Well I have some good news to report in that my mead finally cleared up! Actually, it was rather amazing how quickly it cleared up after I added yeast nutrient and yeast energizer. I swear, I noticed a difference the very next day, and within a few days it was looking very clear. I take this to mean that the yeast energizer and nutrient worked to get the remaining yeasts off their little butts and to finish fermentation and fall down to the bottom after death. Now we can move on to finishing my mead up and getting it bottled.
One concerning thing, however, is that when I checked the specific gravity with my hydrometer, it was still at 1.002. It looks very clear now at this point, and tastes fine, and since I have too much going on in the next couple weeks to worry about that 0.004 specific gravity “points”, I’m going to press forward with the filtering and then bottling process and finishing my mead.
I also decided that due to time constraints, I am not going to sweeten my wine. I’m just going to leave it as a dry mead and be satisfied with that. I tasted it; my fiancé tasted it, and we both decided to just go for it and call this one just about done.
Now that I’m not going to sweeten my wine, there is really only a couple of steps left.
First, is to filter the wine. I recently purchased a wine filter system from ECKraus and am looking forward to trying it out. Hopefully all will go well there!
Second, and finally, I’ll need to bottle the wine. I’ve done this a few times already now at this point, so I’m not concerned about this step at all. Granted, I’m still going to perform the task with care, as really nothing is “safe” until everything is all bottled and put to bed.
I’m actually very relieved I’m going to be finishing my mead soon. As you know if you’ve followed any of my posts the past couple of months, I have had some struggles with this wine, from stuck fermentation to me just not really having a lot of time and energy to focus on the task. In fact, I’m getting married in 10 days and starting in the next couple days will have no time for anything but wedding-related tasks! That being said, I better just go ahead and bottle this mead now as is and put it in the past.
I am really looking forward to making a new batch of wine where I can really focus on that and not all the other thousands of things going on in my life right now!
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My name is Leigh Erwin, and I am a brand-spankin’ new home winemaker! E. C. Kraus has asked me to share with you my journey from a first-time dabbler to an accomplished home winemaker. From time to time I’ll be checking in with this blog and reporting my experience with you: the good, bad — and the ugly.