Mead Lover's Digest #1630 Tue 23 April 2013

 

Mead Discussion Forum

 

Contents:

Filtering/Fining a melomel? (Caroline Taymor)
Lalvin D-47 wine yeast: (Henry Murray)

 

NOTE: Digest appears whenever there is enough material to send one.
Send ONLY articles for the digest to mead@talisman.com.
Use mead-request@talisman.com for [un]subscribe and admin requests.
Digest archives and FAQ are available at www.talisman.com/mead#Archives
A searchable archive is at http://www.gotmead.com/mldarchives.html
Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn


Subject: Filtering/Fining a melomel?
From: Caroline Taymor <ctaymor@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:21:29 -0700


I made a peach melomel last summer. What I didn't realize was that it
was going to be a nightmare to rack and filter. When I was racking from
primary, I tried using siphoning with a racking cane with a hop bag over
the end in the primary fermenter. The little stringy particles of peach
in the mead kept clogging up the filter and I kept having to resiphon. I
tried a few different arrangements, and finally gave up, pouring the
mead through cheesecloth over a funnel. Even that took about an hour,
because I kept having to rinse the cheesecloth. Needless to say, it was
kind of a nightmare.

I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to rack it out of primary, and
I'm dreading dealing with it. I know that a lot of particulate got
through the grain bag into secondary. I have two main concerns:
a) ease of racking. How can I manage to rack it easily?
b) clarity for drinking. I don't need it perfectly clear, but the
stringy bits are kind of unappetizing.

I thought maybe a fining agent might be helpful, but it's not haze I'm
worried about. I've never used a fining agent and I'm not sure whether I
would want a positively charged or negatively charged one. Would a
fining agent be helpful?
Do you have any experience dealing with a melomel with lots of bits of
fruit in it? Any suggestions?

Thank you!


Caroline Taymor
ctaymor@gmail.com
415-302-2416


Subject: Lalvin D-47 wine yeast:
From: Henry Murray <henry.h.murray@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:39:49 -0400


Lalvin D-47 wine yeast: I recently brewed three 5-gal. batches of mead,
two with Lalvin D47 and the other with something else, perhaps a Lalvin
1122. The two batches with the Lalvin D47 are almost perfectly clear 4
months and two rackings, something I have never seen before. And the honey
fermented in two weeks [based on SG and gravity after two weeks] and in 4
months the taste is on the way to a good, dry mead.

Anyone else have exceptionally good luck with D47?


Hal Murray


End of Mead Lover's Digest #1630