~10% ABV dry mead for a friend

**Toxxyc** · 09-10-2019, 03:40 AM

Heh, my friend just stopped by. Dropped of 9kg more honey, he wants more, but this time including a dry sparkling. They killed 5 bottles of mead over the weekend with some friends, and they all loved it, but said it packs more punch than they expected haha!

**Toxxyc** · 09-16-2019, 05:30 AM

And the second batch is under way. I mirrored the completed batch with one difference - I played with the water chemistry a very small amount. I use RO water very low in Calcium, so I added Calcium Chloride to boost the Ca levels in the water so I can maybe get a cleared mead a little faster.

Otherwise exactly the same. Same gravity (I'm 1 point out, which I consider to be very close), same temperatures and I just pitched the harvested yeast cake directly into the must after reaching the same temperature. So far, so good!

**Toxxyc** · 09-17-2019, 12:54 AM

Good, active fermentation. Apart from a break-in at my house that took up some of my time yesterday afternoon, I got to feeding the little beasties some Fermaid O as per instructions. Got good smells from the fermenter, and all looks to be going well.

**EricHartman** · 09-17-2019, 03:30 AM

As an update, since I know you had some clearing issues on this one, I used bentonite followed by sparkolloid with fantastic results to clear my OB traditional mead. It is in a 2 gallon vessel and I can read print through the mead! Sorry to hear about the break in!

**Toxxyc** · 09-20-2019, 02:02 AM

Fermentation is still going good. Feeding on schedule. Last feeding to be done tomorrow morning early. Then it's standing for a week while I'm going on holiday. Whoohoo!

**Squatchy** · 09-20-2019, 05:59 PM

Originally Posted by EricHartman

As an update, since I know you had some clearing issues on this one, I used bentonite followed by sparkolloid with fantastic results to clear my OB traditional mead. It is in a 2 gallon vessel and I can read print through the mead! Sorry to hear about the break in!

Next time try adding the bentonite a couple of days after you have pitched your yeast. That works great

**EricHartman** · 09-20-2019, 07:42 PM

Originally Posted by Squatchy

Next time try adding the bentonite a couple of days after you have pitched your yeast. That works great

I am doing that in my cyser. I gave the pectinase 72 hours to do its thing then added 1/2 tbsp of bentonite per gallon of must (made the dose up myself... any thoughts there?). Lots of pulp in the cyser mind you so the bentonite might have its work cut out for it! Hoping the bentonite will help compact the pulp and reduce racking losses.

**Toxxyc** · 09-30-2019, 01:28 AM

OK so I've been gone for a week, but I'm back. Mead has done fermenting and it's currently crashing to cold. I'll be getting zeolite (a form of bentonite, as I have it) hopefully soon so I can give it a swirl to see how it clears up the mead. Batch seems identical to the last one, so I'm pretty glad about that!

**EricHartman** · 10-01-2019, 10:57 PM

if the bentonite doesn't clear it on its own then hot sparkolloid is an excellent counter charge fining agent which will finish the job!

**Squatchy** · 10-01-2019, 11:58 PM

I actually have 2 different bentonites. There are pH specific. SO I use one in low pH and the other in higher pH levels accordingly

**Toxxyc** · 10-02-2019, 01:19 AM

I'll be using a form of Bentonite called Zeolite for this batch. I have it apparently readily available and I've done some research that indicates it might work well, and also give additional benefits to the wine (like acid stability, etc.). If it doesn't work, eh, that's what testing is for, and it's fun!