Heather Honey Mead latest!

Damn I must try and not let my impatience get the better of me!

So, what's happened?

Well, having read about the relative importance of getting a finished ferment off the lees, I decided to rack it, but rack it through a straining bag i.e. because the strange, granular sediment that you nearly can't see because of my crap photography in yesterdays post.

Anyway I just figured that if I can remove the granular sediment it would be easier to judge the clearing process (the granular sediment looked like it was about 1 inch deep).

I racked it through a syphon tube into the straining bag to try and catch any of this, that went up the tube. It seems that I've been reasonably successful. I didn't squeeze the bag, just pulled it out of the "new" demi-john jar gently.

On inspecting the "granular" sediment, it looked very much like dark honey coloured cheese curds, with a strong honey aroma. So I'm suspecting that it's either fine wax type debris or possibly pollen.

Either way, it should now allow the mead to settle properly and clear. At the same time, I've added 4 oz of the heather honey as the gravity reading was still at 1003 and I want some residual sweetness - putting that in now might have not been the best idea, but I figured that it would allow any other debris in the honey to settle with the yeast as it drops out of solution (and no I haven't re-checked the gravity, I'll do that after the next racking).

I also added a dissolved campden tablet - I had to top it up with about 200ml's of water to allow for the racking loss.

As far as I can see, it's still looking good !

TTFN!