my mead tastes bad, will it get better?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

rycov

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2010
Messages
1,940
Reaction score
28
Location
conway SC.
hey. this was/is my first mead attempt. usually i brew beer, but i wanted to try the prickly pear recipe from the joy of home brewing. he said use 20 lbs. of honey and if too sweet make a batch with 14 and blend. i wanted it to not be too sweet so i just used 16lbs. it fermented for a few months before it stopped bubbling then i cleared it with sparkalloid. and bottled. now i know he said to age it, but i tasted it when i bottled and it sucked:(. im wondering if it will get better after a year.(and how much better) it didn't seem to be infected.nothing weird looking. its really clear, and has a beautiful pinky orangeish color. it doesnt taste like it has any nasty bacteria in it. it just tastes like fermentation. not in a good way. its not undrinkable, but its also not fun to drink. i was bummed because he made it sound delicious. will aging it take out the harsh fermentation flavors? thanks
 
I'm a noob, so you want to take this with a grain of salt.

My understanding is meads NEED a looong time to condition. I did a batch back in May, and when I bottled it this fall it was still VERY hot and alcohol burn/taste was way up front. My friend brought over a 2 year old bottle, and it was smooth and mellow, a kin to a very decent white wine. Age makes all the difference IMO.

These flavors need time to mollow and blend, I bet after a year you wont believe it was from the same batch. :mug:
 
I'm no exper, but I've done meads using a staggered nutrient addition that were drinkable at bottling time. Two or three months improved them and at a year they were even better. Time can help quite a bit with meads.
 
thank you thank you. yeah. i knew that people aged them a long time. i just haven't done any mead yet so i wasn't sure how much it would help. i guess i don't really have anything to loose by waiting. i dont have to do anything. theyre just sitting there. it just was disappointing when it didnt really taste good at all at bottling time. since they're ageing in wine bottles should they be kept on they're side like wine? so the liquid keeps the cork wet?
 
need more info.

recipe, starting gravity, final gravity, yeast used, dates between pitching and bottling, fermenting temps, any nutrients added, when it was racked, etc.

With 16# of honey, this thing could taste like diesel fuel.
 
I agree w/ jezter that there are a *lot* of variables that influence taste, and can cause some off flavors...Bottom line though: Yes, aging mead is a very good way to smooth out off flavors, although some can take quite a while. (As I recall, Papazian talks about burying bottles of his prickly pear mead to age for 10 years or more!) But what Shooter says is equally true...with good nutrient additions, proper pitch rates and control of fermentation temps, a mead can be very good pretty early on (something I didn't fully believe until I finally was talked into trying SNA!)

Whatever you do, don't dump it...put it in the corner of the basement and forget it for a good long while.
 
Mead needs time. Mine was terrible at 6 months, but very tasty at 1 year. I'm saving one bottle to try at the 2-year mark.
 
it's been a long time, but you might be of another class... those of us who don't like mead, it would be good for you if you do, but there is that possibility
 
Once I go above 14% or so I don't even think about tasting it until a year at least.
Usually two years with a good seal on the cork, will produce something fantastic, when it tasted like rocket fuel at bottling.
 
Mead takes time, a lot of time, to be tasty. My meads/melomels usually taste terrible for 1.5 yrs, but then they start to get good; some take even longer. The higher the ABV, the longer it needs to age. Regards, GF.
 
this is good news! does rdwhahb apply to mead? lol. yeah lumpher i like mead( well i think i do.) i had some store bought mead that i liked. i know thats probably not as good. but i get the basic idea for how it should taste. mine tasted like rocket fuel not like a delicious beverage. i know everything affects taste and final product. just wasnt sure how much aging would help. it has some good flavors. they are just over shadowed by harsh fermentation flavors. definitely not gonna throw it out. if it takes ten years thats cool. and kauai did you mean 14 lbs of honey? or 14% alcohol? thanks guys
 
This may be a dumb question... and a little late - but why go through all the trouble of sparkelloid and such so early on with a Mead? It's not beer - it's honey wine... and it takes a while for things to all come together and for the evil to settle down....

The best thing to do is to just keep the airlock topped up and let it sit.... Won't hurt anything.

Now that you bottled the stuff - nothing you can do but let it sit.... Start a batch of lightly sweet Cider or something else that will be ready soon so you have something to drink....

Remember - drink no wine before its time! Laziness is heartily rewarded!

Thanks

John
 
i've got beer to drink now. cider does sound good though. yeah. i didnt know much/ anything about mead. i just read the recipe and it said i could use pectin enzyme to clear. then i saw some one sayin about how great sparkalloid was for wine or something. so i used that, not realizing the pectin enzyme was for the pectin haze from the prickly pears... so anyway. yeah i messed up a little. but thats what i did. so hopefully after it ages it will be good. i just didn't realize how long it would take. i thought i was doing something wrong by leaving it in the fermenter. next time ill let it sit for a lot longer.
 
curious... does it have a really vegetal taste to it, or is it have a melon-like flavor (but off)?

How did you prep the pears? I blanched them (10sec in near boiling water) and cut off the outer skin and threw the fruit in a juicer... got about 1/2 gallon of juice for a 3 gallon batch from 2.5# of prepped fruit.

I have heard of others that kept the skin and got nasty vegetal flavors....

I made one this September, but it tasted awesome at first racking. Mine is still deep purple.

IMG_8141.jpg
 
Once I go above 14% or so I don't even think about tasting it until a year at least.
Usually two years with a good seal on the cork, will produce something fantastic, when it tasted like rocket fuel at bottling.
the KK has hit the nail, squarely, on the head.

I don't even worry at the 14% mark. I've yet to have any mead, taste good once it's cleared etc, and theoretically ready for bottling.

I just keep going through the process of getting it clear and then bulk age it, for a minimum of 6 months, though it's usually had at least 6 months after ferment getting to the cleared stage.

I've had various hideous tastes (the usuals, like "alcohol hot" etc etc), but a year or two ageing and damn it's like the magical ingredient..... the changes wrought by ageing are phenomonal.....

regards

fatbloke
 
curious... does it have a really vegetal taste to it, or is it have a melon-like flavor (but off)?

How did you prep the pears? I blanched them (10sec in near boiling water) and cut off the outer skin and threw the fruit in a juicer... got about 1/2 gallon of juice for a 3 gallon batch from 2.5# of prepped fruit.

I have heard of others that kept the skin and got nasty vegetal flavors....

I made one this September, but it tasted awesome at first racking. Mine is still deep purple.

IMG_8141.jpg
Not familiar with prickly pears, but the juice colour looks wonderful.

If the skins are likely to cause off flavours, then how about gently chopping them, steep the chopped fruit in water with sulphite and pectolase for a week and then press the fruit. I'd have thought that should prevent off flavours from the skins.

Plus, you can make the batch with part of the juice and then use the rest for topping up etc and even keeping some to add after the ferment has finished to "repair" any colour/flavour damaged by the ferment process (and can also give you a batch that is ready to drink earlier).

The colour is more pinkish than steam extracted elderberry......

regards

fatbloke
 
picked the pears and froze them because i wasnt ready yet. then when i was i used tongs to hold the pears over the burner and burn of the hairs. then i peeled the fruits. it was kinda easy to peel since the inside was still frozen. the skin came right off. (kind of a pain to burn off all those hairs thought. then i just took the fruits and mashed them with a potato masher with some water in a pot and boiled. my color stayed pretty well. it lightend a little bit. although it was never quite as dark as what you have there. (the juice was. but when i mixed together with the honey it wasn't.) actually i'm real happy with the color. its this purpley almost orangey color. looks great in a glass. im hoping that it will eventually taste as good as it looks!
 
My only question would be whether the beer will improve after the sparkaloid was used. Did that take all the yeast out of suspension? But I'm assuming mead improves because the yeast slowly convert higher alcohols to grain alcohol and clean up other waste enzymes. I'm just not familiar with sparkaloid, if it is a sulfite, your yeast are probably dead.

If you like mead, and don't want to wait forever, you can brew braggot. I've brewed 75-25 (honey to malt) braggots that were ready to drink in just a bit longer than a big beer. They taste much more like mead than beer. The malt base has all the nitrogen and stuff the yeast needs. I've also heard you can add staggered doses of yeast nutrient and get meads that are ready much faster but have a slight medicinal flavor from all the fertilizer.
 
not sure about the sparkaloid thing. just gonna wait it out i guess. im sure as hell not gonna drink it right now. time will tell.

also good call on the braggot. i recently had one at the local pub, it was delicious (and made me feel deliciously drunk) i think i will be doing this very soon.
 
Reading back through your OP - you said that the instructions were 14 lbs of honey for a "Dry" mead and 20 lbs of honey for a "Sweet" mead.....

and you split the difference with 16 lbs....

Here's the problem.... What is the alcohol tolerance of your yeast?

Say your yeast is slightly more alcohol tolerant than spec sheet.... Not too uncommon.... well... Instead of stopping at whatever alcohol content 14 lbs gives you and then having the other 2 lbs making it sweet... you likely just ended up with an extra-alcoholic batch that will still run dry.... and produce a bunch of fusels in the mean time - and that takes a long time to age out...

On the up side - once it ages out, you will have a mead with 14% more honey "Flavor" vs a 14lb batch -- so likely the floral flavors will come out extra strong.... given enough time of course....

What to do now? RDWHAHB.... Seems like a good plan is to have something you can drink now and some things you can drink in a while.... Beer and sweet ciders and things like Graffs (Malted, lightly hopped ciders) fit #1 pretty nicely.... Wines and meads fit #2 nicely....

Thanks
 
not sure about the tolerence. good point though. i used champagne yest from wyeast in the smack pack. it was still a little sweet. the off flavors didn't seem like it was just high alcohol (it had that too though). i dont know what the fusel alcohols taste like really. so that could be it. i didnt have any visible signs of infection. its just hard to put a finger on what it tastes like (other than not very good). actually the smell was probably worse than the flavor. it didnt stink at all. it was just off putting, and weird. but the initial "aw man, i ruind it" is over. now i'm just curious if it will eventually be good. after what everyone said here im pretty optimistic. i havent tried it in a while, i'm kinda curious now.
 
oh. and i've got most of the mead in wine bottles but i ran out of them and put some in about five beer bottles. would taking a sample from the beer bottles give any indication at all as to whats happening in the wine bottles? i know it would age different. just thought if i could try from the small ones so i wouldnt have to open (waste) a full wine bottle.
 
Mead can take quite a bit of time and the drier the longer they seem to take. Age certainly makes for great mead. At the same time, we make lovely meads in 6 months that are very drinkable, and with age they become award winning, but for right now, drinkable is a great goal.

What kind of honey you use, liquid yeast with DAP And GoFerm, temp, etc.. all contribute to how long it will take. Aging will round out harsh flavors and bring out layers of flavor. There have been times when something awful turns into something spectacular. At the same time, you can't make sometime better than what you start with. So if you start with basswood honey or something awful... it will always be basswood honey...
 
some people just don't like mead. i dumped a 2 year old gallon a couple weeks ago, on a final determination i just don't like it
 
it was clover honey. i tasted it. it tasted good. and the prickly pears i picked from the beach, they were good too. i tasted the unfermented honey and water and juice together when i was taking my SG and it was good. i used liquid champagne yeast and some yeast nutrient.
 
Right... but the really difficult thing is to figure out in your brain what your must would taste like without any sugar in it.... Honey is famous for this.... You gotta water it down a bunch and kinda slurp and sniff it at the same time - and then you get an idea of the flavors under the "Sweet".... Then, you taste things like "Grassy" and "Herbal" and "Citrusy" and stuff like that....

Then, many fruits can taste pretty weird without any sweet - peach is one like this.... Peach cider can taste pretty awful when it's completely dry - especially if the peaches weren't fully ripe... you get these weird vegetal and bitter flavors.... Straight blackberry juice is another... It tastes kinda like battery acid when you ferment it dry....

The "Sweet" really does bloom many of the fruity flavor compounds and turn it into "Tastes Delicious"...... Most of those flavor things are still in there - but the sugar isn't any more after it's fermented...

The traditional thing to do now is to age it.... There are quite a few wine brewers who almost *Never* throw anything away in the hopes that it will taste good in 3-5 years.... Frequently, it does - look at all the recipes in Jack Keller's website that say things like "Needs to age at least 3 years before it's even drinkable"..... I always wished he would post a "Wall of Shame" for bad idea batches.... The stuff that just never came out right - you know that if he has posted a recipe for oak leaves wine that he must have tried grass clippings, dog hair, fish food and a couple others too..... but those didn't make the cut

Thanks
 
hey. just a kinda follow up. like i said earlier i put most of this mead in wine bottles and maybe five in beer bottles. well i couldnt help myself so i tried one of the beer bottles last night. i have to say, just after a short time ageing it has gotten ten times better. its still not perfect, but is now "drinkable". i could tasted some of the subtler notes that before were masked by this wet cardboardy flavor. the off flavor has almost completely subsided, but the off smell is still around, although it has definately died down a good bit. my mom tried a sip and she said she liked it too. im still not gonna open the big bottles anytime soon, but the few beer bottles probably wont make it to six months. i went from having serious doubts about this mead to having pretty high expectations now. this could be one of the best things i've brewed. and the color is beautiful by the way. its this crazy pinkish electric orange. and crystal clear. never seen anything like it. i tried to take a picture to post but they didnt really do the color much justice. ill try to get a good one to show you guys. and for anyone thinking about brewing this... do it. the color alone is worth the effort!:mug:
 
and thank you everyone for the encouragement to keep waiting and not give up!
 
Gee I hope the OP remembers nearly 7 years after that two year mark, he was last seen on the board about that time.
 
@Seamonkey84 and @Yooper offered some good advice on my minty flavored mead; after a lot of researching I found this board and the info from this thread helps a lot, also.

I am going to ignore my mead, like the OP did. It's going to bulk age until Thanksgiving so that I have time to bottle it for Christmas gifts.
 
Back
Top