Really confused as to what happens after secondary...

I have been really trying to find out the answer to the question what happens after secondary fermentation in mead making. Aging in bottles vs in carboys, priming vs not priming, etc...

It seems like everything I read, there is a different approach. So let me ask you these questions in the order that I see them.

A brand new batch of mead is done in secondary fermentation. It needs to age. Do I do this in the carboy or bottle it? After aging, how do I determine if it needs to be primed? Do I add yeast with priming sugar (I figure the yeast would be dead after a year of aging) when I carbonate (if I decide to go that route)?

It just seems like there are alot of different schools of thought, and I really think that THIS school (referring to the website) is the best school to be a part of. Thanks in advance for your help.

You can age either in the bottle or a well topped up airlocked carboy but I prefer a year in the carboy and another year or two in the bottle until it's consumed. If you allow a mead to ferment to dryness there likely won't be enough yeast left for priming. I'll frequently make a quick mead with fruit juice and as soon as it drops clear, bottle in beer bottles and after a couple of months I'll have a nice clear sparkling mead with a fine sediment in the bottom, like home brewed beer. Care must be taken since it's a fine line between flat mead and bottle bombs.

No confusion, because various people use different methods. If your gravity is stable, then there's no reason not to bottle. If you bulk age for a year, just add a dry white wine yeast to the bottling bucket.

The main arguments against bulk aging are: 1. it ties up a vessel for a year and 2. if a bottle goes weird, you don't lose the whole batch. But, mead contains enough alcohol to kill just about anything and has often made people wish for death the morning after.:fro:

I generally bottle age just so I can have my carboys back. I do 2 weeks primary, 2 weeks secondary, rack, 2 more weeks secondary. Sometimes I don't do the second rack. It is mainly to clarify it more.

There is a concern about secondary fermentation in the bottles. But I have never seen it in 25 years of making mead. I have heard about it. In which case you will shoot a cork and spray some mead around.

If you have hit the alcohol tolerance of your yeast... adding more sugar may only make it sweeter. This is where a bit of champagne yeast and a little sugar helps....

Just realize that you won't get a sweet mead this way.

Tell us how it comes out.

John

Lets say I bulk age it for a year. When I rack it to the bottling bucket, do I need to pitch more yeast or should I just mix some priming sugar and bottle?

There are still two different schools of thought.

Generally, it takes about 6 months for the yeast flavors to start dying, so I am willing to rack in the bottle at that point. Is the yeast still active or do I need to repitch?

I would age in a carboy and if you want to carbonate, just add like 1-3 specs of yeast in with the primed mead.