Troubleshooting Mead

I made a batch of mead at the beginning of March and I am getting ready to bottle it, but I notice a rubbery smell. Doing some research on the subject leads me to believe that perhaps I didn't have enough nutrients for the yeast and I have mercaptains in my mead (next time I will use yeast nutrient instead of raisins). Is there any way to fix this or do I just bottle it and wait? Thanks in advance for the input

In my experience any off flavors or smells diminish after aging a few months

Racking to a new container or two before bottling and allowing the mead to splash and get exposed to some oxygen will often help with the smells a bit. just look up splash racking here on the forums. Then aging will do the rest.

Also make sure you are pulling out a sample and sniffing it from a glass. I've had that smell when sniffing from a 1 gallon carboy because of the stopper but the mead itself smells fine in the glass.

It might be best to try to resolve the smell issue as much as possible before bottling though. While again might take care of some of it, you don't really want to permanently seal anything in the bottle you don't want there.

Splash racking like Arpolis mentioned has been reported to work real well for a variety of strange smells and Taise made a real good point of sniffing it in a glass to make sure it really is coming from your mead and not from the vessel itself, the rubber stopper being against the opening for a prolonged period could leave a residue there so when sniffing it will block the good stuff inside.

What kind of mead is it?

MasterJeem - Hopefully in the end, time will heal all odors

Arpolis - Sounds like splash racking may be the way to go. I will look it up.

Taise - Yeah, it still smelled like that after was in the glass. I thought it was the rubber stopper until I did a bit more research and when I read that the cause could be insufficient nutrients, I figured that my raisins just didn't do the trick.

TheBrewMedic - Sounds like a combination of splash racking and time may unstink my mead. It is my first batch and it was a pretty simple honey mead with water, honey, a vanilla bean, a handful of raisins for yeast nutrient and WLP720 sweet mead wine yeast.

Thank you all so much for your help with this.

I had to splash rack a batch that tasted and smelled like paint thinner because it got hot during primary. Tastes great now, but my point is... Splash racking is considered more of a last resort to a possibly ruined batch. You're exposing it to things you're not really supposed to and can end up getting bacteria in there if you're not careful. You may want to wait a few months before doing anything drastic. Most of the meads I've made give off a funky smell at some point.

MasterJeem - Fair enough. I forget that with mead, unlike beer, there is no hurry. I won't be drinking it any time this year, so I can afford to wait. You said that most of the meads you've made give off a funky smell at some point. That's really good to know because I thought it was really a problem. Let me ask you this, though. I know every batch is different, but at what point would you generally resort to splash racking? That will help give me some kind of a general guideline for future batches. Thanks again for your help.

Well, I decided to splash rack when I made an apple pumpkin cyser with a very temperature sensitive yeast and I felt the side of the fermentation bucket and it was over 100 degrees. The smell was paint thinner and the taste was isopropyl. That's when I was either going to dump it or splash rack. After splash racking, it was better, but not good. I still saved it in a carboy and put some in 3 bottles. Tried a bottle after 2 weeks. Awful. Tried one after a month and a half and it's now amazing!

Long story short, it works, but it was absolutely necessary for this batch

The funky smells I refer to are harsh alcohol coming from the fermenter and now that I think about it, possibly a bit rubbery. I can almost guarantee that it will be gone after aging just a month and will certainly be just a memory after 6.

Sounds good. I will give it a few more months and if the smell hasn't gone away, which it sounds like it should have, then I will splash rack it. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions.

Hey that's what we're here for

MasterJeem said:

Hey that's what we're here for

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Qeustion on a mead i have had in a carboy in my closet for 3 years. The airlock was dry. Is the mead bad? Not sure how long the airlock has been dry.

First - Welcome
Second - This is a thread that is 8 years old. (The thread starter probably is no longer on.) It would be better to start a new thread for your question.
Third - The only way to tell if the mead is any good is to check it. - Look at it. If no fuzz (Mold) then I would taste it. If it tastes OK you are probably good to go. Maybe not needed but to be safe I would consider adding a single Campden Tablet (Sodium Metabisulfite) per Gallon to kill anything that might have gotten into it.