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Author Topic: Bentonite its my enemy  (Read 1135 times)

Offline copachino

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Bentonite its my enemy
« on: August 02, 2021, 10:46:42 am »
well im tried to make the Covfefe mead, and taste nice, but no matter how much sparkalloid i use it never clear at least never crystal clear, then a imade another batch also with bentonite and to my surprise its the same, the never clearing mead, my others mead clear with a little sparkolloid or alone in 2 months but this one its 5 month old i probably will never clear

Offline joe_meadmaker

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Re: Bentonite its my enemy
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2021, 03:27:30 pm »
I can't get to the recipe (I let my AHA membership expire and am not sure yet if I'm going to renew or not).  But from what I gather, it's a mead with coffee added.  I don't recall ever hearing about coffee causing a haze.  What kind of honey are you using?  And more importantly, is it a honey that you've used in the past for meads that cleared up nicely?  I've had a time or two that a mead didn't go completely clear no matter what I did.  I figure it may have been a protein or something else in the honey that was causing a haziness and wouldn't settle out.  Not certain of that, but it seemed to be what was happening.

Another thing you can try if you're able is to refrigerate the mead.  Sediment and other particles will drop out much more quickly and efficiently if the mead is at a cold temperature.

To my knowledge Bentonite has a negative charge and Sparkalloid has a positive charge.  So that should have picked up pretty much everything.  The only other thing that comes to mind is to give something like Dualfine a try.  That will give the batch a dose of negative and positive charged particles back to back in quick succession to clear things up.

Offline copachino

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Re: Bentonite its my enemy
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2021, 01:16:48 pm »
it doesnt use any coffe its just a coffeblossom honey,
look at the diference on the non bentonite vs the bentonite one




https://ibb.co/tCC5DNM

Offline joe_meadmaker

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Re: Bentonite its my enemy
« Reply #3 on: August 19, 2021, 08:39:44 pm »
Are both meads in that picture made with the same honey?

Offline copachino

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Re: Bentonite its my enemy
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2021, 11:29:20 am »
Are both meads in that picture made with the same honey?

yeap same process just one had bentonite and the other no, the non bentonite cleaar by itself on 1 month the other one seems clear but when bottles had some haxe seems like a protein haze IMO but im not so sure why i could never clear it

Offline joe_meadmaker

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Re: Bentonite its my enemy
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2021, 07:26:38 pm »
That's pretty crazy.  There's definitely something in there that isn't dropping out.  I'd be tempted to hit it with Dualfine to see if the two stage process catches whatever is hanging in suspension.  Although on the other side of that coin, I don't know if you want to keep dumping more stuff into the mead.  If it tastes okay it might be better to just let it go.  I'd also be curious if you throw a bottle in the refrigerator and forget about it for a month or so if it clears up some.

Offline copachino

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Re: Bentonite its my enemy
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2021, 02:00:05 pm »
That's pretty crazy.  There's definitely something in there that isn't dropping out.  I'd be tempted to hit it with Dualfine to see if the two stage process catches whatever is hanging in suspension.  Although on the other side of that coin, I don't know if you want to keep dumping more stuff into the mead.  If it tastes okay it might be better to just let it go.  I'd also be curious if you throw a bottle in the refrigerator and forget about it for a month or so if it clears up some.

i just bottle this one and onother batch just fermented, the thing its the new batch dropped crystal clear by itself just to leave it about a week after fermentation ended, pretty weird maybe i did something wrong in the last one