Mead coming up on a year now what?

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Micmac001

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Greetings,

Avid homebrewer here. My son wanted to make mead last New Years day to try and start a new family tradition. I'll admit I didn't spend a tremendous amount of time researching mead making as it was a spur of the moment thing. For the 5 gal batch we used 5lbs of honey from Costco (probably low quality honey) and two packs of lalvin v1116 (k1) yeast and some yeast nutrient. After a month I mixed up a slurry with another pack and poured it into the must for good measure.

It's been sitting in a stainless keg for 11 months now (never racked to secondary). I used a wine thief to sample some the other day. Appearance is yellow / clear and the taste....rocket fuel but strangly good, or was that my buzz. I didn't bother taking an OG as this was just a fun throw together seat of the pants project.

So my question is what now?
Let it continue to age? Add some spices? Bottle and carbonate some?

Open to suggestions. I was leaning towards bottling / carbonating one bottle that we can open on New Year's Eve taste be damned and letting the rest age until next year. At the same time setting up another 5gal batch on new year day. That way going forward I'd have 5gal of 2 year aged mead every Christmas / New Years.

Looking for suggestions / opinions from the experts.
 
Each pound of honey yields about 35 gravity points so if I had to guess I'd say your OG was ~1.035. That's on the low side of things. A mead is generally 3 lbs/gallon more or less. So you have a potentially light/refreshing drink, with a potential alcohol content of ~4.5% assuming it finished dry. It's not alcoholic enough to worry about it not carbonating. Whether the yeast is still viable after a year is another matter but it's worth a try.
 
I recently tried blending my "rocket fuel" mead (aged 2 years, 12%+ ABV)
with some fresh pressed apple juice. A mead "cocktail" I suppose.
It was pretty good and gave me the idea that I could serve the mead with other mixers, some carbonated, some not, or it could be served on the rocks, straight up or neat.
The home made apple juice I used was super sweet and it cut the rocket fuel character down to an acceptable level.
The main thing is that you don't have to present a stand alone finished beverage. Mead isn't for everyone, some (including me) don't really like it by itself.
Everyone has different tastes, and serving the mead as an ingredient in a cocktail may be a better New Year's tradition.
 
It's certainly ready for bottling after a year. You could rack the 5 gallons into individual 1 gallon carboys and experiment with them on a small scale. Spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, clove etc do well in meads and are "holiday" drinks. You could also add some oak for a few weeks, etc, to try different things.

But as Lee said, 1 lb of honey per gallon is a very weak mead. I don't understand where your perception of "rocket fuel" comes from - it shouldn't be hot with alcohol.
 
Thanks everyone for the replies. Now I'm confused too. My notes said 5lbs. Maybe I wrote it wrong. I would definitely not call it light a refreshing. More of a cordial level of alcohol so that makes me think I probably used more than 5lbs. I think I'll probably play around with some different variation like Maylar recommend. I wouldn't call it a failure as my home brew buddies all seemed to like it even after a few beers of truth serum. If I keep with the tradition I'll definitely do some more research here for tips and recipes.
 
So I ended up playing with this mead a bit. I purée'd some rasberries and put them in a mesh sack and left them in the mead for several weeks. Removed the bag and left the mead alone for almost 2 months. Now have a rasberry
undertone but more concerning is a pipe tobacco off flavor. I'm sure leaving it alone won't hurt it any other suggestions? Anyone else experience the Captain Black flavor when using rasberries
 
My experience has been that any fruit that has small seeds like Raspberries after about 2 weeks give up pretty much all their flavor.

Then longer than 2 to 3 weeks the seeds on the Berries can give the finished melomel a bit of a tannic "punch". The flavor can be a bit like you are describing. Tannin in moderation can be very pleasant and produce some great body and mouth feel however from seeds can be pretty harsh if over done.

I think you will find it will mellow with age but will take a bit of time. (Up to an additional 12 months or more.)
 
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