Kind of a mead started

About a month ago I started a peach/ginger mead. I used 2 lbs of honey and then added dark brown sugar to get the sg to where I wanted it.

Today I checked the sg and it was at .97 When do you think I should oak it?

kc_in_wv said:

About a month ago I started a peach/ginger mead. I used 2 lbs of honey and then added dark brown sugar to get the sg to where I wanted it.

Today I checked the sg and it was at .97 When do you think I should oak it?

Click to expand...

Once it's cleared, and you've got an idea about whether it might need oaking or not. It'll be hard to tell, because young meads are often horrible tasting and don't come into their own until they've been aged.

Oh and it might have been better to have used honey to get the SG where you want it - dark brown sugar will give molasses/caramel type flavours.....

You're probably gonna have to age it for some time, because at the stated finish gravity, it's gonna be as dry as a buzzards arse..... Dry meads/melomels can take a long time to age.... and bring out the flavour character to know if it needs back sweetening, oaking, etc etc...

Just to update this. I bottled this last week. The mead is very smooth. It has a sweet taste even though I did not back sweeten. The peach and ginger complement each other very well. I do wish the peach taste was a little stronger. According to my calculations it finished at about 11%.