Wine tannins

[Aqualab]

Hi - I have a question hoping someone can help me with regarding adding tannins to mead. I have never used tannins before but I've been following a popular channel on Youtube lately dedicated to making meads, wine and cider and they suggested adding tannins to increase mouthfeel. So... I added North Mountain brand wine tannin (made from chestnuts) to both a 6-gallon Pomegranate and a 6-gallon Traditional while transferring from the primary into the secondaries. I used the manufacturer's directions. Both meads turned dark brown after a couple of days. Yikes! My question is will the tannins eventually settle out? I intend to add Fermfast Dualfine to clarify both batches prior to aging/bottling? Thanks in advance.

 

[lumpher]

They will eventually bind to each other, forming longer strings, and settle out. This will mellow the tannin flavor and color. You can speed this up by adding what is referred to as a Subtractive Fining agent (which we know as gelatin).

 

[Aqualab]

Thank you lumpher! I wasn't familiar with gelatin as a fining agent. I remember that clarifiers are either positive and negative with opposites attracting and binding. I couldn't find anything online regarding tannin and whether it was negative or positive. I'll check out gelatin. Much appreciated.

 

[MightyMosin]

Scott Labs makes their FT Rouge and FT Blanc tannin mix.
If you see those and decide to use them, the FT items are mostly meant for use in the Fermenter/Primary.

The Blanc version is designed to not add any colors.

When either is used in secondary, the recommendation is to allow 3-6 weeks before racking or bottling

 

[Aqualab]

Thanks MightyMosin, I appreciate the information! I will definitely check out the FT Blank tannin version for my future meads.