Help with Strawberry melomel..

[sfbayarea]

Hey guys, I made my first mead by following recipe at this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/group-brew-strawberry-mead-156994/

Have few questions:

1. I stopped fermentation at 1.015, however, some bubbles are still coming up. I checked the OG and for the last two weeks its been staying at the same 1.015 level. What are those bubbles and how do I stop them?

2. This mead been staying in the secondary for the last month and a half, however it is still very murky. How long does it need to stay in the secondary before it clear up? Do I keep it in secondary until it all clear up before bottling it?

 

[bob1852]

1) how did you stop it? Stopping an active fermentation isn't easy. But, the bubbles you're seeing are CO2 coming out of solution.

2) it will clear, eventually. If you pulverized the berries it may take a little bit longer. You can use sparkolloid or some other fining agents to speed it up, but eventually it should clear on it's own.

 

[sfbayarea]

1) how did you stop it? Stopping an active fermentation isn't easy. But, the bubbles you're seeing are CO2 coming out of solution.

2) it will clear, eventually. If you pulverized the berries it may take a little bit longer. You can use sparkolloid or some other fining agents to speed it up, but eventually it should clear on it's own.

I used campden tablets and potasium sorbet to stop the fermentation.
How do I get rid of the CO2 bubbles? Why are they still coming up? I had mead in the open bucket for the first three weeks (only covered with towerl), so I kind of hoped I would not have that CO2 problem.

I did not pulverize berries, on contrary I used grain bag and easily removed whatever left from my berries when they became sludge.

What does sparkolloid does? Should I keep the mead in my secondary until it clears up or bottle it now?

 

[bob1852]

Time is your friend for both off-gassing and clearing...

You could bottle now, though you will wind up with more sediment than neccessary if you wait it out...

Sparkolloid basically grabs some of the ions and causes them to drop out of suspension...

Over time, keep an eye on the gravity. You may have really slowed down the fermentation/reproduction of yeast, but it could end up kicking back up again...

 

[Atek]

Another question is how much sediment do you have in secondary now? I believe it was Yooper who said if its more than 1/4" you should probably rack again. Racking will help release CO2 in solution that may still be the issue. Some meads need to be racked several times, keep in mind Yooper also suggests racking onto campden at every other racking to help prevent oxidation.

 

[Hinermad]

Could the murk be pectin? If I recall correctly strawberries are fairly high in pectin.

Dave

 

[sfbayarea]

Another question is how much sediment do you have in secondary now? I believe it was Yooper who said if its more than 1/4" you should probably rack again. Racking will help release CO2 in solution that may still be the issue. Some meads need to be racked several times, keep in mind Yooper also suggests racking onto campden at every other racking to help prevent oxidation.

Yes, it is definitely more than 1/4". I would say that it is at least 1.5" of sediment in my secondary. I thought about racking it again, but I was afraid to introduce more air to it while I re-rack. Is it safe to re-rack again? Also, I am sure once I re-rack I will not be able to fill up my carboy up to the edge leaving significant air space. What do I do about it?

 

[Atek]

It depends, for wines the rule is to top up with water to minimize surface area exposed to air in the carboy. With meads I've noticed its not quite as succeptible to oxidation. I may get some interesting comments about that though. As for introducing more air, thats partly what the campden helps prevent. It binds with something in the mead/wine that oxygen would normally bind to when oxidizing the wine. The term is simply antioxidant. So if you did not add campden on the previous racking I would suggest doing that on this next one. Then continue to add campden at every other racking until no more racking is needed.

 

[huesmann]

One thing to note is that sparkolloid is positively-charged, and thus collects negatively-charged particles, so you may need a complementary negatively-charged fining agent (e.g. bentonite) to clear the positively-charged particles.

 

[sfbayarea]

It depends, for wines the rule is to top up with water to minimize surface area exposed to air in the carboy. With meads I've noticed its not quite as succeptible to oxidation. I may get some interesting comments about that though. As for introducing more air, thats partly what the campden helps prevent. It binds with something in the mead/wine that oxygen would normally bind to when oxidizing the wine. The term is simply antioxidant. So if you did not add campden on the previous racking I would suggest doing that on this next one. Then continue to add campden at every other racking until no more racking is needed.

Ok, I re-racked it again yesterday. I had good 2" of sludge at the bottom of the first carboy. I used three crushed campden tabs for the second carboy, however, I have about 1/6 of the carboy empty filled with air. I shook mead in the new carboy vigorously to release gases so hopefully that air is substituted by the mead gases.
I was reluctant to add water. Don't you dilute wine or mead when you add water and loose percent of alcohol as well as some taste of the mead/wine when you dilute?

 

[Atek]

Well yea it kind of does. I have left that much head space on mine for 2-3 months without issue. Someone more experienced than myself may want to pipe in here.