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I have a fairly large batch of cyser from last fall season that has dropped brilliantly clear in its bulk aging vessels. We bottled some up for early consumption and noticed that after chilling it takes on a slight haze. I'm guessing this is probably a protein stability issue. If so I'm...

I've got a semi-sweet melomel that turned out nice except it's a bit on the tart side. I added some potassium carbonate to remove some acid and the pH went from 3.4 to 3.6. Although the pH changes immediately, the tartness should remain until the bound acids drop out, right?

I've been experimenting with the "fruit in secondary" method I found in Ken Schramm's book "The Compleat Meadmaker," where plain mead (still fermenting but at least 10% alcohol ... ) is racked onto fresh berries. So far, so good. The presence of alcohol does seem to get a cleaner flavor...

A few weeks ago I started a ten gallon batch of mead with Cote Des Blanc yeast (just purchased) and another five gallon batch with D47 (age unknown, but at least one year old refrigerated, maybe more ...), both well nourished and pH adjusted to around 3.7. The D47 batch never took off while the...

I am considering increasing my rate of sulfite from 50 ppm to 75 (or even 100?) to attain more consistency between batches of certain meads that I make. I only use only 50ppm for my cyser, but that has no pulp in the primary, only fresh pressed juice. It creates very clean, consistent results...

I have a few batches of dry cyser that I suspect would benefit from malolactic fermentation before bulk aging, and I'm wondering about attempting the spontaneous variety. I avoid the use of spontaneous fermentation with yeast, just for consistency's sake. Can the same argument be made for...

I was told by a pro winemaker once that I could safely back sweeten wine without sorbates by fermenting to bone dryness and waiting an additional month at fermentation temps to kill off yeast. According to him, the common mistake is to put the wine into a cold place after fermentation, which...

I ran this question through the mead forum but am wondering if I might find any different perspectives in the wine forum. I currently stir my wines/meads, vigorously, throughout primary fermentation, which for me is all the way down to the 2/3 sugar break. They have been turning out pretty...

Has anyone done any side by side bench tests to compare the effects of oxygen during primary fermentation of meads? It's my understanding that yeast need oxygen during the first few days (at least) of fermentation, though beyond that it seems to be very much a matter of opinion. There is the...

Having read that degassing helps to facilitate clearing, I've been toying around with degassing my mead, metheglin, and loganberry melomel. However, I have heard many people state that there can be no end to the c02, no matter how much degassing is done. 5-10 minutes solid, repeated 2,3,4...

I'm considering springing for 2 brand new,10 gallon corny kegs for aging my meads. If I understand this process correctly, aging under pressure seems like an easy way to avoid having to worry about topping up, or having a bladder deflate on a floating lid, not to mention a convenient way to...

I sulfited a marionberry melomel yesterday, pitched today, but forgot pectic enzyme in between. Should I still do it before alcohol levels begin to rise? Any chance this might anger the little yeasties, prolong lag, etc ...?

I just accumulated enough marionberries in the freezer to start a 7 gallon batch of melomel. After thawing, I began mashing them up and noticed more fizziness than other times I have made this in the past. (Maybe they got warmer during thaw time?) So an hour later, after blending in the...

I just finished 30 gallons of mead. 5 of the 6 carboys came out great, but #6 has a noticeable sulfuric flavor and smell. It's not real strong but it's definitely there. Whatever it is, it happened in the tertiary, where it sat for one month to settle out and clear. I added no sulfites, so...

Fermenting the fruit when making crabapple wine/cyser seems to be pretty widely accepted. But this doesn't seem to be the case with regular apples. Why is it that cyser/apple wine is made by fermenting (pressed) apple juice, while the opposite seems to be true for crab apples, ie; we ferment...

Blackberry season is just around the corner, and I have melomel on my mind. I made some pretty good stuff last year, but had an issue. After secondary ferment was complete, I had about a gallon on some sort of gel/pectin like substance which had precipitated out on the bottom. I never used...

I have been starting meads and metheglins at around 14% alcohol. I feed them only raisins and bee pollen. They start quickly (on 71b, cote des blanc, or d47) and go down to around 2% within a couple of weeks at around 60 degrees, but then slow down to a crawl that can go on for several months...