HELP: Is my mead ruined?

Last year I made a peach melomel and have left it in a one gallon glass jug for 8 months.

I just brought it up from the basement to bottle it and I'm not sure if it looks right. There are little particles floating around the liquid, about the size of little dots. And there's a light film in a couple of small places on the top of the melomel. not exactly a solid film, maybe its foam? It's very small.

Does this sound about normal? All I used to brew this was peach juice, honey and yeast, maybe it's just pieces of honey or spent yeast shook up from when I moved the jug. But what about the stuff floating on top?

Thanks

hard to say without pics.

smell it. if it smells like wine, then taste it and you'll know for sure.

Yeah I wish the camera on my phone could get a good shot of it.

Obvious question but if it smells and tastes good then that means there's nothing to be concerned about?

brewinginct said:

Yeah I wish the camera on my phone could get a good shot of it.

Obvious question but if it smells and tastes good then that means there's nothing to be concerned about?

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exactly. if there's it tastes fine, it is fine. just check the gravity to make sure it's completely fermented, and bottle it up!

Alright so it smelled like wine and tasted really dry, but didn't taste ruined.

The final gravity reading is .997 so I'm pretty sure there's no more activity in there.

Can I add a spoonful of honey to each bottle to give it a stronger honey taste? Is that going to result in bottle bombs. I'd really like to backsweeten with honey, if anything.

brewinginct said:

Alright so it smelled like wine and tasted really dry, but didn't taste ruined.

The final gravity reading is .997 so I'm pretty sure there's no more activity in there.

Can I add a spoonful of honey to each bottle to give it a stronger honey taste? Is that going to result in bottle bombs. I'd really like to backsweeten with honey, if anything.

Click to expand...

Before you back sweeten with honey, you should sulphite it, then sorbate it and then leave it for a couple of days.

Then make up a syrup of 1 part honey to 1 part water (some like 2 parts honey to 1 part water...... it's up to you). Then move it to a bucket gently and back sweeten a little at a time tasting till you get the right taste you like.

Then move it back to the carboy/fermenter/jug/whatever. You'll find that it's quite likely that if it's clear when you started, that it will get a haze when it's been back sweetened with honey. So you'll just have to put it away somewhere and the haze usually preciptates out over time......

regards

fatbloke.....