I understand time is the key. I have no pro Len with that. I use egg whites to clear (and shells too) because the lower the acidity of my reds. I don't enjoy acidic wine. I was just wondering if anyone has used egg whites.
Also. I measured and tasted it last night. It just hit 0.994 but it tastes like crap. More so than red wines do at this stage. Is this due to the residual yeast? I've never made mead before so I'm unsure on what it should taste like during various stages.
I'm not sure of your recipe, but it reads a bit like a JAOM batch.
Now if it's a JAOM type recipe with whole oranges used, the recipe uses bread yeast because it poops out before it consumes all the available sugars. When a wine yeast is used, it tends to ferment dry (and your post suggests it's pretty damn dry), but a side effect is that there's no residual sugars to balance the brew and the taste focuses on the bitterness provided by the orange peel.
In any case, even if it was just a traditional batch, when young, meads (especially tradtionals) can taste bloody horrible.
So you have the choice of letting it clear over time, clearing it with another agent (in your case you're thinking of using egg white, but bentonite, sparkolloid, superkleer, etc will all work). Then either modify it straight away, or age it first then modify it.
Personally, I don't enjoy dry meads generally, so I just back sweeten to about the 1.010 level after I've stabilised them. Then just let them clear with time (unless I'm feeling impatient and I use a locally branded chitosan/kiesol 2 part finings).
I back sweeten at that stage because I'm lazy and because using honey can cause a haze (protein) in an already cleared batch and I can't be bothered to clear a brew twice.
If a batch is too sweet, you can balance it with acid additions and maybe even some tannin.
So it just depends on your recipe and how you want the batch to finish....
