More Racking

I continued to get up to speed on the racking of my meads that I've neglected. Yesterday I racked over my cyser (Mead No. 8) and the 3 gallons of my blueberry melomel that I hope to enter into Canadian Sasquatch's mead contest (Mead No. 13). Both were different than I expected.

Mead No. 8

This is the cyser that had the pellicle on it, or the wild strain of yeast, and I may have racked it once before because it seemed a little less than before. I'm not certain but I may have tried to use bentonite before because there was a sediment on the bottom of the bucket that seemed like clay but I don't recall having done so and my notes don't say anything about it. It also didn't seem to be particularly clear.

It smelled pretty good, however, very apple-y, though its taste wasn't quite what I was hoping for. Very dry, still a bit harsh. I added 1 tsp. of bentonite to the 2-1/2 gal. because the packaging wasn't very clear as to how much. It says 4 tsp. in 1-1/3 cup warm water "sufficient for 5 gallons" but elsewhere on other packages it says 2 tsp in 1/2 cup "sufficient for 5 gallons." The consensus on the Internet is it's the latter that's appropriate so I added the 1 tsp.

I also added 2 Campden tablets to it to try to kill the yeast and to allow me to backsweeten the mead. Perhaps I should have waited till after I was done with the clarification first, because I have to stir up the mead for the next couple of days, but the pellicle has me stressed and I want to be rid of it.

Mead No. 13

This didn't have a pungent aroma, but it had a very prominent blueberry taste, though it was still a bit more harsh than I would have liked or expected after so many months. I racked it to a 1-gal. jug and a 2-gal. bucket and also added bentonite and Campden tablets (3) to clarify and prevent any refermentation as I want to sweeten it up a bit.

The bentonite does seem to be working as I checked on the meads about 12 hours later and they seemed to have clarified a bit, the cyser more so than the blueberry, but both were clearer than they had been. There was also no sign of the pellicle on the cyser either, but that does take time to form so we'll see if the Campden tablets did their job.

I'll continue stirring the meads once or twice daily for about a week to allow the bentonite to swell sufficiently and strip out as much sediment as possible. Then I'll rack them over once more and allow them to finish aging before bottling.