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How much sediment in the bottle is normal, if any?

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penguin5b

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 14, 2013
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Harrisburg, PA
I'm on my 6th batch now any have been slowly refining my techniques. I have a few dozen bottles filled that I have incrementally made since January. When I pick up any of the bottles that have been there for a while I see a brownish, sort of stringy sediment. There's not a whole lot but I admit that I was disappointed to see any at all.

I always rack twice before bottling and one two of my batches I even used clarifying agent on two of the batches. Am I being overly critical? Or is there something more I should be doing to prevent this?

Thanks to all once again!
 
I am sure that others with more experience will weigh in, but it seems to me that if you started in January you are bottling much to soon. You should wait for the mead to clear before bottling, and in my limited experience it is best to wait a minimum of 6 to 9 months before bottling. It is my understanding that it is best to bulk age in your jug or carboy and then bottle when it is ready to drink.

Dan
 
FWIW, I just let the mead tell me when it is ready to bottle. Sometimes that means a couple months of bulk aging, other times it means a couple of years. As a result, sediment is a normal thing that happens. Wines and bottle conditioned beers have sediment, so why not mead?

Unless it is signs of an infection, a light dusting of sediment in the bottle shouldn't affect anything other than the appearance of the last glass poured. ;)

That being said, "stringy" has me concerned...could you provide pictures?
 
If by "stringy" you're seeing string like plumes of dust that seem to come up from the small layer of sediment in the bottom of the bottles, that's likely to be the tannins/proteins/fermentation debris that is just lifting up from the bottom in string like shapes, moving with the slight eddys/liquid movements within the bottles.

In any case, if you bottle too early, is can sometimes look clear, but after a while you still get thin layers of sediment dropping out of the mead. that's indicating that you bottled too early.

It's often why people will bulk store or even rack a number of times extra, just to ensure that nothing else is dropping out the brew. Even then, they will rack very carefully to a "bottling bucket" so that they can leave a decent bit with the small layer of lees, bottling the stuff that is definitely clear, but then putting the last bit into a 2 litre pop/soda bottle, that's had the top cut off.

This in turn, is covered with a cling wrap and placed in the fridge over night. The following day, any sediment picked up will generally have dropped into the moulded feet of the bottle allowing you to safely rack the last part of the cleared brew into a bottle, while the small sediment stays in the feet of the bottle, and thereby minimising racking loses for the last bit.

They'll often mark that bottle as the first one to be drunk, as their tester.
 
Medsen Fey said:
Even after long aging, you can get sediment if the mead hasn't been fined.
Click to expand...

I have bottles of buckwheat mead that dropped sediment after nine months of bulk aging, fining for 4 weeks with sparkolloid, and then filtering with a 0.5 micron (nominal) filter. The sediment took a little more than 2 years to drop from the previously crystal clear mead.
 
If by "stringy" you're seeing string like plumes of dust that seem to come up from the small layer of sediment in the bottom of the bottles, that's likely to be the tannins/proteins/fermentation debris that is just lifting up from the bottom in string like shapes, moving with the slight eddys/liquid movements within the bottles.

That's it exactly.

So what I'm hearing is:

A. Be more patient with ageing/use clarifiers.
and/or
B. A small bit of sediment is normal, harmless, and, unless I'm trying to win the Mazer Cup, perfectly acceptable.

Yes?
 
penguin5b said:
If by "stringy" you're seeing string like plumes of dust that seem to come up from the small layer of sediment in the bottom of the bottles, that's likely to be the tannins/proteins/fermentation debris that is just lifting up from the bottom in string like shapes, moving with the slight eddys/liquid movements within the bottles.

That's it exactly.

So what I'm hearing is:

A. Be more patient with ageing/use clarifiers.
and/or
B. A small bit of sediment is normal, harmless, and, unless I'm trying to win the Mazer Cup, perfectly acceptable.

Yes?
Click to expand...

Yes! If your sediment is the kind fatbloke describes, then don't sweat it. Just make sure the last pour is yours if you're concerned about appearances.

As for winning the Mazer Cup...a wise man once told me that if it is good enough to take 1st place, then why wouldn't you just save it all for yourself? :)
 
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