bubbachunk

Recipes 

Hey I have my first mead (a pyment) in my secondary and it has just turned 3 weeks old. My question to you more knowledgeable mead makers is what is the difference between bulk aging my ~4gallon batch in my glass carboy versus bottling and letting them age there.

GilaMinumBeer

Recipes 

Consistency of flavor from bottle to bottle but, it will be minimal.

bubbachunk

Recipes 

Ok that makes sense. Is there some sort of time frame guidelines I could look at to decide how long to bulk age because I would like to free up my carboy to start another batch

pizzaman

Recipes 

Check out this link to a post on gotmead.com

In his post, he basically explains how bulk aging can be beneficial for four reasons:

1. It's easier to see what's going on in the carboy than in a bunch of wine bottles.
2. It's easier and safer if you need to alter the brew if it's in the carboy.
3. The temperature and environmental variables won't have as much of an effect on the large carboy as they would on small wine bottles.
4. Something about esterfication
4 again. You'll drink less of it if it's in a big carboy then if it's "aging" in wine bottles.

Of all of these reasons, my personal experience would lead me to agree with his second number 4 reason. I can never seem to stop myself from drinking something that is already bottled up for more than a month but, if it's in a bucket or carboy it's more of a pain to get to so I typically leave it alone. Also true when friends come over and want to sample my latest concoction. They'll be less likely to want to drink it from the buckets sitting in my bathtub for some reason...

bubbachunk

Recipes 

Valid point pizzaman temptation could get the best of me but I think I could stash it away out of sight and work on the 5-6 cases of beer i have

Freezeblade

Recipes 

I wouldn't bottle it untill it is at least crystal clear. If you bottle the mead when it's still cloudy then you'll get a large amount of sediment in each bottle, which is no good. Also, at 3 weeks there's pretty much no chance for the fermentation to be even close to done yet.

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Primary:Russian River Redemption clone, Kelly's Melomel, Graham's English Cider 22-23
Clearing:Apple Wine
Aging:Public House Dry Stout, Procrastination Porter, Mr. Brown Ale, Westvleteren 12 Clone, Mead, Duvel Clone, Graham's English Cider 6-21, Belgian Draak Strong Ale, Fig Melomel, Acerglyn, Restorative Tonic Metheglyn

pizzaman

Recipes 

Unless he's using Joe's Quick Pyment recipe! Of course, if he was he wouldn't be aging it, he'd be drinking it while waiting for his other mead to age.