# hopped mead and cloudiness?



## BernardSmith (Jan 22, 2014)

I made a hopped mead based on the following recipe 

http://meadist.com/making-mead/mead-recipes/hop-head-mead/

and I think it tastes quite delicious. My question is this: the hops have not cleared even although there is next to no CO2 in the carboy. I know that beer brewers requently refer to cold crashing to help force the particulates to flocculate and drop out of suspension. Is this something that I should consider or is cold crashing likely to create additional and unexpected flavors because of the interactions that might occur at the molecular level? Hard cider, unlike wine, is often bottled while still cloudy. Is cloudiness in mead considered a flaw


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## botigol (Jan 22, 2014)

Cloudiness in mead is definitely a flaw, at least in the context of judging. Being able to read through the liquid is the standard and there shouldn't be haze when subjected to direct light. Like you said, cold crashing/cold conditioning is a normal practice in beer making, but also in wine production. So far I haven't come across any mention of it for mead, but this could easily be from a lack of looking. Since mead is wine I personally wouldn't have any qualms with cold conditioning it for a few weeks or so.


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## Droc (Jan 22, 2014)

After I get a mead fermented and racked to the secondary I store it in my basement (normally around 55 this time if year) and it seems to help out a lot. I had a spiced mead I kept upstairs just because I was to lazy to walk down the steps that was taking its sweet time, but once I put in downstairs it seemed to clear up pretty quickly.


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## BernardSmith (Jan 22, 2014)

Looks like 2 votes for cold crashing. I think I will try it. Mind you the temperature outside is almost in single figures.. (frigid) so I may have to wait a few days till we get above freezing.


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## botigol (Jan 23, 2014)

Yeah, single-digits would lead to bad things, but mid- to upper-20s would be fine. My garage refrigerator has gotten down to at least 24F this winter and even my 5% abv beers were fine. I don't suggest this, it just happened one night, for such low alcohol, but 10%+ should be perfectly fine. I once saw a chart that listed the freezing point of solutions; probably worth searching for it.


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## BernardSmith (Jan 23, 2014)

I chickened out and put the carboy in the fridge. Had to remove a shelf but if cold crashing is for only a few days or a week then my wife is ok with that.


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## botigol (Jan 23, 2014)

Definitely the safer venue. You just never know how long it will take, but it seems like it should be done within a week.


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## BernardSmith (Jan 23, 2014)

botigol said:


> Definitely the safer venue. You just never know how long it will take, but it seems like it should be done within a week.


 
I am not planning on cold crashing for longer . My plan was to rack and then prime the mead with about 1 oz of corn sugar /gallon and then bottle and store for about 30 days. After cold crashing and racking how likely am I to still have a viable colony of yeast?


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## botigol (Jan 24, 2014)

Since you are planning to carbonate it, the current cold crashing step unnecessary. The upside that it will not hurt anything. There is the outside possibility that it could result in the mead taking longer to carbonate, but even that is doubtful. Last year I lagered (cold conditioned) a kolsch for almost two months after fermentation was complete and it still carbed up within three weeks, so there was more than enough yeast still in suspension to do the job. That said, it looks like your batch should be 11% abv or so and will take a while to carbonate. I would have to check my notes, but my braggot, which came out around 9.25%, took 8-10 weeks to finish carbonating. It had bubbles and was tasty before that, but it hadn't finished and still had extra sweetness from the honey that I used for priming. Honey as the priming agent is another factor in how long it took to carb, but big beers in general take longer.


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## BernardSmith (Jan 24, 2014)

Thanks Botigol. Very helpful. The recipe I think suggested perhaps a month for carbonation to be complete. So carbonation is affected by the alcohol content? The greater the ABV the longer it takes for the priming sugar to be converted to alcohol?


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## botigol (Jan 24, 2014)

That is the generally accepted thought, but there have to be other factors that come into play. For example, my Christmas saison at 8.66% seemed completely carbed after only two weeks, whereas a lot of the carbonation discussion around big Belgian-style beers indicates that 1-2 months is pretty normal. I would think that the yeast is probably the largest factor with both the kind of yeast and it's health playing a role. If you used EC-1118 as that recipe suggests, it should carb faster than most other yeasts. Even though priming an alcoholic solution is detrimental to yeast reproduction, EC-1118 is often the suggested yeast to clear a stuck fermentation and has the ability to ferment well beyond the estimated alcohol level of your mead, so it should go smoothly. Unfortunately, it is just hard to know when carbonation is complete without popping open some bottles along the way.


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## BernardSmith (Jan 24, 2014)

botigol said:


> That is the generally accepted thought, but there have to be other factors that come into play. For example, my Christmas saison at 8.66% seemed completely carbed after only two weeks, whereas a lot of the carbonation discussion around big Belgian-style beers indicates that 1-2 months is pretty normal. I would think that the yeast is probably the largest factor with both the kind of yeast and it's health playing a role. If you used EC-1118 as that recipe suggests, it should carb faster than most other yeasts. Even though priming an alcoholic solution is detrimental to yeast reproduction, EC-1118 is often the suggested yeast to clear a stuck fermentation and has the ability to ferment well beyond the estimated alcohol level of your mead, so it should go smoothly. Unfortunately, it is just hard to know when carbonation is complete without popping open some bottles along the way.



I am at work (and so posting this ... ) so I don't have access to my notes but I think I used QA 23 for my yeast and not EC-1118... but more to the point, I read of a really good way to check on carbonation without opening a bottle too early. You use a plastic soda bottle in place of one regular beer or champagne bottle. When that bottle swells up and becomes more rigid than would be caused by the volume of the wine or mead or cider in the bottle then you know that the carbonation is good. If it fails to become rigid then you know either that the wine is not carbonating or has not adequately carbonated.


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## botigol (Jan 27, 2014)

Yeah, I have seen that method a number of times. It seems that most people find that it works well, but the two times that I tried the results were useless. The first time I filled the bottle normally and it was rock hard (like a brand new 2-liter soda bottle) within hours. The second time, I squeezed out the air in the headspace, but it was still rock hard by the next day. Due to the success of others I assume that there was something wrong with my process, but I could not find the reason.


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