First Mead Batch--Cloudy and Tastes Weird

[vikingchick]

So I started my first batch of mead on January 16, 2015 and it is now June 13, racking day. I wasn't comfortable racking earlier because I lived in a really moldy house and didn't want to contaminate, so I waited til I moved. It also went through lots of temp changes b/c my house was drafty with unreliable heaters that would randomly turn on, making the room 75 degrees (ish), or as soon as they turned off it would get down to the high 50s.

Long story short, it's been fermenting for 5 mos now and I tested the gravity today. Perfect 0%!! However, the mead was really cloudy even though I drew my sample from the top, careful not to disturb sediment. I tasted it and so did my bf and it was super acidic and alcoholic tasting (like somewhere between wine and spirits), with a yeasty, bready-tasing finish. I'd really hate to throw it out.

Do you think I messed up and contaminated it or did something wrong with the yeast and nutrient? Do you think it is safe to rack and let age to see if it mellows out? (I don't anticipate bottling it any time soon). Answers much appreciated, thanks!

 

[fuelish]

S Do you think it is safe to rack and let age to see if it mellows out? (I don't anticipate bottling it any time soon). Answers much appreciated, thanks!

Definitely OK to rack and wait....heck you can/may need to rack again in the future - perhaps you should have racked a lil sooner, 5 mos is a long time in primary, but, what's done ot not done is already done or not, so...go for it....only thing you have to lose is some fermentor space and time....mead flavor can change a lot over it's lifetime, usually for the better

 

[MarshmallowBlue]

At 6 months, you might want to think about adding a dose of bentonite to help aid the clearing process if it is sluggish on its own. But yeah it's safe to rack.

 

[Paul_F]

I'm curious, what yeast did you use? I'm a relative noob, but the fine folks here have made me aware that some yeasts are more temp sensitive than others...

Sanitize up a second container, rack it, and wait...
And my assumtion is that the alcohol content at this point will kill any stray mold spores...

 

[bernardsmith]

I wonder if you might share your recipe and your processes. My experience with mead is that it clears bright after a two or three months so there may be something happening that is causing the cloudiness.
Also a perfect 1.000 is not necessarily the end of the road. Think about it: the density of water is nominally 1.000 but alcohol is less dense than water and so any mixture that contains water and alcohol could be less than 1.000. If your mead is at 1.000 that suggests to me that there is still sugar from the honey that the yeast has not YET got at.. and that suggests that they might still be fermenting your mead - albeit it at a very slow rate these days..
That said, one possible reason for cloudiness is that the CO2 produced by the yeast is still trapped in the liquid. That gas can inhibit the yeast from flocculating and dropping out of suspension. Have you degassed your mead? Did you start your fermentation in a loosely covered bucket that you stirred a couple of times a day to incorporate air into the mead and remove CO2? You don't want to introduce air at this point but you may want to check out ways to degas your mead.

 

[Frognostic]

Did you use an ale yeast?

I ask this because I made two gallons of mead with Nottingham ale yeast at the end of January and it is still cloudy now late in June. It's still showing signs of fermentation too.

 

[Matrix4b]

General rule, if it's cloudy, it's not done yet. If it has taken a while, use a fining agent. Then wait. With a rare exception or two you should be able to read newsprint through it if it is in glass. If you can't read through it due to the type of mead, like a blueberry or a chocolate or other dark meads, it still should be an even color, not cloudy.

When it clears, you can then rack it and bulk age or bottle it and age it in the bottle. I would wait at least 6 months if not a full year of aging.

Matrix

 

[vikingchick]

@Frognostic--I honestly can't remember what yeast I used. I know it was some kind of wine yeast that the guy from my local brew shop helped me with and said was the best for cooler temps.

@bernardsmith and Matrix4b--My recipe was from a book I used, following the directions as far as all the technical components (yeast, nutrient, etc.), but I added flavoring in the form of spices, some dried oranges and ginger. I also read somewhere you can add flavor by replacing the hot water with tea, so I used Market Spice black tea (lots of cinnamon, ginger, clove). I'm not sure how much that would affect it unless one of them has a chemical in it that interferes.

However, it also said not to stir or introduce air because it will affect the taste and possibly create a higher risk of contamination. I guess I actually should have stirred then? It mentioned nothing about CO2, which I wished I had known about sooner. Flocculating is when it forms brownish clumps of yeast floating around the top, yes? I was looking at it yesterday in the glass carboy and it is doing that. But the rest of what you say confirms my suspicions that it isn't done fermenting because there is still so much sediment coming off of it even after I racked. How would one degas it, is there special equipment?

@MarshmallowBlue--Bentonite as in bentonite clay, or something completely different?

Thanks to you all for helping a clueless brewer!

 

[bernardsmith]

@Frognostic--I honestly can't remember what yeast I used. I know it was some kind of wine yeast that the guy from my local brew shop helped me with and said was the best for cooler temps.

@bernardsmith and Matrix4b--My recipe was from a book I used, following the directions as far as all the technical components (yeast, nutrient, etc.), but I added flavoring in the form of spices, some dried oranges and ginger. I also read somewhere you can add flavor by replacing the hot water with tea, so I used Market Spice black tea (lots of cinnamon, ginger, clove). I'm not sure how much that would affect it unless one of them has a chemical in it that interferes.

However, it also said not to stir or introduce air because it will affect the taste and possibly create a higher risk of contamination. I guess I actually should have stirred then? It mentioned nothing about CO2, which I wished I had known about sooner. Flocculating is when it forms brownish clumps of yeast floating around the top, yes? I was looking at it yesterday in the glass carboy and it is doing that. But the rest of what you say confirms my suspicions that it isn't done fermenting because there is still so much sediment coming off of it even after I racked. How would one degas it, is there special equipment?

@MarshmallowBlue--Bentonite as in bentonite clay, or something completely different?

Thanks to you all for helping a clueless brewer!

First of all you are not clueless. You may not have a great deal of experience but don't knock yourself. There are lots of people in this world who are too eager to knock you. You don't need to assist them.

In wine making - and that includes mead, sediment can drop out of the wine for months and months - nothing to do with the fact that the wine is still fermenting. Rather it has to do with various chemical reactions that are taking place in the wine and how those reactions may attract (or repel) various other microscopic particles. When those particles clump together their weight may allow them to drop out of suspension and they then fall to the bottom as sediment. Of course any gas in the wine will tend to keep those particles apart and in suspension (hence the cloudiness).
Flocculation is the term for those particles clumping and dropping out of suspension. You can see this happening to the yeast because as the yeast die they kind of gather and drop to the bottom as sediment and lees. So, for example, after a couple of weeks you might find that there is about a quarter inch of sediment at the bottom of the carboy..
What you may be seeing towards the top is the particles of spices and fruit from the tea that the CO2 is forcing towards the top.
Regarding sanitization and contamination: as long as anything that comes into contact with the wine is sanitized you are not going to contaminate the mead. I know that brewers are neurotic about the possibility of contamination but here's the difference why wine makers are laid back about this.
1. We generally avoid heat - brewing starts with (OK not quite at the beginning but close to it at 212 F and then forces the wort to drop down to about 65F - that window of warmth is an Eden for bacteria.
2. The acidity of wine is greater than that of beer (you might find that your honey has a pH of about 3.5 when it starts to ferment).
3. Grains seem to attract all kinds of souring bacteria but the yeast you pitch will very quickly create an environment that suits it and which inhibits competing yeast and almost any bacteria.

Last point, while the yeast is reproducing and repairing itself it really , really needs oxygen - not a huge amount but it needs some. Oxygen is at that point good for the yeast and neutral for the wine. After all the sugar that the yeast was chewing on has been converted to alcohol and CO2 ( half the weight of the sugar is converted to CO2) the wine (not the yeast) does not want oxygen- air at that point is not needed by the yeast and is bad for the wine. So... while there is still a significant amount of sugar in the mead or wine for the yeast to ferment it makes good sense to stir some air into the wine. If your wine started with about 2 lbs of sugar / gallon of liquid the gravity reading would be about 1.080 until it drops to around 1.010 I would stir air into the bucket. That stirring also helps remove some of the CO2 and CO2 tends to inhibit the work of the yeast- so you are "de-stressing" the yeast also.
There is another reason for stirring during the first few days of fermentation. It seems that when you examine your mead or wine under a microscope you would see that the yeast is not uniformly distributed throughout the wine. The yeast collect at various levels in any one vessel. Now, while this may not be much of a problem if you are fermenting one gallon or even five gallons if you ferment large batches of must (the liquor before it becomes wine) these bands of yeast rich levels and yeast poor levels affect the quality of the fermentation so what you do is regularly stir the wine to help ensure a more random distribution of yeast cells. If you stir first thing in the morning and late in the evening you are giving your wine the air, removing CO2 and distributing the yeast more equally... and your wine will thank you for that. But just be sure to sanitize the rod or spoon you stir the mead with. Wine makers use a chemical abbreviated and called K-meta to sanitize their equipment . This chemical produces sulfur dioxide and sulfur dioxide is a powerful bactericide.

 

[vikingchick]

The good news is I can read a book through it, must have just needed to settle. It is now resting in my closet in a carboy with a rubber cork and airlock in it. That's the only stopper I had, should I have used a solid rubber stopper? I was afraid of it bursting if there was too much pressure from CO2 or something.

To sanitize, I used diluted bleach, which I probably wouldn't do again because of the hassle and I know there are better methods out there. I've seen some products (sulfites?) you can add to a cold must in lieu of boiling or using bleach. Is K-meta one of them?
I got a red flag "uh-oh" moment when you mentioned how in wine-making you don't start with a hot liquid, and my recipe called for boiling the water/tea, honey and spices both to bring out the initial flavors, and also kill off anything that may have gotten in there. I watched numerous YouTubes on mead making at home and most if not all boiled first. (However, we all know YouTube isn't necessarily the most reliable source).
I started with the boiling mix that I then let cool a bit on the stove, covered, before pouring into my bucket and waiting till it got down to 65, which took a couple of hours. That sounds to me like I created a bacteria-friendly window. After that, I added my yeast and nutrient and stirred a bunch before putting the top on. I'll definitely check out the K-meta, especially if it means I can skip all the heating/cooling which is a headache anyway, and from what I gather creates more of a breeding ground due to wait time and going through the danger zone of temp.

I'll be starting a new batch as soon as I have the time and money for supplies, and I definitely will stir it. This first batch took a long time to get going, and I had to pitch twice. My airlock was also not doing much bubbling, which could've been just a faulty one or just the low temperature of my house killing of my yeast. So then, from what I understand, introducing some oxygen will most likely speed up the process and help the yeast thrive.

 

[bernardsmith]

Bleach does not mix with corks. You should use K-meta to sanitize and not bleach. You can make a tea with spices or herbs but if you are boiling the water to make that brew I would allow it to cool to room temperature before adding the honey. You can then add a campden tab to the cooled tea to kill any bacteria and yeast that may have settled on the surface, but then you want to allow the SO2 to evaporate off so you don't add the yeast for 24 hours after you added campden tabs (K-meta is a more concentrated version of these tablets).

 

[Frognostic]

The good news is I can read a book through it, must have just needed to settle. It is now resting in my closet in a carboy with a rubber cork and airlock in it. That's the only stopper I had, should I have used a solid rubber stopper? I was afraid of it bursting if there was too much pressure from CO2 or something.

Imo using an airlock at this stage is not a bad idea if you haven't added anything like sorbate to kill off the yeasts or any other microbes. Primary fermentation may have finished but there are other biochemical processes that could happen from here on, which result in the release of gasses. Furthermore, it may be that the mead will slowly release C02 gas trapped within it so having a pressure release mechanism may be the best thing.

I made a clear elderberry wine that I took a hydrometer reading of at about six months after I started it, said it was finished. I put a solid rubber bung in it and a week or so later the bung blew out with an almighty bang.