I haven't really found much information on this, so I was hoping I could get some folks insight. I have a mead which is sitting in a carboy as I wait for it to stop dropping lees.
It was racked off primary into a secondary along with medium toast hungarian oak chips which have lived together quite happily for the past 2 months. This evening I racked it into an intermediate vessel, and back into the carboy. Given the actual brew is about 13 weeks old (started 7/30/12), I know it has plenty of aging to do, at least a good 6 months before I can expect clearing on it's own. But being curious, I started learning about fining agents.
However, as I was reading I noticed that there are people out there who use bentonite fairly early on, and bottle. Then they let wines and meads age in the bottle for the desired amount of time.
There are also folks who have the opposite school of thought - bulk age as long as possible, then about a month before bottling add bentonite, wait a few days, and then bottle and allow to age the remainder of the month.
I know this is probably one of those "ask a 10 chefs one question and get 20 answers" sort of thing, but what are the benefits of each approach? Do they impart different flavors?
It was racked off primary into a secondary along with medium toast hungarian oak chips which have lived together quite happily for the past 2 months. This evening I racked it into an intermediate vessel, and back into the carboy. Given the actual brew is about 13 weeks old (started 7/30/12), I know it has plenty of aging to do, at least a good 6 months before I can expect clearing on it's own. But being curious, I started learning about fining agents.
However, as I was reading I noticed that there are people out there who use bentonite fairly early on, and bottle. Then they let wines and meads age in the bottle for the desired amount of time.
There are also folks who have the opposite school of thought - bulk age as long as possible, then about a month before bottling add bentonite, wait a few days, and then bottle and allow to age the remainder of the month.
I know this is probably one of those "ask a 10 chefs one question and get 20 answers" sort of thing, but what are the benefits of each approach? Do they impart different flavors?