Off-flavors: will they go away?

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eulipion2

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Hello,
I just transferred my AHA Conference '08 recipe Fireball Mead to tertiary and added cinnamon oil. It had a rough fermentation, had to repitch, might have been lacking nutrients. Finally cleared about 2-3 weeks ago. My hydrometer sample tasted pretty rough: very alcholic, fruity esters (???), a little cloying, a bit nasty.

Will this age out? Will the cinnamon cover up nastiness?

Made on January 12, 2009
Transferred to tertiary August 2, 2009

OG: 1.130
FG: 1.044 (target 1.030-1.060)

Thanks in advance!
 
David's right- it'll be a totally different mead in a couple of years. That's a high alcohol, sweet mead that will take a while to mellow out. It'll go from "rocket fuel" to "wonderful" in two-three (or maybe five) years.
 
1.044 is always going to stay cloying though. That's a LOT of residual sugar.
 
1.044 is always going to stay cloying though. That's a LOT of residual sugar.

I wondered about that. The recipe from Zymurgy said anywhere between 1.030 and 1.060. It stopped at 1.044, and since I've had so much trouble with the fermentation I decided to say "good enough" and get on with it. I think the cinnamon will help to balance out the sweet though. I put in 1 tablespoon of cinnamon oil, which is the upper limit of what the recipe says (anywhere from 0.5-3.0 teaspoons), but if it's still really sweet I may add more. My primary concern is the harshness and excessive fruity esters of in the flavor.

Now that I've added potassium sorbate I don't guess there's any way to dry it out, is there? It is supposed to be a dessert mead, so I don't want to dry it out too far.
 
I wondered about that. The recipe from Zymurgy said anywhere between 1.030 and 1.060. It stopped at 1.044, and since I've had so much trouble with the fermentation I decided to say "good enough" and get on with it. I think the cinnamon will help to balance out the sweet though. I put in 1 tablespoon of cinnamon oil, which is the upper limit of what the recipe says (anywhere from 0.5-3.0 teaspoons), but if it's still really sweet I may add more. My primary concern is the harshness and excessive fruity esters of in the flavor.

Now that I've added potassium sorbate I don't guess there's any way to dry it out, is there? It is supposed to be a dessert mead, so I don't want to dry it out too far.

No, if you added sorbate, and the fermentation was finished, it's done. Sorbate doesn't go away.
 
My raspberry melomel ended up at 1.024 and its pretty darn sweet. I carb'd it in a keg and the carbonic acid helped balance it out.

it almost sounds more like a liquer/cordial at that FG /shrugs
 
So, is Zymurgy usually fairly accurate with their gravities and other recipe info? Based on the responses here it seems like this one's way off. I've had a sample of this mead that they handed out at the conference, but I don't know the specifics of it, so I can't say how close mine is to theirs.
 
So, is Zymurgy usually fairly accurate with their gravities and other recipe info? Based on the responses here it seems like this one's way off. I've had a sample of this mead that they handed out at the conference, but I don't know the specifics of it, so I can't say how close mine is to theirs.

I don't think I've ever made a Zymurgy recipe, but since it was the official mead of the conference, I bet it's fine.

I wasn't too crazy about this mead, and thought it was both too hot and too sweet. I didn't think it was 1.044 sweet, but still pretty sweet. I would have guessed 1.030 or so. It'll definitely be a dessert mead, and it should be good (if you liked the sample you had). To me, it tasted like sweetened cinnamon "red hots".

Were you at the conference? If you were, I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to meet you.
 
No, sadly. The conference (in Cincinnati) was very close to where I lived at the time (Huntington, WV), but I wasn't able to make it. My club did a "Deadliest Batch" theme and got their picture in Zymurgy. Someday National Conference will come back this way and I'll be able to go.

At the next month's meeting my club had "Mead Night," and it was one of the meads we tried. I thought it tasted fairly close to Atomic Fireball candies, and I couldn't get enough (which sucked because we only had two bottles).
 
No, sadly. The conference (in Cincinnati) was very close to where I lived at the time (Huntington, WV), but I wasn't able to make it. My club did a "Deadliest Batch" theme and got their picture in Zymurgy. Someday National Conference will come back this way and I'll be able to go.

At the next month's meeting my club had "Mead Night," and it was one of the meads we tried. I thought it tasted fairly close to Atomic Fireball candies, and I couldn't get enough (which sucked because we only had two bottles).

Oh, sure! I remember that club. I got to meet some of them- and offered vasectomies on the spot. Well, not to them- they were sort of the butt of one of my jokes. My dad's from West Virginia, and I grew up in Ohio, so I felt I could make the joke. Bearcat Brewmeister (from Cincy) heard the joke, though! But their booth was so awesome- in their yellow slickers. They were right down from our club booth, so I made sure to wander around and say "Hi".

Next year it's in Minneapolis, so you might want to take a little road trip!
 
Hmmmm...maybe if I start saving up my ducats (and get SWMBO's permission) I could make it. Minneapolis is kinda far from Richmond, VA (current base of operations), but a nice beer-soaked vacation would be nice.

On the mead front, it's hangin' out in a closet in the basement, airlock attached so it can off-gas, cinnamon oil added in. I'll give it a check in a couple months to see what the cinnamon and aging has done for it.

Should I rack it another time to get it off the cinnamon oil when it's absorbed enough?

EDIT: Guess I should change "Location" in my profile...DONE :D
 
There are no lees. The mead cleared completely a few weeks ago, and now it's just batch aging with the cinnamon oil. My concern is that the oil will have negative effects if left on too much. Are my concerns warranted?
 
There are no lees. The mead cleared completely a few weeks ago, and now it's just batch aging with the cinnamon oil. My concern is that the oil will have negative effects if left on too much. Are my concerns warranted?

I don't know what the "cinnamon oil" is. I would assume it would be dissolved. It's not?
 
No, cinnamon oil is the oil extracted from cinnamon bark. It doesn't dissolve, but instead floats on top (like the oil and water experiment you did in elementary school). The cinnamon flavor and aroma are easily absorbed into the mead, but the oil still stays on top. When I bottle I don't want to leave an oil slick in each bottle.

There have been other threads on using olive oil instead of aerating, and I wondered if the cinnamon oil would oxygenate my mead like olive oil would.
 
The addition of olive oil in a fermentation doesn't oxygenate (or oxidize) it. Rather, it provides the lipids that yeast would have to otherwise synthesize on their own - and they need some oxygen to be able to do that. I don't think you need to worry about oxidizing your mead, but depending on what exactly is in that cinnamon oil, you might get some off flavors if the oil itself goes rancid (i.e. oxidizes) while floating on top of the liquid.
 
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