I just racked my multi berry mel http://www.gotmead.com/smf/index.php?topic=7227.0 out of primary after about 5 weeks. At three weeks I warmed it to ~70° to finish up, then dropped it back to 64° to settle the yeast out.
The first 4 gallons were awesomely clear for such a young mead, but I had to suck up some sludge to top off the CB. Not a big deal, as I know this will settle out soon enough; but, it did make me wonder how long I could have let this sit to let the crud settle out, and be able to rack off a fairly clear 6 gallons of mead without running into problems without too long a primary.
It's hard to see how it's clarifying in a bucket, so the first racking was a guess. How long have you waited?
The first 4 gallons were awesomely clear for such a young mead, but I had to suck up some sludge to top off the CB. Not a big deal, as I know this will settle out soon enough; but, it did make me wonder how long I could have let this sit to let the crud settle out, and be able to rack off a fairly clear 6 gallons of mead without running into problems without too long a primary.
It's hard to see how it's clarifying in a bucket, so the first racking was a guess. How long have you waited?