Ageing temp

[jim_reaper1066]

Just racked my blueberry melomel to a 5 gal carboy onto a pound of honey, it looks great but the drop i tested tastes horrible. Still a young mead, I know, hopefully will age out later. Im lucky to have a room devoted to fermentation which can be kept at a steady 20 degrees as long as the outside temp is a little lower, which will let me keep my mead at a constant temp until May sometime, 3 months after putting it on. Afterward Im at the mercy of the summer heat. By this point my mead will be racked into a carboy for extended ageing, so how much will temp impact it? Will fluctuations in temp from 20-30 degrees hurt the ageing process?

Also as a side question, I only have 1 5 gal carboy, the rest being 6-6.5 gal. Will racking to a 6 gal, cleaning the 5 then racking back without any splashing be ok? or is that still too much exposure to oxygen?

 

[summersolstice]

20 is perfect for aging but 30 is a little warm. If that all you have though, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just keep it dark.

It's ok to do as you propose with the spare carboy - just keep splashing to a minimum. When I have to do something similar, I try to let it run down the inside of the carboy.

 

[BierSnob]

when racking I make sure the tube is sterilized and set the new carboy a Little higher so the tubing is laying on the bottom until the carboy is about 1/2 to 2/3 full and then move it lower to prevent splashing.

 

[jim_reaper1066]

Cool, thanks for the imput guys. Summer, Iv read so many of your posts and they helped me get my first brew started. Now I have a question directly for you: to take you up on your tag line, what would be a good mead for breakfast? I think I would live a happy life if I could wake up and have some mead with my morning rye bread and cheese, a nice viking meal to fit my modern viking lifestyle.

 

[summersolstice]

Goddag reaper - Perhaps you could try a tart berry mead instead of juice or a coffee mead to add to or replace your morning java. I'd think a tasty cyser would go well with eggs and ham or bacon. As for a supplement to the viking breakfast you mentioned, I'd go with a traditional mead. Skål!

 

[jim_reaper1066]

haha, thanks for the suggestions. When my 1 gallon cabrboys are free I'll have to put on some breakfast meads!

 

[liquiditynerd]

my blueberry bushes overheard your conversation......cheers

 

[jim_reaper1066]

Well that was a time consuming process! Just racked my blueberry mead onto another 1 lb clover honey, after sanitizing a 2nd carboy, racking into that, cleaning and sanitizing the 5 gal carboy, then racking back into it. This took way longer then expected, and I really should have seen this as being a problem beforehand. Although I know the importance of not oxidizing something in the ageing process I'm pretty sure this mead got a little splashed around in the end. I'll going to invest in another 5 gal. carboy when the next racking comes up.