Topping off....do it or perish!

After bottling a small batch tonight, I tasted the dregs in the bottling bucket and tossed out the glass. Luckily I only got 8-10 bottles out of this mini batch, but this is now the SECOND batch I'm gonna toss due to nasty oxidation.

Carboard mead sucks.


Noobs: Top up or perish. I'm tired of throwing away expensive meads.

That is all.

I know the feeling, I once had to dump 3 gallons of nasty wet cardboard mead. Regards, GF.

How long has it aged, and why do you think its oxi'd?

Perhaps you should adopt a new method of making mead. For instance, I don't use any heat, sulfites, nor secondary. Never had a failed batch.

jezter6 said:

Carboard mead sucks.

Click to expand...

Oxidation is said to have a strong cardboard taste to it.

In my opinion, oxidized wine and/or mead doesn't really taste like wet cardboard, as much as taste like sherry. Sometimes it even gets brownish in color from oxidation. That is called madeirized, because that's actually how madeira is made.

Sorry for your lost batch. Unfortunately, there isn't any cure for oxidation. One way to help prevent it is to use campden tablets in every other racking, and top up as you mentioned. Sulfites will bind to the mead, and not allow 02 to bind to it.

My problem is I've been making smaller batches, and not topping up. Moving the carboy upstairs to rack and then back down to the fermentation room means sloshing.

I've since started topping up and racking down in the fermentation room to prevent the up and down the steps crap.

The only time it goes back upstairs is to bottle, and even then I'm thinking about starting to bottle downstairs in the fermentation room.

Instead of a new thread, how do you recommend topping off?

I think there's been a few threads here and in the wine section.

I am planning on boiling water to remove any latent oxygen and siphoning in when cool.

Last time I just used one of my other meads that was bigger and pumped a quart or two of it into the mead to top it up.

Makes sense, I will probably add a bit of honey too so I do not throw off my gravity to much.

yeah, depends on how exactly you want to keep the gravity.

when making a 15% abv mead, I'm sorta ok with dulling it down a little with a few qts of water.

When making beer, going from 6% to 4% is a big swing, but if I go from 15% to 13% - I'm ok with that.

Sanitized marbles.

Soperbrew said:

Sanitized marbles.

Click to expand...

I still have not found a decent place to buy them from. Got a place?

buy those flat "marbles" from a craft store like Michael's

Has anyone tried the inert gas that Midwest sells? You spray it over the top to displace the O2 .... Wondering if worth it ?

Sleepyemt said:

Has anyone tried the inert gas that Midwest sells? You spray it over the top to displace the O2 .... Wondering if worth it ?

Click to expand...

You can do the same thing with CO2 from dry ice, but don't put dry ice in your must. A sports bottle with some warm water in it, drop in a small chunk of dry ice, replace the lid & a hose on the spout will allow you to direct the CO2 into the carbouy. The whole thing will cost you about $4. Regards, GF.

That or if you keg just a spray some co2 from the tank into it.

can u just suck out the O2 after racking with the renoylds hand-held vaccuum sealer like Brando O posted to de-gas wine/mead?