Yeast Clumpies

[meading_of_minds]

I made a 6 gal. Caramel mead, split amongst two primary pails. They were in the same place, so same temps, heat, light, etc. Same everything, inc. yeast. I always rehydrate my yeasts first before pitching.
I opened bucket no. 1 and it looked beautiful. Racked it into the secondary without problem.
Opened bucket no. 2 and it was covered on the top with little white granules. Searching brought me to yeast clumpies. Though from the ones I found, this was pretty extreme to me. It covered the entire surface.
So, I strained it through two layers of cheesecloth into a clean primary and am letting it settle overnight.
They smell alike to me. My taste buds are off at present due to a bout of whooping cough type nasty chest cold.
The original plan was to rack both batches together onto buckwheat honey and vanilla beans and let go at it for another month before racking into a clean carboy to settle and age.
The current hope is that the strained batch will clear up and be rackable tomorrow.
But Since I racked the first batch into the carboy already set-up with the honey & vanilla, can I rack the hopefully settled batch in with it like planned?
Or will I loose the whole?
Otherwise I'll have to rack them into gallon bottles and don't have more honey or beans for the last 3.
Any advise? I've not encountered this before. Thanks

 

[CandleWineProject]

I was recently around someone who had a yeast film on his cider. He said it tasted fine, so he would rack it only to have the film come back. And expert suggested heavy sulfite, possibly even some sorbate since it was done fermenting and just let it age a bit in secondary. Of course, he also reminded us that headspace is the enemy.

 

[meading_of_minds]

I'd considered sulfite and sorbate. It did clear up quite a bit. But that would definitely kill off whatever was happening in this bucket. I could probably rack them together after that.