Ageing Mead in jars

I live in rural alaska and just shipping bulk honey here is expensive let alone gallon carboys. Since friends and family go out berry picking we have quite a few gallon size jars, has anyone tried aging mead in glass jars? I would like to add some habiscus my mom brought from mexico in one jar and try fruits and spices in another. Any negative side effects anyone could think of?

How big is the headspace? I'm trying to picture if they are wide-mouth type jars. If there is a wide opening, that wouldn't be a good idea. I use those Carlo Rossi wine jugs.

Lots of people use jars or crocks for fermenting mead/wine/beer. Just go with it!

Well yeah, it would be a mason jar. i'm asuming I could use food grade sealant to help with any contamination. Although wouldn't a 15% Alcohol level help deter any infection from wild strains?

One possibility would be to seal the mason jar with paraffin wax.

Dr_Gordon_Freeman said:

Lots of people use jars or crocks for fermenting mead/wine/beer. Just go with it!

Click to expand...

fermenting and aging (as the poster asked) are two very different things.

for aging you want it sealed. canning jars do not seal unless you boil/can them accordingly as they need negative pressure (a vacuum) to seal.

I wouldn't do it.

Well one reason it may be a bad idea, is that any sugar you might introduce (such as putting berries or other fruit into the jars) could renew fermentation, which wouldn't be good in a sealed container unless you stabilized it chemically first (not hard to do). I guess it might work if you were to stabilize, flush the headspace with CO2, and get a really good seal on the jar somehow. Otherwise it might not work out too well.

malkore said:

fermenting and aging (as the poster asked) are two very different things.

for aging you want it sealed. canning jars do not seal unless you boil/can them accordingly as they need negative pressure (a vacuum) to seal.

I wouldn't do it.

Click to expand...

+2
The canning jars are worthless without the canning process. If you are just going to screw the lid on, you might as well use any jar. It will work for moonshine, but pricewise, you should at least be able to get a cheap wing capper. I know yall have beer bottles in Alaska.

I am constantly hearing discussion sabout headspace, and understand the reasons why. But, why couldn't you just purge the headspace in your container with CO2? Its heavier than air and will displace the oxygen in just a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately, gases tend to mix rather quickly so even if you were successful in the immediate term in completely filling the headspace with CO2, in the time it takes you to fiddle around with and set a stopper and airlock into the top of your carboy, you'd get significant mixing back with atmospheric O2. Granted, you'd have less oxygen in there than if you had done no purge, but without a system of multiple ports and valves in your stopper, don't expect to have no O2 in the headspace in your carboy just because you quickly purged it with a CO2 blast.

I personally am glad that it works that way; if atmospheric gases actually separated based on molecular weight, we'd all be dead since the first 8 to 10 feet of atmosphere near the ground would be nearly pure CO2.

malkore said:

fermenting and aging (as the poster asked) are two very different things.

for aging you want it sealed. canning jars do not seal unless you boil/can them accordingly as they need negative pressure (a vacuum) to seal.

I wouldn't do it.

Click to expand...

If you have access to a chamber vacuum sealer, you could vacuum seal in mason jars once fermentation has stopped. Chamber machines work much better with liquids, allowing the jars to have little headspace.

Seahare said:

If you have access to a chamber vacuum sealer, you could vacuum seal in mason jars once fermentation has stopped. Chamber machines work much better with liquids, allowing the jars to have little headspace.

Click to expand...

First legitimate answer on this post... A+