Girlfriend-Flinging Mead Oddity

So here's a strange thing: I'm fermenting a one gallon test-mead using the following recipe...

• 1 Gallon Water
• 3 lbs. Orange Honey
• 1 Lemon's worth of juice
• 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
• WLP023 Burton Ale Yeast

OG: 1.070
Temp: Kept around 70 degrees.
Staggered yeast nutrients

Everything has been going great. The fermentation took off wonderfully and all was well.

Yesterday, I was adding the last of the staggered nutrients and I said to my girlfriend "Hey, hon! Come smell the mead!" as it had a lovely smell each time I opened the container to add the nutrients. She comes over...takes a whiff...and hurls herself across the room. Thinking she's gone mad, I smell it as well and them promptly hurl MYSELF across the room. I can only describe the experience as snorting a carbonated soda-pop.

The mead tastes great and has a slight bubbly tinge to it but the carbonated death scent is new to me in my third-batch experience in mead-making. Is this something that could be caused by the ale yeast or a combination of ingredients? Has it been possessed? Should I call a priest? Thoughts?

Well, first, hold off on the preist.

Any more specific description of the smell, other than 'death'? If it smells like a rotting corpse you have bigger problems.

I had a JAOM that smelled sulfury and rank for a couple days, then it fixed itself and turned out awesome.

Sniffing active fermentation is pretty much the same as sniffing soda pop. Can you be a little more descriptive?

Bluespark & Inner10: It doesn't smell bad at all, actually. It has a honey-lemon smell. I'm trying to think how to describe it...have you ever had soda come out of your nose? That bubbly burning sensation? It was like that except with an inhale. I've just not experienced such a thing in the few batches I've made.

If you were adding the last of the nutrients you're probably around the 1/3 sugar break so your fermentation is probably at it's most active, lot's of co2 coming off of it, making it pretty fizzy, if you had just added the nutrients that will increase it because of increased nucleation points...doesn't sound like anything odd or out of the ordinary going on, just a good healthy ferment.

CO2 burn?

definately Co2 burn. instead of sniffing the bottle, waft the air above the neck with your hand toward your nose. good way to get a idea of the smell, without being flung across a room.

CO2 can actually give a very strong feeling of being burned. I continue to stupidly sniff my buckets during fermentation. I continue to stupidly burn my nasal passages!

The sensation is not as bad as taking a BIG whiff of corn on the cob boiling in a pot of water. When you ACTUALLY burn your nasal passage (And have to spend the entire steak dinner with tissue stuffed up your nose) you can see that there really is a difference!

Hah! Good to know that the problem was with me and not with the mead! Priorities and all.

Thanks all!

Did the same thing with a rum wash once it was terrible and great all at once lol

Dont let your girlfriend sniff hot sauce you are making in the blender, that one will get you in trouble! WVMJ

#CO2 Burn: Now I know what happened when I huffed my in progress rapidly fermenting apple cider cyser.