jaom taste question

Hi guys. I have another question about my first mead. So I just finished racking my mead for the second time and got rid of lots of lees. I tasted it after racking and while not bad it tastes real strong of oranges/citrus with a strong alcohol taste. Is this how it should taste?
I used more oranges than the recipe called for but I wanted the orange taste. I put the oranges in sliced with the peel on and all. I wonder if what I am getting is a pithy taste. It's almost an overwhelming taste. I can't quite make out if the ?bitterness? is the taste of the alcohol or the orange. This being my first batch I didn't pay too much attention to the gravity of it all but it started somewhere near 1.10ish. I didn't bother taking another reading yet because I will do that once it settles clear. It is now about 5 weeks old by the way, from start until now. What do you think.

Sorry I just realized I posted this in the wine forum. Can a moderator please move it to the mead section. Thanks.

I should add, that I used champagne yeast instead of bread yeast. I thought it would make it better but instead, after reading more, it took it dryer than it would have with bread yeast and I'm sure that is part of the problem. Is this probably what the bulk of the problem is and it will just require back sweetening and longer aging now to be good? Or is it something else entirely? I understand it is hard to say without tasting it yourself but if I could get ideas that will put me closer to fixing this.

Yea lots of people pick champagne yeast and try to follow the JAOM recipe. So you are not alone but that is probably part of the issue. Also adding more than one orange worth of pith is an issue. The pith is generally an overpowering flavor and you do not want much. So yes let this ferment dry and stabilize. You may try and make another batch of traditional JAOM but peel the orange and remove pith. Once that one is done blend the two. That should come out good with a little extra age on it.

I might just try that. Do you think with age the pithy taste will ever mellow out enough on its own if I just back sweeten it? Just curious. Either way I've learned my lesson on this one, lol.

Even making JAOM the traditional way with bread yeast, it still takes awhile for it to mellow out. Another thing the tastes you describe might be from is the cloves. How many did you use in your batch?

None because I don't care for them. I only used 1 cinnamon stick per gallon.