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Good luck with that. I had a similar experience when in I got an infection after racking (made the cider on 13 December) which manifested as a white fuzz or fur on the top. Later, the airlock dried up and the microbial layer grew. I should pour it down the drain but haven't got around to it yet.

I think the burnt match smell is caused by stressed yeast. Not sure why but that's the reason I've read around these parts. As to what stresses the yeast, it could be a number of things. Insufficient nutrient levels could be one source of this burnt matchstick smell.

The two side by side.

With sloes added to the cider.

The cider I made in January from wilding crab apples.

As far as I am aware, fruits such as elderberries and goosberries lack the nutrients that grapes do.

Maybe "apple wine" refers to a strong type of cider just as "barley wine" refers to a strong type of ale or beer? For me, personally, if it's made from apple juice it's cider even if it's wine strength.

This was in primary for two weeks: started on 26 / 03 / 2015 and racked to secondary on 02 / 04 / 2015. Blossom honey, Harrogate spring water, K1-1116 "Montpellier" white wine yeast, handful of raisins in primary and heaped teaspoon of Youngs yeast nutrient in secondary. Bubbling away nicely.

+ 1 gallon of blossom honey mead. 227.5 + 1 = 228.5

That's unfortunate, sorry to hear it.

I read somewhere that autolysis, although often a source of faults, can on occasion impart desirable characteristics. However, this may be autolysis from a small amount of lees in a bottle rather than a thick bed of lees in a fermentor. I'm thinking, of course, of champagne. Not sure how that...

Last 3 gallons of mead I made, using raw honey, I added the honey cold to cold water. Only heating I did was warming the water to get residual honey out of the pots and into the fermentation vessel.

+1 gallon of raw wildflower honey mead with Evian spring water and Vigo Cider Yeast. 214.5 + 1 = 215.5

Even if it tasted bad I'd struggle through it, unless it's harboring nasties that is.

Raw wildflower honey mead fermented with Vigo Cider Yeast, roughly 11% potential alcohol.

Two gallons, brewed with Nottingham ale yeast.

I made buckwheat honey hydromel mead in February 2014, just over a gallon, with Lalvin d-47 yeast. It's aging and the fumes are intense.

I get where you're coming from but the kits were birthday and Christmas presents respectively lol.

Yesterday, when I was brewing mead (OT I know), the fluid levels were too low to take a hydrometer reading so I resorted to pouring the must into one of the two litre water bottles I'd used to make the honey solution. It worked, just, but I felt bad about it and must have lost something along...

Buckwheat honey mead from February 2014, nearly a year old. Honey was sourced in the UK and I used d-47 yeast. Edit: not sure how to get it the right way up. : /