How long in bottle for still mead?

[otherchuck]

Greetings all,

I am making my first batch of mead, and it has been in the secondary fermenter for at least three months...no remote signs of fermentation activity for ages (and a hydrometer check indicated what I believe to be a complete ferment).

I want to put it in bottles now, and...since I am new to this...I am planning to try some flavoring strategies at the bottling phase (to see what I get and to see what I like). For instance, some bottles will be just regular 'unflavored' still mead, but I will probably add a ginger tea to some other bottles. Also, maybe some bottles will get some peach extract or something like that if I can find it in the spice section of my supermarket.

In any case, I am PLANNING for my meads to be mostly uncarbonated. If I use honey-sweetened ginger tea, then I know I can expect some bottle carbonation (and I will be careful not to overdue it, for fear of exploding bottles).

If it is a flavored or unflavored still mead, how long should it ideally stay in the bottle before drinking? I am not even sure that it isn't perfectly drinkable right now, but I am sure some amount of bottle conditioning is universally recommended. If I do any carbonated bottles, how long should those stay in the bottle before drinking?

Thanks!

Otherchuck

 

[zav3nd]

Most people recommend 6 months to 1 year minimum.

But if it tastes good drink it when you will imo. Or set a bottle or two aside to drink later on and discover for yourself if its worth it.

 

[fatbloke]

Greetings all,

I am making my first batch of mead, and it has been in the secondary fermenter for at least three months...no remote signs of fermentation activity for ages (and a hydrometer check indicated what I believe to be a complete ferment).

I want to put it in bottles now, and...since I am new to this...I am planning to try some flavoring strategies at the bottling phase (to see what I get and to see what I like). For instance, some bottles will be just regular 'unflavored' still mead, but I will probably add a ginger tea to some other bottles. Also, maybe some bottles will get some peach extract or something like that if I can find it in the spice section of my supermarket.

In any case, I am PLANNING for my meads to be mostly uncarbonated. If I use honey-sweetened ginger tea, then I know I can expect some bottle carbonation (and I will be careful not to overdue it, for fear of exploding bottles).

If it is a flavored or unflavored still mead, how long should it ideally stay in the bottle before drinking? I am not even sure that it isn't perfectly drinkable right now, but I am sure some amount of bottle conditioning is universally recommended. If I do any carbonated bottles, how long should those stay in the bottle before drinking?

Thanks!

Otherchuck

So, as it stands, presuming that the yeast has finished and it's not a stuck ferment and that there's still some residual sugars or it's finished because it's hit the yeast tolerance but there's still residual sugars, then you can bottle fine.

If it's finished, but there is still some tolerance left to the yeast that you used, if you add fermentable sugars in any form i.e. honey, fruit, whatever, then there's the possibility of refermentation, unless of course, it's been stabilised. So you'd have to use champagne or sparkling wine bottles for safety.

There's plenty of info floating around about bottle priming to deliberately carbonate a batch.

Yes, of course, you could equally use beer bottles and crown caps, but then you have to work out the likely amount of fermentable sugars to add, because beer bottles are designed to take a lower pressure than champagne/sparkling wine bottles.

The batch you allude to, sweetened with honey sweetened ginger tea, would likely be fine in beer bottles, as you probably haven't sweetened the ginger tea enough to be an issue with over pressure problems.

As to the "how long", time-wise question ? it depends entirely on the mead. There's no real "ideal" time, a lot of young meads taste bloody horrible, but you will see improvement in 6 months, and probably greater improvement in 12 months, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're ready then either.

There's anecdotal evidence that some meads continue to improve for periods up to about 8 years, but I can't confirm that as I've not managed to age any for that long - got a couple at the 3 to 4 year point but they were only mediocre meads in the first place......

The main reason you'd find for bulk aging rather than in the bottle, is the home brewers compromise to achieve consistency - equally that enables you to modify a batch if it needs it more easily. Most of us don't have access to temperature/climate controlled storage, so bulk is the next best answer, but it's up to you entirely.......