Bottled when I should have racked again??

Other Fermentables
1

I started a peach ginger mead in Oct 2011.  I racked it into the secondary a month later.  I left it in the carboy to age and in May I sorbated it because I wanted to add some additional juice to bring up the peach flavor.  I added the juice in June.  I guess I should have looked more closely at the mead but I bottled it last week–July 15th. After awhile while bottling, I realized that there was a lot of sediment in the bottom of the carboy.  So I should have racked it again before  bottling–right?
So, now I can see that white sediment (yeast?) building up in the bottom of the bottles.  Can I dump the mead back into a carboy, rack, and bottle again?  I used flip top bottles so it wouldn’t be hard to do that. What are my options?  Thx

2

Be as careful as yiu can to eliminate air pick-up when gently pouring the bottles.
It may be interesting to see if the bottles are carbonating, too.

3

Some mead is lightly carbonated or more effervescent. You might keep a few to the side and compare them to the still version.

4

I wouldn’t due to oxidation risk. But you could pour the mead back in to a bucket (gently), then sulfite it to stave off oxidation, rack and rebottle. Definately keep a few bottles to compare and see if the risk was worth the improvement.

But I’d just mark it down under 'experience - knowledge aquired just after the moment you needed it"

5

Thanks for the input. So my options are:

  1. Do nothing
  2. Gently empty into a bucket, sulfate, rack till it’s clear

What would the downside be to doing nothing?  The mead has a nice clear color to it but it just has some sediment–white powder dusting the bottom of the bottle–a little pile maybe–size of a pea. 
Thx

6

The only downside is that you have a pea-sized powder dusting and you’ll get a slightly cloudy pour at the end of the bottle.  Who cares?  Appearance is just a pretty-factor.

7

If you just plan on drinking it at home, then no problem doing nothing.  Just be careful pouring (pour slowly, don’t tip the bottle excessively, watch closely for sediment) and you should get clear glasses.

If you are going to ship it someplace, you’ll likely get cloudy mead, which people tend to not like as much.

Consider a final fining before packaging using something like Super-Kleer or Sparkolloid.  Those both tend to brighten up a mead considerably.