Clearing

[Scadsobees]

Greetings!
I am new to this whole brewing thing, so have been reading all the gotmead posts and the many links therein.
I have a few batches started, and have accumulated a few questions that I haven't found good answers to.

I have a 1 gallon sour cherry mel and 1 gal. blueberry mel that I have stopped at the point where they tastes about how I would like it. They have been sitting in the garage for 2 weeks and is stopped. (Temps between 30 - 40 F, occasionally higher but not too much). The blueberry dropped clear, but the cherry only dropped half clear, the top half looks clear and there is a distict demarcation from the bottom half which is not clear. What is the best way to get this clearer? Time doesn't seem to have done much. (for both I used about a qt of fruit for the gallon, not boiled)

For my main batch, I put that outside after racking, and it is clearing also. However, I noticed that the upper clearer part has what appears to be faint vertical striations in it with very skinny vertical strands or strings. The strands don't seem to reach the top and look like they may consist of yeast, but I can't tell. The surface is clear of anything suspicious. Does this sound like a problem?

Rough recipes will be provided if needed. I am an experimenter, so things aren't very cut and dry.

Thanks ! I apologize if these are duplicate questions and welcome any links that you may know of.

Rick

 

[Dan McFeeley]

Hello and welcome to the forums!

Two weeks is a relatively short time to wait for clearing. Try giving it a bit longer. Also -- make sure the melomel is *really* clear, i.e., clear enough to read newsprint from the other side. Check the final gravity to be sure it's really finished out.

Sparkolloid is a great fining agent for mead, but you'll need to wait at least two weeks to be sure everything is settled out. Some folk recommend waiting four weeks before racking off the sediment.

You can also try clicking the blue [Search] button on the toolbar right above the messages. It's located between [Help} and [Profile]. That might pull up more information from previous threads.

 

[Mu]

This post may help if your ferment is still going and you want to stop it,

http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=103&topic=2987.0

As for clearing agents I know egg white works as a finings agent, but I can’t recall the ratio. I think tannins also help in the clearing process as well as with taste.

I did a quick search, and as mentioned above patience seems to be the key in regard to clearing.

http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=103&topic=2149.0

That post might help a little as well, I just looked up ‘clearing’ in the search… There have been some interesting discussions on the subject.

Mu.