First Mead Finished, couple of questions.

I used the recipe for Joe's Simple Grape Mead, but instead of using the straight up Grape Juice, I used Welch's White Grape/Cherry Juice. Additionally I did not use the oz of buckwheat honey the recipe calls for but rather just the clover honey. It took a bit longer than I had expected (based on the recipe) but after five or six weeks I racked it onto the secondary. However instead of being at 1.000 it was at 1.01, so it hadn't fully fermented out. I'm curious as to what may have caused this. Did not using the buckwheat not give it sufficient nutrients to ferment in the timeframe that I had expected, or should I have just not paid any mind to what the recipe said in regards to fermentation time? Also I bottled it last night and I was very surprised, it's pretty tasty though I think for some it might be a bit too sweet.

If it's not finished fermenting then bottling wouldn't be the most sensible thing, as it's possible that the last of the sugars are still being consumed by the yeast cells.

At least, you may get corks/stoppers being pushed out the bottles over time, at worst, you've created bottle bombs (rather dangerous/unsafe).

Finished ferments (and stuck ones for that matter) are when the ferment has given 3 consecutive identical readings over a period of a week to 10 days - if you have the starting gravity of the batch and know the yeasts alcohol tolerance, then it's a guide as to whether it's likely stuck or finished.

All very worth checking, because if there's any doubt, it would be better to re-rack it back into a fermenter of appropriate size and let it finish.

regards

fatbloke