Mead bottling: 12 oz, 22 oz, other..?

My *first* mead is ready to be bottled.

I do not yet how to drink it (i.e., light sips, or a good size glass etc.), and I am not sure how to bottle it, size-wise.

Does an open bottle of mead behave like an open bottle of wine, in which case I would prefer a small bottle at one time?

Please advise!

Yup...I like beer bottles.
I really like MGD bottles if you can get them (God tell me you don't drink this swill)...and you will need a bench capper.

Regular beer bottles will serve you very well.

BigKahuna said:

I really like MGD bottles if you can get them (God tell me you don't drink this swill)...and you will need a bench capper.

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I was warned off beer bottles by a guy at my LHBS because he thought it wouldn't hold up to significant aging in them without the o2 absorbing caps.

That guy was kind of a tool, though, so I don't know how much credence I'd give his thoughts.

I'm planning on bottling mine in 375 ml clear glass wine bottles if I can get my hands on enough. I really want bellissima bottles, but they're real expensive. I'm planning to call a semi-local winery that uses them to see if they ever have empties I could pick up, or if they'd be willing to sell me some at a bulk rate.

The Blow Leprechaun said:

I was warned off beer bottles by a guy at my LHBS because he thought it wouldn't hold up to significant aging in them without the o2 absorbing caps.

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Sales Potential is the chief culprit of bad advise at the LHBS! I have beer that has been bottled for 8 years with plain'ol Brewers Best Caps and some generic caps as well. NO oxygen issues. AND it's not like Oxygen aggressively tries to get in your bottle, and the only thing the oxygen caps will do is absorb the oxygen that is already in the bottle, that will also be in the bottle if you cap with a cork.

I'd say he's not only a tool, but the wrong tool for the job.

I've been making mead for a few years and I've been using crown caps for just that long. I originally began using them to test the mead during the aging process to avoid opening an entire bottle before it was ready. I'll admit that I've never kept a crown capped bottle of mead around longer than a year because I still primarily use wine bottles and I tend to drink the smaller bottles sooner . However, I know quite a few mead makers who also use crown caps and I've never heard anyone report problems.

I do prefer 375s over crown caps but only for esthetic reasons. Remember that unless you use sanitary top quality corks you're running the risk of losing your mead even quicker than in a crown capped bottle.

And mead does behave like wine in that once you open it, it starts to oxidize and go "off" soon, so if you open a bottle, you probably want to finish it. I use a mixture of beer bottles with crown caps, 375 ml bottles with corks, a few grolsch bottles with ceramic flip tops (to check progress!), and regular wine bottles (for dinners with friends). You can use a vacuvin (a tool that sucks out the o2) if you must recork the opened mead for the next day, but it's really better to plan on drinking what you open at one sitting.

Mead tends to have a high ABV, more like wine (or even a bit higher), so it's not likely that you'd drink much at one session.

+1 on the VacuVin.

YooperBrew said:

Mead tends to have a high ABV, more like wine (or even a bit higher), so it's not likely that you'd drink much at one session.

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That's what my wife keeps pointing out, but I usually drink an entire bottle of wine or mead on a weekend evening and limit myself to a few beers during the week. Well - not an entire bottle. I try to convince her to take a sip from my glass so I can say I didn't drink the entire bottle!

Well, I went ahead and I now have seven Corona bottles filled with JAOM (sp?), and even at this young age, it tastes pretty nice --to me, at least!

Before that, I also bottled my second-run wine I made with the Cab must PTN gave me on his brew day, back in November... It shows some strong Cab taste, as well as some fruitiness from the blueberries/juice I added (don't tell PTN though )

I am getting my ingredients lined up to make Malkore's version soon.

BigKahuna said:

I have beer that has been bottled for 8 years with plain'ol Brewers Best Caps and some generic caps as well. NO oxygen issues.

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This is good to hear, I'm glad it came up.

Maybe it's just me, but my philosophy is "don't open a bottle if you're not going to finish it"...

I always use wine bottles and generally I use the 375 ml for sweeter meads and meads with fruit in them. For plain meads I use the 750 ml bottles. For me, once that bottle is opened it needs to be finished

I always use wine bottles with mead and generally I use the 375 ml bottles for very sweet meads or meads with fruit. I use the 750 ml for regular, medium or dry meads.
For me, once the bottle is opened It needs to be finished off!

I have 3 bottles left from a batch bottled in 1996.

Plain old gold-colored crown caps, and one Grolsh, since I was still using those way back then. A crown capper is much simpler, at least if it's a bench model. That and a jet carboy and bottle washer should be early purchases - they will serve you well for a long time.

While this batch did spend a few years ('97-2001 or so) being weirdly bad to drink, it was not an "oxygen in the bottle" sort of weirdly bad to drink, just a long-term aging issue, and it got better. Since 2001 this stuff has been great.

I think oxygen in the bottle is an overblown concept whipped up to sell things you don't need, unless you are really messing up the bottling process. There's nearly always some CO2 coming out of solution as you move the mead, beer, or cider around, and since CO2 is heavier than air, that will tend to fill the headspace of the bottle at capping time.

+ 1 on 99's philosophy!

+1 Ecnerwal

I agree with you on the co2. My only concern with regular bottle caps would be dry rot of the gasket material. I know I see it a lot at the chemical plant I work for, but I think its more a function of frequent use. Also I don't know what the gasket material is made of on the bottle caps.