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should i rack off the lees for bulk aging?

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shanek17

NewBee
Registered Member
Apr 8, 2012
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st thomas ontario
I have made my first mead and its been fermenting for a month now I used the yeast EC 1118 so it will ferment to dry. I had a look at the amount of lees on the bottom of the carboy and there is ALOT, probably 4 inchs or so. I plan on bulk aging this mead and im wondering when that time comes, should I rack off the entire amount of lees and dead yeast? Or should I carry some of it over OR just leave the carboy as it is and just let is bulk age with the entire amount of lees. I plan on letting it bulk age for atleast 6 months...although since its my first batch I may bottle it at 4 or 5 months and let it bottle age, that way I can try this mead.

I Actually used clover honey and filled up a 6.5 gallon carboy with water and it will be about a 9.5% mead. I have heard though that clover honey is a mild honey and since I already didnt use very much honey in ratio to water im wondering if leaving the lees in the carboy for longer will help add flavor.

I did notice someone else talking about this in another post, and he said that you gotta know what your doing when you leave the lees in there for long periods.
 
Short answer: Yes.
Sometimes aging on the lees can give unintended flavors. generally, when you age your mead, it is finished fermenting (or you deliberately stopped the process)... so no need for the yeast anymore. that's not to say that more might not fall out of suspension after you rack it; might need to rack again after the rest settle.

I'm sure that someone else will come with more specific reasons why to (or not to) rack off the lees before aging... and this topic has been broached before in the forums,
there's a search function up at the top of the page that is very helpful, and will probably provide all the answers that you need... you might have to read through some irrelevant information before you get an answer; but, the answer is generally here somewhere.
 
Yep, I'd rack off those lees.

Unless you've done a few batches and have a sense of what you want it to taste like and how to get there, I would save sur lie aging for later. If you've experienced late-disgorged sparkling wine, that's the sort of thing that EC-1118 lees will give you.
 
akueck said:
Yep, I'd rack off those lees.
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testest

akueck said:
Unless you've done a few batches and have a sense of what you want it to taste like and how to get there, I would save sur lie aging for later. If you've experienced late-disgorged sparkling wine, that's the sort of thing that EC-1118 lees will give you.
Click to expand...

test test, disregard this message, im testing the quote option lol. im trying to figure out how to do multiple quotes, and so far im finding it very confusing.

okay i figured it out, for me to seperate your quotes and write individual responses in between them I had to cut and paste
akueck said:
in front of each quote and then end the quote with
Click to expand...

hopefully this is helpful for anyone else trying to figure out how to break apart someones post and respond to one section at a time.
 
If you're just experimenting with how stuff works, you can always edit and delete it once you figure it out.

The multiple quotes thing? That's for when you want to include responses to more than one post, you click the "multi-quote this message" button on all but one of the posts you want to quote, then on the last one hit the quote button and it should put all of them in separately tagged, and yes, if you want to address things separately from the same quote, you have to copy the "[QUOTE = membername;postnumber]" part to the beginning of each and "[/ QUOTE]" to the end of each part (without the spaces, those are so it doesn't do this:
"
membername;postnumber said:
" part to the beginning of each and "
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"

Hope that clarifies things for anyone else reading, took me a while to sort it out myself.
 
Chevette Girl said:
If you're just experimenting with how stuff works, you can always edit and delete it once you figure it out.

The multiple quotes thing? That's for when you want to include responses to more than one post, you click the "multi-quote this message" button on all but one of the posts you want to quote, then on the last one hit the quote button and it should put all of them in separately tagged, and yes, if you want to address things separately from the same quote, you have to copy the "[QUOTE = membername;postnumber]" part to the beginning of each and "[/ QUOTE]" to the end of each part (without the spaces, those are so it doesn't do this:
""

Hope that clarifies things for anyone else reading, took me a while to sort it out myself.
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Yea it is confusing to try and figure it out on your own. I tried to search for a thread regarding this websites layout and structure but only found one tgread about quotes and it was pretty basic explanantion. maybe its a good idea to have a thread dedicated to this so it can be easily searched and found. The chances of people finding this info in this thread may be slim , plus my explanation didnt work out how i wanted it too and i dont see the option to edit my post. Where do i edit my post at?
 
It's a button next to the "quote" button but you can only edit a post within an hour of the original post.
 
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