Should I toss or continue with this peach wine?

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huertaaj

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Please forgive the fact that I'm a complete newbie at making wine and mead. I followed a recipe for peach wine from the book titled "The Joy of Home Winemaking by Terry Garey (1996), page 87. I used 9 pounds of ripe peaches and 7 pounds of honey, etc. The beginning specific gravity was 1.064 and fermentation occurred at 67 F. I noticed that the peach mead took a couple of days to start bubbling and when it started, it bubbled very strongly for about three days, then it stopped bubbling. Today (3 1/2 weeks later), I siphoned the wine into a new 3 gal jug. The specific gravity is 1.000, it doesn't smell or taste very alcoholic (or very good), but it does smell and taste yeasty (it doesn't taste rotten). Since it went from a SG of 1.064 to 1.000, I believe that it should have alcohol. However, the pH is 3.6 which I believe is very low for a fermenting mead. Did I do something wrong or is everything as it should be? Should I toss everything and start over? Can I fix the pH and recover the peach wine at this point? Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks,
huertaaj
 
Don't toss it!

Absolutely nothing alarming about your numbers in my opinion. pH is a little high but nothing a little bit of acid blend can't fix. It fermented well so there is definitely alcohol in there, granted its probably not real high maybe 8.5% or so, which will probably help it age a little sooner. I've heard meads can actually be a little tricky when measuring pH due to the different acids in honey, not sure if thats for pH or Total Acidity. Either way I'd leave it alone for a while and then taste it and see if you feel it needs more acid. With a higher pH you just need to have a little higher level of SO2 for preserving it.
 
Step away from the mead and take a deep breath. It all sounds good so far, just make sure its topped up to the neck, has an air lock on it and just leave it be for a few months, all you need to do it siphon to another jug when ever you get a lot of sediment at the bottom. Other than that it just needs some time to age, all wines taste like arse when they're young!
 
Well, those replies make me feel a little better. One question though. A pH of 3.6 is still high? It should be lower (more acid) than 3.5 to make a good peach wine? That's pretty acid but I guess I'll leave it alone and wait to see what happens.
 
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