Acidic Mead

I made a mead last year on around the 20th of december, a one gal batch. It's done fermenting and I racked it off the yeast and onto some old vanilla beans I had laying around for a long time last week and it's really clear. I originally planned to use only 2 beans, but decided to put all three in since they were old.

The gravity is calculated to be 1.100 and the most recent reading was. . . debatable. I didn't want to grab a sample and test since it would take too much out of it. I'll try to get another reading and post it here soon.

I just tasted it today and only the faintest hint of vanilla. It is okay, tastes like the honey and no alcohol bite, but it's a bit too acidic for my taste.

What should I do? Should I add more honey? Or something else like to try and raise the pH?

Dec 2012? If so, let it age for a year. Sample at six months. It is still a baby, heck maybe an embryo in terms of age on mead. You may want to add fresh split vanilla beans as you get closer to bottling, after bulk aging of course. Or if you have a quality vanilla extract consider five drops per 750ml bottle (bench trial please).

Also, no reason why you cannot obtain a hydrometer sample with clean/sanitized tools and return sample to the carboy.

saramc said:

Dec 2012? If so, let it age for a year. Sample at six months. It is still a baby, heck maybe an embryo in terms of age on mead. You may want to add fresh split vanilla beans as you get closer to bottling, after bulk aging of course. Or if you have a quality vanilla extract consider five drops per 750ml bottle (bench trial please).

Also, no reason why you cannot obtain a hydrometer sample with clean/sanitized tools and return sample to the carboy.

Click to expand...

Maybe. . . but I just took a reading and it says that it is at 1.040. I wanted to get it drier, but the acidity makes the sweetness almost disappear. It's as if I was drinking something at around 1.010 or lower. I'm not saying that it's not good, it's just the acidity that makes it a bit less desirable

And as I said it's a 1 gal batch I don't want to get it oxidized whenever I try to read a sample.

I also suspect that because it tastes so acidic that it's the reason why it didn't dry out, because I used the Lalvin KV1116. And it's why my mead became so clear in just a couple of months. The pH went so low, that the yeast couldn't take it anymore and they just flocculated down to the bottom.