New to mead making, just a quick hello!

Hello, I'm new to wine making of any sort, but my wife and I love mead, so I figured what a great place to start! After watching some great YouTube vids, I decided to make a JAOM, this turned into 2 cause I happened to have enough honey, so I made one JAOM by the book but with EC-1118, and a second JAOM with half the orange and a cup or so of dried juniper berries, I also used EC-1118 in this mead. Each gallon had 3.5lbs of Canada number one white honey. It's only been a week and a half, and they are still bubbling away nicely and smelling up our linen closet with that home brew wine smell I used to love in my grandpas workshop But I couldn't stop there, 2days ago I found a good deal on some honey so I combined 3.5 lbs of store bought with 3.5 local honey and split it between two one gallon wine bottles and made a cranberry pomegranate mead and a cran pom cyser using unfiltered apple cider. I'm on a budget cause I'm on disability right now, so I don't have a hydrometer yet, but am getting one soon! The first two meads only had raisins for nutrients and started off slower, I used a nutrient mix from our local hardware store for the cran meads and they were bubbling away within a few hours. I added a quarter teaspoon of nutrient to the JAOM's and they perked right up anyhow that's my story, i haven't even tried any of my own mead yet but still I'm hooked and a little obsessed. My next mead will be a sweet mint/lime mead, my take on a mojito happy fermenting!

Hi! Welcome to the obsession! All sounds healthy so far, only thing to note is jaom is designed to end up sweet due to the bread yeast whereas 1118 will take it dry which doesn't go so well with the flavours in it. You will want to look up back sweetening more than likely and ignore anything saying it will be ready any earlier than 9 months as it will take much longer to age with the extra alcohol. Enjoy!

Thanks for the advice! Yeah I went to the local hardware store and they only had two types of yeast, and that one looked like a better fit to someone who knows nothing about mead making it wasn't until I had made those two batches that I looked up the EC-11118 on some mead forums and read some stories of bottle bombs and corks popping due to the fermentation picking back up after bottling. I'm in no rush for them, I am thinking of adding some oak to the juniper berry one, and will definitely back sweeten. I bought a product from the local you brew store, it's mulched up whiskey barrels in a resealable package. Has anyone used this product before?

Thanks

My JAOM that I used EC-1118 in is done fermenting and is total rocket fuel hahaha it's going to be racked onto some tea bags and chai spices and then bulked aged for a year or so at least just based on the fumes alone, and my cranberry mead is really close to being done fermenting according to my hydrometer and although it's pretty volatile also it tastes great with lots of cranberry after flavours, ill be topping it off with pomegranate juice after I rack it in two weeks if it's done fermenting. I never got to check gravity of my juniper berry mead or my cran cyser but I'll check them in two weeks also, no rush. Since then I've made a true to recipe JAOM minus the clove, and today started an apple cider