Need some advice on my first batch

Hello everyone!

So one week ago today I stated my first foray into brewing..... And I decided to go with mead (since I'm not a wine fan, and there's hundreds and hundreds of beers available in my area... But few meads, and even fewer of the meads without fruit that I'm fond of)

Anyway, I near-boiled, then cooled to about 100F, a little less than two gallons water, then added five pounds raw honey. I proofed the yeast in lukewarm water with some cane sugar like I would have with bread (EC1118 by the way) and then mixed it all together in two one gallon carbs. Now, for the past week, the airlock hasn't been terribly active...maybe one bubble every five seconds or so.... in both carbs.. So I figured I'd do a hydrometer test (no visible krausen either as far as I could tell)
Anyway the hydrometer sank right in. My OG was at about 1.09, and it had dropped in the past week all the way to 1, just about on the dot. So it's already at ....what... about 12%abv? And this was the case for both carbs.

Anyway... I figured what the heck why waste the test liquid and my buddy and I drank them.... they tasted like very dry white wine, almost no hint of honey at all ? And a slight, almost alkali note.

So what's going on here? Is this good? Bad? What should be my next step?

(Ps the carbs have been kept relatively dark at about 71 degrees.... I'm in southern California, there's only so cold we can get)

You used a yeast that would take it to the dry side. How much honey per gallon did you use? How did you expect it to taste?

Grains produce krausen when fermenting but honey and fruit don't. They don't have any protein chains to speak of so no krausen. Your mead is fermented - although it is still very, very green and the yeast you chose is very aggressive so much of the aroma will have been removed. Honey tastes like honey... but what you taste before you ferment the honey is its sweetness. Did you pick a variety of honey that has a rich flavor (absent its sweetness)? The flavor may come forward after a few months of aging and the aging will allow the mead to undergo all kinds of chemical changes. You may want at this point - or after a few months to measure the pH of the mead and the TA to determine if the mead might improve with additional acidity.. But your tongue is probably a better judge of whether it will need more acidity (or more tannin)...
The other thing is, unless you live in an area where the water is not potable I am not clear why you would need to boil the water. Certainly you don't want to use water that is infused with chlorine but to remove chlorine you can either allow the water to stand for 24 hours or so or add campden tablets ... but boiling water removes oxygen and offers no benefit whatsoever to mead making - except the unnecessary use of energy...mead ain't beer. I use water I collect from a NY State sealed spring in a local state park.
Bottom line? Allow the mead to quietly age for 3 -6 or 9 months and then taste it..

Not a bad first attempt...
Welcome to the mead brewing world. Research the forum a bit and try another.

EC1118 has an alcohol tolerance of 18%. You used 2.5 pounds of Honey in each gallon and 2.5 lbs of honey has (depending upon the honey) just over 2 pounds of sugar to ferment in it.

2+ pounds of sugar in a gallon of Must will give you roughly 80 - 90 gravity points with an OG of 1.090. and FG of 1.000 you then get 0.090*131=11.8% ABV.

If you let the EC 1118 go another few weeks it will likely go to something less than 1.000 (Yes it is possible).

This yeast as Bernard noted will go to a very dry white wine like character and at 70+ deg F for primary will have produced some fusels. That "hot" alcohol burn you have likely gotten although at 12% should not be too bad. The great thing about EC 1118 is it does not impart too many off flavors due to the yeast itself.

I would rack off the lees to slow the buggers down and rack each time you get 1/4" lees or so. Then again as Benrnard noted age for 6 to 12 months. Even though it will be very dry it will be pretty darned good in 9 - 12 months. The fusels and yeast flavors will age out and hopefully a little of the honey flavor will come through.

Suggestion for one of the gallons. Consider adding 1/2 Vanilla Bean and a single cinnamon stick for 30 days or so. Will add a little complexity to the dry white wine character and will mellow and age nicely as well.

Thanks for all the responded guys.

Okay first, I near- boiled the water for a couple reasons (I kind of thought it superfluous while I was doing it frankly) but 1, I was just being overzealous on the sterilizing, I live in the LA area and I'd already put the water through my brita filter so it was probably unnecessary, 2, I figured warm water would help the honey dissolve faster.

As for how I was expecting it to taste? Well I was hoping to wind up with a fairly dry mead, I was just hoping a little more of the honey flavor would come through.

Thanks for letting me know about Krausen, that's what I was suspecting, but I wasn't sure.

So the general consensus would be to rack it off into a secondary and just let it mellow for a few (or many) months? I like the idea of adding some vanilla to one of the secondaries.... Is the honey flavor likely to come forward while it ages? Would adding some more honey help?

Honey flavor will likely come forward as it ages. Will not taste sweet but will have the honey notes it started with. i.e. if Orange blossom honey then you may get some of that.

Additional honey will just feed the yeast and create more alcohol unless you add two chemicals. These are standard chemicals that wine makers use all the time. Potassium Sorbate and Potassium metabisulfite. One of these stuns the remaining yeast in the ferment and the other prevents the yeast from reproducing. So, you don't truly get an absolutely dead ferment - you get yeast that are stunned and unable to reproduce, which is just as good. (Personally do not do this as I react to Sulfites.)

You can add honey after using these chemicals. Or keep adding honey until the yeast give up but EC1118 can go pretty high before giving up.

I would consider aging it out and see what it does. You may be pleasantly surprised.

I agree w/ CKhuns about adding K-sorbate and K-meta but they should be added when there are virtually no yeast cells in the mead and that means after aging about 6-9 months and racking every 60 - 90 days or when there is about 1/4 inch of lees (sediment) in the carboy. What you can then do is add either more honey to back sweeten the mead or add sugar or maple syrup or agave or any other sweetener.. The stabilizing chemicals will prevent any straggling yeast cells from fermenting the sugar.. and since they cannot bud (reproduce) then when they die they are no longer a concern...
The challenge with mead (in my opinion) is finding the right balance between flavor and ABV.. since all the flavor is in the honey and since all the honey is fermentable then making a hydromel (similar in alcohol content to a session beer or cider) with rich enough flavor is difficult. You are aiming for about 12%ABV - in other words a wine (to be drunk by the glass and not the pint) so you can look for a more flavor-rich drink... Quality honey (clover and wildflower) will not disappoint but varietals (like Orange blossom, Tupelo, Meadowfoam, and such like) offer really interesting flavors that can stand on their own two feet.. But you may want to look for less aggressive wine yeasts such as 71B or D47 or as LoveofRose suggests the Belgian Ale yeast called 1388...