Is my mead going to be horribly oxidized?

So... Up until now I've brewed all of my beers, ciders, and a mead in a glass carboy (and another glass carboy when a secondary was necessary). Racking was super duper easy, whether to the bottling bucket or to a secondary. As I mentioned in a few other threads, my primary glass carboy broke, so I bought a Speidel. I love the Speidel, but I hate the spigot. Before my mead, I did a beer in the Speidel and everything went well except racking. It took over an hour to rack 5 gallons of beer when it used to take under 10 minutes. With the mead, it was much, much, much, much worse. It took 15 minutes to rack about half a gallon of mead, then it just stopped. I rocked the thing back and forth, raised it to an EVEN higher level above the secondary, but it still came out as a trickle. Out of desperation, I tried my racking cane. Obviously that didn't work. I considered using a rubber band to hold the hood in place, but it just didn't want to work.

The method that EVENTUALLY did work got the mead into the carboy at a decent pace, but it splashed it all over and introduced TONS and TONS and TONS of oxygen. The reason for this being that I didn't have the right size tubing for this method.

Before I racked, I stabilized it with 3 campden tablets (about 7-8 days ago), but I have to imagine that the effects of those campden tablets must have mostly lost their effectiveness in all the splashing around and bubbling oxygen that occurred in the racking today.

Since this is my first mead that has survived into a secondary (my last mead went down the drain because the carboy broke), I have no idea whether this will turn out to be the most oxidized mead in history or whether it'll be just fine.

Help?

In general oxidation is not a concern with mead to the degree that it is with beer, wine, etc. This is not to say that mead can't be oxidized, but you'll probably be fine.

Even if you're worried, you don't really have much to lose by leaving it in secondary for a bit and seeing how it tastes.

Hopefully it will not.

I left way too much headspace in some of my mead jugs and I'm guessing it's going to compromise it but I will have to take comparison notes between the jug with headspace and the jug without.

Best of luck and hopefully your mead will still provide pleasurable experiences, despite teething problems during racking.

Thanks for the responses.

What I found particularly bizarre was that I originally put about 5.6 gallons in there, but I ended up with less than that in the end. I mostly filled my 5 gallon carboy, but I was only able to fill another 1 gallon one up to about 25%. I put the 1 gallon fermenter in my fridge and it's clearing way, way, way faster than the 5 gallon carboy that's at room temperature (which is pretty warm). I'm just not sure what to do with that quarter of a gallon though. With 75% of it headspace, it's doomed to oxidize. Might have to throw it away. Just wondering what to do with it.

worlddivides said:

I'm just not sure what to do with that quarter of a gallon though. With 75% of it headspace, it's doomed to oxidize. Might have to throw it away. Just wondering what to do with it.

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Mix it with some fruit juice, put it in the fridge for a few days and enjoy as a mead cocktail.

skadalajara said:

Mix it with some fruit juice, put it in the fridge for a few days and enjoy as a mead cocktail.

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That sounds like a good idea. Think I might try it with cranberry juice.

I tried some of it yesterday and, while it's nowhere near ready, it certainly doesn't have the rocket fuel taste that so many people mention. The alcohol is not hot at all, but the flavor of the mead definitely needs a lot of time to mature -- and to clear. Putting it in the refrigerator forced a ton of yeast to fall to the bottom. Had no idea there was no much yeast in there (although I suppose that's why it's so cloudy). I imagine by the time it's completely cleared and it's ready to bottle, there will be 2 or more inches of yeast at the bottom of the 5 gallon carboy.