Mead question, when to bottle/reusing yeast?

I've got my 2nd batch of mead in process. It's a 1-Gal. batch of Pomegranite Melomel. I fermented it, then let it sit until it dropped clear, about 7-8 weeks. Then transfered. It's now in secondary, I'll be transfering again in a couple days. The mead is completely clear with just a residual thin layer of yeast on the bottom. I'm sure I could bottle at this point without getting any trub into the bottles. Is there a disadvantage to going ahead with bottling it at this point? Don't have the OG in front of me, but it is a big mead which I plan to lay down for atleast 18 months before trying first bottle.

My followup question is, do/can/should you re-use wine yeast used for mead making. I know the packets are a mere .80-1.20 per, but I'm known as a real cheap bastard! More to the point, I'm frugal and financially chalanged ! So could I simply pitch onto this small yeast cake for a follow up batch of simple fruit wine @ about 1.090 O.G.?

Schlante,
Phillip

Congratulations on your second batch. A couple of things: the "trub" you refer to is called "lees" in mead and wine making. Secondly, you say you don't have the OG but do you have an FG? I strongly suspect that, at 8 weeks, your mead isn't yet finished. As I see it you have two options: At this point I like to bottle a young clear mead in beer bottles with crown caps to make a very tasty sparkling mead in 5-6 months. Alternately, you can continue bulk aging for a couple more months and bottle it in corked bottles. The thin dusting of lees won't hurt it until bottling.

As for reusing the yeast, I wouldn't. It's likely mostly spent. Get a new packet and rehydrate for a healthy population of fresh yeast.

summersolstice said:

Congratulations on your second batch. A couple of things: the "trub" you refer to is called "lees" in mead and wine making. Secondly, you say you don't have the OG but do you have an FG? I strongly suspect that, at 8 weeks, your mead isn't yet finished. As I see it you have two options: At this point I like to bottle a young clear mead in beer bottles with crown caps to make a very tasty sparkling mead in 5-6 months. Alternately, you can continue bulk aging for a couple more months and bottle it in corked bottles. The thin dusting of lees won't hurt it until bottling.

As for reusing the yeast, I wouldn't. It's likely mostly spent. Get a new packet and rehydrate for a healthy population of fresh yeast.

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Thanks summersolstice. I'm always forgetting to call it 'lees' too much of a bier person I suppose. I do have a FG, it's flatlined, can't remember .099 or whatever that reading is anyway the sugars are completely gone! It's 13+ weeks old at this point. I'll actually be bottling it still in bier bottles with oxygen caps.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I dumped my first batch... HUGE freaking mistake! I had tried to brew cider a couple times before using a few dif. methods and it always came out undrinkable. Anyway I sampled my mead and it had that same unmistakable, or so I thought, flavor of crap. So I poured about 8 oz. in a swingtop to take to my HB club as a joke and dumped the rest down the drain. Thought it stayed on the lees too long or something as I had it on there for several months. Anyway by pouring it into another container it off-gased or something. Everyone was tasting it and saying how good it was, all the while I hadn't sampled it yet because I knew it tasted like a cross between raw sewage & toe cheese. So I tasted it, too my freaking surprise it was pleasant, close to a young Pino Noir, VERY nice to have been a big mead at that age. Lesson learned the hard way!!!

Schlante,
Phillip

Dumped? Mead? Whole batch???? Excuse me ... my eyes are moist and I must grieve .....
That really *is* alcohol abuse ... <sniff>