Advice needed for a first timer

[wayned10]

I'm looking to get my first batch of simple mead started this weekend, I want it to be ready for my wedding in May. I just purchased two used 5 gallon glass carboys last night, one seems bigger than the other. My initial question would be, what is the shelf life on a bottle of mead? Say if I wanted to save a bottle to drink on our 5th anniversary, does it continue to get better with age or will it sour? I also live in Florida, so it stays pretty warm year round, would an interior closet be acceptable temp wise for the fermentation process? It seems to remain pretty cool in there. Any other advice would be much appreciated! Thanks

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

Keep it below 75 if you can during fermentation. It will produce fusel alcohols (hot tasting, like boos). Aging is a little more tolerant to temps. Yes you can age them for a long time and they will get better. You can age them in wine bottles or beer bottles.

 

[wayned10]

Excellent, thank you! I thought about doing a mixture of bottles, custom 1-3oz bottles with labels as favor for the wedding, and the remaining in wine/beer bottles. Another question would be, what is the shelf life once a bottle has been opened? Wine bottle size or growler, I would think can hold up longer in the fridge but I want to make sure I get the most of it.

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

I can go about 2 weeks before I notice any negative effects.

 

[bernardsmith]

Others on this forum may disagree but I would suggest that you age your mead in bulk rather than bottle in 3 oz bottles. A few weeks before the wedding you might bottle them but bulk aging meads and wines always seems to improve the drink in ways that bottling in small bottles does not.

 

[wayned10]

Oh I fully plan to leave it in bulk for 7-8 months before bottling, which is why I have two 5 gallon carboys. I may transfer to a new carboy after 4 months so I can remove any sediments, I want the final product to be as smooth as possible. The 3oz bottles will be hand labeled and filled, then the neck dipped in wax after corking, should make a great gift for our guests.

 

[noblesquirrel]

Oh I fully plan to leave it in bulk for 7-8 months before bottling, which is why I have two 5 gallon carboys. I may transfer to a new carboy after 4 months so I can remove any sediments, I want the final product to be as smooth as possible. The 3oz bottles will be hand labeled and filled, then the neck dipped in wax after corking, should make a great gift for our guests.

I did this for my wedding favors, but we did 7oz bottles. 3oz is pretty small, imo. We used crowns rather than corks and then waxed on top of that in two colors. We have a case left that we're tasting annually. Unfortunately, there is a lot of stuff I wish I had done differently to improve the mead, but it still is nice enough.

 

[wayned10]

Well I wrote a reply and it never posted, trying again. We decided to go with 3oz bottles because we have family coming from out of town and not everyone likes to check bags when they fly. We plan to have lots of it to drink at the wedding, this would just be a souvenir they could take home, maybe save it for the holidays and make a festive drink by adding spices. I may bottle a few different sizes after the initial 3oz bottles, to use as tasters and presents for in town friends.

 

[NZ-beekeeper]

I'm not so sure of others on this site, but being a beginner myself, with only 1 batch completed (i.e. skulled), and 2 more in the spout, I would like to offer the advice of brewing a tea (regular black, or Earl Grey, I used Dilmah) and using this instead of plain water. I followed according to this recipe:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f80/vanilla-mead-31698/

Sorry don't know how to link it properly, copy and paste into your browser if it doesn't work. I did this recipe for my birthday (which was only a month away), and the results were great. It was clearer than crystal, and very very smooth, even at only 1 month old. I was on the cheap, so seeing as I only had one vanilla pod in the cupboard, I used that and no extract. Even in just a gallon, the flavour of vanilla is totally absent, even if you picture it while tasting. Fermented for 2 weeks, racked, left in secondary for 2 weeks, then bottled the day or 2 before the event. 1 bottle of 4 is left (now about 6 weeks in the bottle). I cracked the third last week and it was gooood. I hope my next batch hurries on up so I can save the last of my first batch til next year!

Honestly though, I think the tea is a properly good idea (the resulting drink has no detectable taste of tea at all, even the colour is pale after ferment). It must have tannin or nutrient that the yeast can use, and which is absent in plain honey.

Good luck with the wedding by the way!

 

[wayned10]

Thanks beekeeper! I may have to try a batch using Earl Grey tea later, maybe a small batch as a tester.

The job has been done for now, a 5 gallon batch with 15lbs local raw orange blossom honey, 1 large orange zested and squeezed, and 1 package of Wyeast Sweet Mead yeast, initial hydrometer reading of 1.103 (adjusted for water temp of 80 degrees) before adding yeast and capping (this will be the mead for the wedding).

The smaller 1 gallon batch has 3lbs Clover honey, EC-1118 yeast, 1 orange zested and squeezed, raisins (cut in half), 1 cinnamon stick (split), pinch of allspice and nutmeg, and 1/8th tsp of ground clove. Forgot to grab the reading before adding yeast, so decided to take it after, reading was 1.095. Hopefully everything works out, since I didn't see any initial activity.

 

[NZ-beekeeper]

Nice! looks similar to my setup. Just watch the orange peel. I did a spiced mead with similar spices (secondary now), but the orange peel is rather overpowering.

 

[wayned10]

Thanks, I will keep that in mind! I love a good orange flavor, I actually used a vegetable peeler so the zest remained in larger pieces, so hopefully that works out. I would assume after I rack to secondary it should have 4-5 months to mellow out slightly, the 1 gallon batch should be stronger than the 5 gallon batch since they both contain a whole Florida naval orange (by far the sweetest).

 

[wayned10]

Well my 5 gallon batch is still bubbling great, but the 1 gallon batch has basically stopped (can still see small bubbles rising in the mixture, but nothing in the bubbler), does that seem way too fast for just a week and should I plan to rack to a secondary soon?

 

[bernardsmith]

Looking at your photos I have a concern that there may be too much headroom in the carboy and jug. Others may disagree (and I know my LHBS owner looks at me when I suggest that he underfills his carboys, but IMO, if you really intend to age your mead for 7 months or more then you want the top of the mead to be just inside the mouth of the carboy so that thee is virtually no headroom for air to act on the mead to oxidize it.
Now, I know that with some very high ABV meads folk talk about aging the mead for decades rather than years or months and that suggests that there is little fear that mead oxidizes easily but I am a skeptic in the bone and I would suggest that you may want to rack the mead into a smaller carboy so that it is filled full and store the remainder in still smaller vessels (gallon or half gallon or 1/3 or 1/4 gallon containers)

 

[wayned10]

I filled both up to the 5 gallon and 1 gallon markers, wouldn't adding more dilute the recipe? I can always add more water to the tops and stir, but other members warned about overflow into the bubbler. I don't have any smaller containers on hand or the required space to store them, since we currently live in a small apartment while looking for a house. I have a larger 6 gallon glass carboy I was planning to transfer the 5 gallon batch to for stage 2, will this make it even worse or should I transfer just long enough to clean and sanitize the 5 gallon carboy then siphon back?

 

[wayned10]

Well I added a ½ tsp of nutrients to the 1 gallon batch about 10 days ago, this made it very active for a week but has really stopped in the last few days. It's now pretty light in color and only producing about 1 bubble a minute in the bubbler, there is a lot of sediment at the bottom of the jug as well. Should I leave it be for another week then move to secondary or plan to do that this weekend?

 

[wayned10]

I went ahead and racked the 1 gallon batch to a fresh jug, it was close to a bubble every few minutes, took a quick gravity reading and it is at 1.002 which should put it around 12.21% alcohol so far.