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Several years back, I used to homebrew beer, extract and all grain. I moved away from the friends I used to brew with, to an area with no homebrew supply stores within an hour and horrible water quality. Since then, I married and have a two year old. I figured that I could still have some fun making small batches of mead. I have no one to show me the ropes, so I figured I would experiment and ask this community for help along the way.

So, I started off with a one gallon recipe involving two pounds of local wildflower honey and three pounds of blueberries, which I froze and then mashed. I pitched the yeast and yeast nutrient and 30+ hours later, I can hear the fermentation kicking off quite nicely. So, I had a few questions:

-How long would you recommend keeping the blueberries in primary fermentation?

-With beer, after it's begun fermenting, you want to be gentle when racking to secondary fermentation as I was always told you don't want to oxidize the beer. Does mead work the same way? Is the racking process likewise a delicate process?

-Finally, I have seen many people here leave their mead in secondary fermentation anywhere from one month to one year. What flavor changes do you see in those time periods?

Side Note: I believe this mead will be quite dry. I was planning on it this way as my wife does NOT like semi-sweet wines and does not love most of the meads we've tried, which have probably been aimed at people who don't love beer and wine. I myself really enjoy a drier mead. I thought the tannins from the blueberries and the dryness would be interesting. Yes, I realize I've probably made several mistakes already, BUT you can't learn unless you make mistakes. If you've read this far, thank you for your patience in bearing with my bloated post.
 
First off, Welcome to the gang!

I would treat mead making the same as you have learned from making beer.

Since mead does well with a long aging I would leave the fruit in for a couple weeks. Extra time shouldn't hurt it and it'll give the yeast more time to work on it's sugar.

Gentle rack it to the secondary, just like you would with beer. You don't want to introduce any air borne nasties as the secondary will still have some activity.

The secondary can sit as long as you want but after all fermentation is complete I would get it bottled or kegged. Store it away for as long as you can stand it. I have mead that's several years old and tastes great.
 
Welcome and enjoy the journey.

+1To everything said above.

Bluberries can get pretty astringent and give you some harsh flavors if left too long. 2 weeks or so shouldnt be a problem.

In the future consider a staggered nutrient addition. Look up TOSNA 2.0 or 3.0.

Age for virtually every mead I have made helps immensely. A good mead at 2 or 3 months often will be amazing at 1 to 2 years or more. A mead with some nasty off flavors or hot alcohol like flavors will get significantly better with enough time.

Many of the more harsh flavors will mellow out or completely transform. Think about the difference between a newly fermented beer and one in the keg for 8 to 10 weeks. With mead the flavors meld and mellow and the honey tends to be more pronounced.

Patience is your friend. Early on I have had meads that i thought were destined for dumping but after a few years (in one case 6) were good to very good. Not great but certainly drinkable.

With good practices and protocols you will make some amazing mead.
 
I agree w/ everything above. Patience is the hard one for those of us that want to tinker. Early on I always wanted to be doing SOMETHING with them instead of let them sit. This is turn IMO exposed them to more oxygen and made them come out less than stellar. Be patient and enjoy!
 
Great advice above.

I almost always leave fruit in the fermenter for at least a month. Don’t be afraid to get in there and taste the fruit. When it’s pale and has no flavor, you’ll know the good stuff has gone into the mead.
 
my advice on switching from beer to mead is - dont. go back to beer. mead is really hard to make good imo

it takes a really long time to make it taste good. even with stepped nutrients i havent had great luck.

yeast doenst like honey. it never did. it never will

the result is a lot of weird esters phenols acetaldehyde tasting things. think old cat litter box aromas .

i dont have the patience to age meads the way they need. time will only help meads.


good luck
 
This a post I made last year (with one minor typo) about my Tupelo Honey Mead..it took 3 years to peak. So if you do decide to make mead, don't add anything to it, make it, rack it a few times over the next year, and then forget about it for 2 or 3 years.

"I have this Tupelo Honey mead I made 2020 and I have sampled bottles along and along and people have loved it and I did not not like it but I did not care for it, just something slighly off and today I cracked open my last bottle and after 3 years of aging it is now damn fine. I may have to give it another go and have ready for my 52 B-day"

765965-20230722-143536.jpg
 
my advice on switching from beer to mead is - dont. go back to beer. mead is really hard to make good imo

it takes a really long time to make it taste good. even with stepped nutrients i havent had great luck.

yeast doenst like honey. it never did. it never will

the result is a lot of weird esters phenols acetaldehyde tasting things. think old cat litter box aromas .

i dont have the patience to age meads the way they need. time will only help meads.


good luc,
Fluketamer, Sorry but I gotta disagree with you. While you can make a great mead using 1-1.5 lbs of honey (wildflower, orange-blossom or clover) and that's a mead at about 5-7%, the better the varietal of honey, the more vibrant the aromas and flavors. So, Tupelo, Meadowfoam and the like. This would make a great substitute for a beer. BUT you are unlikely to have any mead ready for quaffing in less than 4 weeks. Most mead makers might allow their mead to clear bright and that MIGHT take 6 months. Many allow their mead to age for 12 -24 months.
The essential issue with honey is that honey has no nutrients that yeast needs to thrive, repair cell walls, and reproduce, so unless you add nutrients, your yeast is going to suffer from stress. Fermaid O, Fermain K Whitelabs beer nutrients or even baker's yeast that you have boiled in a little water in your microwave and have allowed to cool, all provide the missing nitrogen, minerals, and elements.
Typically, unless you know what you are doing, you never want to pitch a yeast into a must that has a greater SG than about 1.105 (3 lbs of honey dissolved in quality water to make 1 US gallon.
I routinely make mead, often session mead, often hopped mead and frequently, historical and indigenous varieties (such as Ethiopian t'ej - the last one typically consumed about a month after pitching the yeast (or starter from a previous batch)). I use 71B, D47 for my mead and my experience is very different from yours. My yeast love the honey I provide, and raw honey is often awash with indigenous yeast. I know cat litter, I know cat peer: we have cats... and my mead taste floral and fruity.
 
I've made a lot of mead and even some of my first batches never smelled or tased like cat litter. Mead takes A LOT more patience and if you aren't patient, you can produce off flavors. Fermaid O (mentioned above by bernardsmith) will solve any yeast stress problems and it's cheap and organic. Take your time and don't rush the process and you'll be fine.
 
I've made a lot of mead and even some of my first batches never smelled or tased like cat litter. Mead takes A LOT more patience and if you aren't patient, you can produce off flavors. Fermaid O (mentioned above by bernardsmith) will solve any yeast stress problems and it's cheap and organic. Take your time and don't rush the process and you'll be fine.
I would also add that fermenting at the lower of the yeast's preferred temperature range will also help reduce off flavors. Mead ain't a mash AND we generally expect and look for a pH a hair or two above 3 but nowhere near the brewer's gold of 5.2 or higher. Our mead (and wine) is essentially a sour beer.
 
In my experience, honey as a singular flavor source, can be quite subtle. Once the sugars are converted to alcohol, the remaining flavors can be subtle. I don't have a great sense of taste and smell. People with better tasting skills the me, have a different experience.

I enjoy mead as a wine strength beverage - but tend to age those for 3-5 years. Mead is a beverage that keeps getting better. I have some meads that are 10 years or older, but that tends to result from the fact they keep getting better with time. That also may mean time is fixing faults in the honey or my skills. The honey I used in central Illinois (Corn and soy bean) needed lots of time. The honey from Florida doesn't .

If I'm making a quick turn around mead, I choose to hold the flavor elements (Fruit) until serving and keep the ABV at or below 8%. A 5-8% ABV mead that gets force carbonated and then bottled can be stored for a very long time. It can also be consumed relatively quickly, when flavoring / sweetening is added at the time of consumption. Mixing with the desired flavor allows the consumer to manage flavor and sweetness.

Hop Head IPA style mead (Internet Search) is a great base recipe to supplement with flavor at the time of consumption.
 
That hop head mead recipe is fine, but you can always also simply dry hop any mead (I tend to dry hop with 1 oz of hops per gallon) and rather than use common or garden IPA hops, I look for more "exotic" varieties such as Nelson Sauvin, Vic Secret or Mosaic. I also tend to hop low ABV "short" (AKA session) mead - around 1.5 lbs of honey to the gallon.
 
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