Clove not good for wine?

I tend to be more of an experimentor, trying different ingredients not normally used in wines.

I tried running a quantity of clove wine-about an ounce of powdered clove to a regular 750 bottle. [[I only do small amounts for tests]]. It did not work out but I attributed some of that to having to move twice and being ill at the time and not maintaining temp/light properly/

Recently I started a second test but only using 1tsp of clove and 1tsp of Allspice to 8oz honey.

I used one of the Lavlin yeats. [[Don't know which one...just whatever I grabbed and opened at the moment.]]

[[Stop screaming now. Consider me the Dr, Frankenstein of wine and mead making-dirty lab, body parts of my wine-monsters laying everywhere.... ]]

At any rate-the batch fermented for two days and has gone dead. Cloudy as all get out and has a nice aroma but...

Seems the first batch did similar.

My loquat wine did great and was very nice after three years and my honey mesquire wine impressed even my dad who is a gin and tonic man.

Try using whole spices instead of powdered, you can put them in a grain bag, or make a sort of "teabag" to make things easier. Ken Schramm (The Compleat Meadmaker) mentioned a nutmeg metheglin he made on pages 132-133 of his book, but does not list the recipe. He only mentions using "freshly ground" nutmeg. Use the freshest, best quality spices you can get. Schramm also mentions on pg#139 "Cloves must be used sparingly in mead. For some reason, mead seems to provide the perfect medium for the transmission clove's flavour & it's numbing capacity... One or 2 cloves in a 5 gallon batch will have an appreciable effect on flavour, small amounts must be the rule." Some spices can have antiseptic qualities when used in higher concentrations, I know clove oil is used in some brands of toothache drops to numb the pain, it may have other qualities that may be detrimental to the yeast, at least in higher concentrations. You might try keeping a logbook of your recipes, notes & fermentation progress; I find it quite handy to be able to look back in my notes to see what I did with a recipe 2 or 3 years ago. Hope you find some of this info useful. Regards, GF.

True to the whole spice issue. 1 clove per gallon comes out very strong in the end. Clove actually seems to more prominent over time as other flavors seem to mellow.