Mead Clarity, what am i doing wrong?

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BeerHog

NewBee
Registered Member
Apr 11, 2018
26
0
1
Metro Detroit
About eight months ago i made 5 one gallon batches of mead. Simple recipe, 3.5 lbs of of honey, juice of half of a lemon squeezed in filled to appropriate level with water with few pieces of pear thrown in. Activated packet of wyeast champagne yeast (i forgot exact number of strain) was pitched into must at the end. They were racked several times but they were never crystal clear. Four were already consumed and were pretty good. Now i'm left with one at 8 month mark and it is still not as clear as i would like it to be. it was through several rackings already and there is no longer lees accumulating at the bottom of carboy. In clarity, it resembles a water with high amount of sugar dissolved in it... kind of clear but hazy. Every mead makng you tube video i watch, the mead made in similar fashion at 90 day mark after third racking is read through clear... except mine! What did I do wrong? What can i do to improve clarity of mead before adding clearing agents?
 
It's hard to say for sure. It could be pectin haze from the fruit. You could have added pectic enzyme at the beginning (or you could add it now) to help bind to the pectin and help it drop out. If you don't want to add anything at all, you could try putting it in the fridge for a few days to a week. That might help stuff drop out. Or you could try adding clarifying agents. One thing I'll add is that I added some pear juice to a mead about 2 months ago and it is much hazier than I thought it would be. Maybe that's just a trait of pears.
 
More likely than not it's a protein haze. Rarely are any of my meads clear in 90 days. Try using some Superklear. If it's clear after the first add you don't need to use the second add.