My 1st mead....

I made my 1st mead on 7/7.
Racked it on the 7/22 and it cleared really nicely.
It was a simple mead.
2.5lbs honey
Water
Yeast D-47 (packet)

I added a tbs of vanilla extract and about 25 raisins to the original fermenter.

I was still new to the process and didn't take an OG reading.
I did take a reading yesterday and it was just under 1.000.
It tasted really flat and had an essence of plastic.
I decided to bottle it as I could read the ingredients on a label through my Carboy.

Any constructive criticisms?
What would cause the plasticy taste?

How much water was there? I assume 1 gallon, if so this will be a very dry mead.

Yes a gallon.
Other than the plasticy taste, it didn't have much flavor.
When I hear dry I think like a very dry Cabernet. Is that same implication?

I know the more the honey the sweeter it will be.
At the time I didnt.

I have only a bit of experience with mead but I can offer you a little advice. Put it away somewhere and forget about it for a year or more. When I was reading up on making mead, I would see people saying all the time that meads don't really mature until after a year or more has gone by. My first mead was similar to what you are experiencing. It had a plastic flavor and very hot alcohol burn when it was young. I didn't like it at all so it ended up in a box in the basement. About a week or two ago, I thought about it and moved a bottle up to the fridge to see how it was aging. It's been a year and a half since I made it and it has really improved! It has fruity notes, no trace a plastic, and (to my surprise) its slightly carbonated even though I didn't bottle it for 6 months and the gravity had dropped to below 1.000. For what it's worth, I think you're mead has a decent chance of coming around, just give it some time.

luda007 said:

Yes a gallon.
Other than the plasticy taste, it didn't have much flavor.
When I hear dry I think like a very dry Cabernet. Is that same implication?

I know the more the honey the sweeter it will be.
At the time I didnt.

Click to expand...

as far as i know, dry means not sweet.

Works for me.

I did bottle it sunday but now in thinking I should have waited after some threads I've read today.

The final hydrometer reading was below 1.000

Check out this website for some troubleshooting stuff:

http://www.bjcp.org/meadfaults.php

Your plasticky taste could be phenolic, so maybe start there.

Band-aid is probably a more correct explanation.
Now I'm kind of worried.
I have used my tap water on every mead I've made.
I didn't use oak.
I dont remember buy i think I used D-47, which I've used on all my meads. (how would I check it's health?)
The infection. How to check it?

My guy is telling me it's my tap water....

That was supposed to read "gut" not guy.

I was smelling one of my other meads last night and the rubber bung smelled exactly like what my tasted like.
Is it a possibility that it is causing it?

It just occurred to me that I didn't have an airlock when I first started making this batch. I used a latex glove with pin holes poked in it......

Perhaps there was too much chlorine in your tap water. The connie-sooers on this site use bottled spring water, which is great, or you can let the tap water sit for a day or two or try filtering with a carbon filter to remove the chlorine. True about how much the flavor will change with aging, also.