Agar for clarifying mead?

[MicrobiallyMade]

Can agar, sometime sold as "agar agar" power, be used as a clarifying agent for mead? Have a couple of vegan friends who can't partake if gelatin or isinglass are used.. else just more for me

Thanks..

 

[MicrobiallyMade]

My wife just pointed out that vegans don't eat any animal products. So maybe not vegan.. some variant of vegetarian that eats no flesh or organ parts.

(I admit to being confused on the sects of veg..)

 

[MrMiles]

My wife just pointed out that vegans don't eat any animal products. So maybe not vegan.. some variant of vegetarian that eats no flesh or organ parts.

(I admit to being confused on the sects of veg..)

No vegetarians's eat animal product of any sort, some do eat dairy and eggs. Fish chicken or dead animal food biproduct eaters are fauxgetarian. (I've been a veggie 20 out of the 30 years of my life, have a little experiance with the matter)

You can always just wait for your product to clear naturally, shove it in a cold fridge or multiple rackings, time is best however.

 

[KevinM]

You could potentially use agar as a fining agent it seems, and there are other, non-animal-byproduct fining agents as well.
Other options except agar:
http://www.winemakermag.com/stories...n/26-a-clearer-understanding-of-fining-agents

I think what you're looking for is has anyone used agar, and what they thought their results were compared to other options and not fining at all. I would agree that your first option may be considering the cold crash.

 

[BryanThompson]

Cold crash+time=success

 

[commonsenseman]

Cold crash+time=success

This.

Or, just age clears almost anything.

 

[MedsenFey]

Agar can be used and does work as a fining agent. It is not commonly used these days. A much more commonly used agent these days in Bentonite which is an inorganic clay.

Medsen

 

[MicrobiallyMade]

Thanks all, great advice! Started with SG ~1.15 now to about 1.04 with D47 yeast. Bubbling through the airlock has slowed to one bubble every ~7-8s and the solution is clearing a bit as the lees fall. I tried to keep at 25C or lower but has been challenging the past few days with the heat wave.

Thinking at 1.02 I may cold crash and consider backsweetening. The mix is a gallon of ~1:4 honey:water, tsp yeast extract for nitrogen source + 2 cloves, some cardamom seeds, lemon peel and ~20 white raisins.

With vinegar cultures refrigeration didn't always completely clear, though was dealing with yeast + bacterial systems in that case. Didn't know if something more would be needed with mead. Admittedly, I had some homemade "honey wine" at an Ethiopian restaurant in Boston called Asmara where the mead was quite cloudy but still tasted wonderful.

 

[MedsenFey]

It would be surprising if D47 took it from 1.150 to 1.020. My guess is it won't go a lot lower than 1.040.