label. I don't have anything nearly as pretty as summersoltice's! Even my wines aren't labeled or corks shrink-wrapped until I give them away. Most of my wines are dark, too, so they are pretty in a glass but not so interesting in the bottle. I bottled much of my crabapple/honey wine in clear bottles, but even those are about gone!

What I have to remember to do is take pictures when I pull them out for gifts, or to take pictures of the wine/mead/cider in the glass. I never think of it until it's too late!
I'm very impressed with the cool labels and pictures that others post.

Well, although I'm lucky enough to have a vacuum bottler and matching filter (1 micron filter element), I'm a great believer in clearing it naturally and only using the filter for "polishing" the mead i.e. removing the last elements of lees.

I certainly wouldn't bother filtering while it's still cloudy, it just bungs up the filter element.

If you wanted to do that without spending loads, then let it clear naturally as much as possible, then get a gravity feed filter and just run it through that to give it a final polish prior to bottling......

something like one of these, which I'm pretty sure you could get locally (the harris one linked is just and example of "type").