Youngs Wine Finings - Storage

[Begbie]

Evening everyone!

I opened the two sachets of youngs wine finings about a month ago to clear a demijohn of mead. I used about a fifth of each sachet as I only needed 1 gallon to be cleared and the sachets are good for 5 gallons. The remainder of each sachet was kept in an empty glass miniature bottle. Tonight, I used another fifth of each to clear another demijohn of mead, without thinking about the storage and shelf life of the liquids.

The bottles have been kept in a cupboard and the temperature of the utility room is around 20 degrees.

Is there a shelf life on these sachets once opened? Should I have kept them in the fridge? Will I poison myself and others if the mead is drank??? Please help before this is potentially my last brew!

On the plus side, the mead is clearing dramatically after only two hours!

 

[Drunkula]

The kieselsol will be fine. The chitosan.... pffft, I dunno. It's made from crustacean shells but that doesn't immediately mean it'll degrade like a plate of prawns, but it might. I'd have used an iron to reseal the bags then shoved them in the fridge as typical chemical reactions and degredations tend to exponentially half with every 10 degree C drop.

Good news is that gelatine can be paired with keiselsol just like chitosan so you could get some from the cake making part of any supermarket and make up a solution, pasteurise in the microwave at 65c (don't boil!) and substitute that. Loads of us use gelatine alone for clearing beer.

Recommendations say not to use gelatine with white wines as it's good at stripping tannins and can really make white wines dull, don't know if that's an issue for you with mead.

 

[Frogbrew]

I use half a packet per demijon, just snip the corner off and seal with sellotape and pop in fridge. Never had any problems.
You must chill it once opened I though I guess.

 

[johncrobinson]

I think you will be allright health wise.
I have often used "old" finings without problems but snip off sachets are really not ment for storing once opened.

 

[Drunkula]

I use an iron to seal any packets that the vacuum sealer won't do. It's great for hop bags and yeast sachets.