Mead cleared by raspberries, thus ...?

[ninj4]

Hi,

This is my first batch of mead. I have two jugs, A and B, of dry mead. Same recipe, same yeast, same fermentation conditions. After racking to secondary I added raspberries to jug A. I racked a second time and eventually moved the jugs to a cooler area. Five months have passed. I have noticed two thing:

1) jug A cleared in just a few weeks after adding the raspberries.
2) jug B is still hazy as hell, no improvement.

Question: is it possible to deduce what is causing the haze in jug B, given that the raspberries cleared the "same" mead in jug A?

 

[CKuhns]

Couple of comments. Take them as my opinion only.

I would have expected the oposite, jug A could be hazey due to pectin from the fruit. Unfortunately some meads just take forever to clear, never have had i couldnt clear.

Couple of options. Taste it. If good let it go, haze may provide some flavor. (Very debatable) but really does not hurt anything other than it does not look as nice in the glass. Drink it as is.

If it tastes "off" could be an infection. Again if drinkable pound through it. I rarely recommend throwing out Mead but if truly yucky then might be your only option.

Add fruit, and see if it clears. Who knows it might work?

If you just cant stand the haze and it tastes good. Complete the following.
- Cold crash it, put it in the fridge for a week. Or the garage if you live in a Northern climate.
- Use a fining agent, something like KC Super Kleer. Many options out there. Attacks both the posative and negatively charged particles.

 

[dosowski]

I just want to add that I've had a similar experience. I haven't done a ton of mead at this point, but twice I've made a raspberry melomel (well, one had blackberries, too) and both times it was crystal clear within about a month after pitching. The berries were added either in secondary or late during primary. Yet another more traditional mead I had done between these two batches has been sitting for over 7 months and is still very cloudy. The process was the same (same yeast, nutrient schedule, etc.) except no berries and I added a vanilla bean in secondary on the traditional.

Just a couple anecdotal data points, but it does seem like there is an interesting and distinct positive effect on clarity in the presence of the raspberries.

I had kind of shrugged it off as "whatever", but seeing somebody else have a similar experience in an even more controlled "experiment" made me a little more interested. Not so much what to do about it, but, if there is a real effect happening, why?

Something about the acidity in the berries? Some kind of negative/positive ions produced by the berries that cause stuff to settle out? For every mead that clears slowly or quickly, there's a reason for it. It might be interesting to learn what that reason might be.

 

[vevenson]

I've made a raspberry melomel and it cleared in a month as well. Though I added them in primary.

 

[biochemedic]

I wonder if the pH drop from fruit acidity allowed certain proteins to denature and clump up so they were more flocc-able (if that's a word...)

 

[ninj4]

Thank you for your comments!

Couple of options. Taste it. If good let it go, haze may provide some flavor. (Very debatable) but really does not hurt anything other than it does not look as nice in the glass. Drink it as is.

Thank you for the opinions. It's good to be reminded that one does not have to clear the mead. I guess seeing one batch clear made me determined to have the other one cleared as well. But if it affects taste, it may not be worth it. I'll try cold crashing, if I can find a cold enough spot.

I wonder if the pH drop from fruit acidity allowed certain proteins to denature and clump up so they were more flocc-able (if that's a word...)

Sounds probable. Maybe I will do an experiment, add acidity to just a small volume of mead and see what happens.