So I feel compelled to share my experience I had with bentonite, as what has happened versus what I was expecting were far different.
Back story: I made some JAOM and I did not have a good time with it. It was easy to make and cleared up real nice, but when I went to bottle it the oranges partially disintegrated into a thick cloud. On top of that I just did a poor job with the racking cane and that ultra-sensitive bread yeast went back into suspension. While I know its nowhere near ready to drink and will taste bad, I have a get-together this weekend and I was going to let my friends have some of it, so I was disappointed that it wasn't even going to look nice.
Then I decided to try using some bentonite! Everything I have read said bentonite takes at least a few days (what I was gambling on), but sometimes up to a few weeks to work. Not mine apparently, I have super bentonite. I was expecting it to take a while so I took a before picture so I could see it's progression day to day. Sorry for the bad pics, used my phone.
This is what my JAOM looked like after "the clouding". I had just stirred the bentonite in.
I set it on my back counter and left the kitchen. About 20 minutes later I went back to get something to drink and my jaw hit the floor. This is what it looked like:
Here is the bag of bentonite behind it. It's still hazy but for only 20 minutes I was floored:
I woke up this morning and it was pretty much crystal clear:
This seems far beyond what bentonite should have done, but I'm not complaining. I guess bentonite is awesome at binding with yeast and disintegrated oranges. I am going to bottle it tomorrow. Hopefully I don't stir up the sediment and I can at least have a nice looking bottle (or two) of mead to share...even if it tastes terrible. I am interested in what the other bottles I don't use will taste like in a year.
Back story: I made some JAOM and I did not have a good time with it. It was easy to make and cleared up real nice, but when I went to bottle it the oranges partially disintegrated into a thick cloud. On top of that I just did a poor job with the racking cane and that ultra-sensitive bread yeast went back into suspension. While I know its nowhere near ready to drink and will taste bad, I have a get-together this weekend and I was going to let my friends have some of it, so I was disappointed that it wasn't even going to look nice.
Then I decided to try using some bentonite! Everything I have read said bentonite takes at least a few days (what I was gambling on), but sometimes up to a few weeks to work. Not mine apparently, I have super bentonite. I was expecting it to take a while so I took a before picture so I could see it's progression day to day. Sorry for the bad pics, used my phone.
This is what my JAOM looked like after "the clouding". I had just stirred the bentonite in.
I set it on my back counter and left the kitchen. About 20 minutes later I went back to get something to drink and my jaw hit the floor. This is what it looked like:
Here is the bag of bentonite behind it. It's still hazy but for only 20 minutes I was floored:
I woke up this morning and it was pretty much crystal clear:
This seems far beyond what bentonite should have done, but I'm not complaining. I guess bentonite is awesome at binding with yeast and disintegrated oranges. I am going to bottle it tomorrow. Hopefully I don't stir up the sediment and I can at least have a nice looking bottle (or two) of mead to share...even if it tastes terrible. I am interested in what the other bottles I don't use will taste like in a year.
I could tell it needs to age but it was still pretty good and a big hit. I do have to admit that I sweeten it with the rest of the honey I had, which was around 0.5lbs. The bitterness of the orange was just too intense but the extra honey really helped. I have 3 other bottles I will let age for 6+ months to see how they taste.
