orange blossom mead

I have never seen or tasted Mead before but made a 5 gal batch a month ago and seems good to me. Does this look clear enough? Its at 15.5%albv

A good way to tell is to look at a flashlight trough the mead, if you can see the beam running through, then it still has some particulates in there. If that's the case then it needs more time.

Thanks, i will give it a try

I did the flashlight test and could see a faint beam in it. What's the proper bottle age for Mead? I'm a noob with this stuff, beer I'm awesome at.

How long have you aged it? Six months will melt your glass, one year is decent, two years will knock your socks off!

A little over a month, I treated it like beer.....when I seen no more activity on the air lock I transferred it to my secondary and 2 weeks later bottled it up. I got the recipe and instructions from the book "Traditional Mead"

mead and beer act a little differently. if you're just trying to do things based off of time and especially off of a beer time line you risk bottle bombs.The only way to know if fermentation is done is by using a hydrometer and monitoring final gravity readings and letting it clear until you literally can read a newspaper through it. Prior to that there is a good chance you still have some fermentation going on even if there is zero airlock activity. In beer bottles you may be ok in as much as the fermentation may just carbonate your mead, or on the worst case scenario side you have glass grenades waiting to surprise you. If you used wine bottles/corks they could potentially pop and geyser on you. I am guessing since you have an idea of the abv you may have used a hydrometer at some point, the yeast you used will make a difference as well, if it was at or near it's tolerance the risks go down. hopefully it'll age/clear in the bottle and you'll be able to enjoy your hard work.

I have made meads with many kinds of honey, orange blossom honey in particular, and I can testify that it takes a VERY long time to come into its own. I made some orange mead with orange blossom honey and orange juice, and I too was treating it as I would beer or wine, and was disappointed in the results. I had a case of bottles in storage for two years and had forgotten about them. Found them and opened one. The difference was astounding. It was like a completely different beverage. I now let mead bulk age for at least two years before bottling it. I would also recommend filtering and stabilizing with sorbate because I've had some popped corks, and the mess in the storage room was awful! Beer bottles should be good in your case if the SG was below 10 when you bottled it. It will probably be fizzy, but try to wait a long time before you judge it.

Age that mead for a year, then taste it; it'll really open up after 2 years.
Regards, GF.

I've been working with nothing but orange blossom honey since I started my first batch in May and it wasn't filtered much from my local purveyor of honey. It took 2 months for both my first two batches to clear to the point they didnt look cloudy, three weeks in the primary and 5-6 in the secondary.

After moving the mead to a tertiary, it cleared even further. Now it appears orange-ish gold color in the carboy and a beautiful light gold in a wine glass.

Time and care and you should get the same results (especially judging by the photo). I try to avoid unnecessary chemicals in general, my mead is no exception. I would just let gravity do its thing.

My FG was 0.996 And my OG was 1.112

I find the longer you age the better. I don't touch my short batch mead for six months at least. My more craft stuff sits for a year I'll open one bottle and the rest sits for two years plus. Best mead I ever had was a nectar of the gods multi berry melomel aged for six years after spending a year in an oak barrel.

JAMES-A-HARRIS said:

My FG was 0.996 And my OG was 1.112

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Question: how do you get gravity readings down to the third decimal point? My hydrometer is not that accurate.

I have a triple scale hydrometer that gos as low as 0.990. I suggest you invest in one because of how useful it is. It has gravity, bridge scale and estimated alcv% .

Not bridge but Brix scale. LOL auto correct fails again

Look into a refractometer with duel scale. Way more precise than a hydrometer. Theu cost between 30 to 60.

I've been planning on a lot of upgrades and that is one of them, and I fully agree with your statement