Awesome advice,
I am patient (lazy) and have no problem aging my wines...Unfortunately I am doing this with a group of University students, therefore bottling must occur at the end of the academic year, allowing for 6 months of fermentation.
That's easy, just make a JAO batch. 3 months to ferment and clear (it's a bit of a bugger to rack off, as the bread yeast sediment is brought back into suspension very easily) just move the carboy the day before to the place where the actual racking will occur, then rack carefully - if the fruit has all sunk then there's no danger of any sediment off it. Rack down to the level where you feel confident that you haven't picked up any sediment, into bottles. Then take an old pop/soda bottle (plastic with the 4 molded feet) and cut the top off it - rack the rest into that (a little sediment doesn't matter), then cover it with cling wrap and put it in the fridge over night. The next day, any sediment should have settled into the molded feet of the bottle base. Move it a couple of hours before you actually rack the last bit out, that way, any sediment that does get disturbed, should have settled back down. Bingo! minimised racking losses....
A - It's my understanding that yeast have a harder time fermenting residual sugars the higher that the ABV% is...So my approach is to make a 9% ABV mead. I intend to use a mead-specific yeast strain for flavor, but I am wondering whether I should add an aggressive wine yeast towards the end of primary fermentation in order to reduce the time required for those residual sugars to be metabolized...Does this make sense? or would the mead-specific yeast be aggressive enough to accomplish this on it's own, provided that it is capable of ferrmenting high ABV%s.....?
Most wine yeasts will handle 14% ABV easily. A 100 point gravity drop equates to about 13.5% ABV. The levels that you're alluding to are when you're needing something like a 133 point drop which is about the 18% mark. Which is also doable, with a few extra bits of fermentation management.
"Mead specific" yeast is complete bollocks. How in hells name to "they" know what yeasts were originally used to call something a "mead yeast" ? There's no records that far back that would enable "them" to identify the original strain. In any case, if you looked up historic/archaic recipes, you get stuff like "adding slices of moldy bread", so the strain could be anything (or as is more likely, advertising/marketing bull, just to sell more yeast).
Plus, some of the so called "mead yeasts" are hard work e.g. the wyeast sweet mead yeast is notorious for stuck ferments, not starting and other issues. Yes, it's fair to point out that some have had success with it, but I'm not one of those. I've tried it with varying gravity musts 3 times and all 3 times it's failed to start.
The late Brother Adam (of Buckfast Abbey bee breeding, mead making fame) originally used "Maury" yeast - the closest we (me and some others from over at Gotmead) have got to identifying that, is Lalvin D21. When Bro Adam couldn't get that, he changed to using the Montpellier strain, which used to be packaged as Gervin Varietal "E", also, conveniently, it's the same as the Lalvin K1-V1116 strain.
He also said that only "soft" water should be used, as hard water can give some "off" flavours.
Apart from the issue of "mead yeast" being, possibly, hard work. It seems that if you insist on wanting to use liquid yeasts, then make a starter. A pack of dry yeast has many times the number of yeast cells that a pack of liquid yeast has.
B - Regarding the yeast sediment in bottle primed sparkling mead...I know that this is more of a wine, but I really don't understand why this is any more of an issue than it is with beer...Typically I put the bottle in the fridge for a day or two, and you can pour most of the bottle without disturbing the sediment too much....
That's fine. If you have a steady enough hand to leave any sediment from bottle conditioning in the bottle, then great. Though it can affect the appearance as you've already alluded to, plus should anyone who might have some sort of yeast allergy get some, then I wouldn't like to predict who'd get nailed to the mast for that.......
Your choice!
C - Throughout bulk aging, it's my understanding that the composition of the mead changes. I would like to know a general overview of what chemical reactions are occuring that result in this change of flavor...
Haven't actually found any info about the exact detail of what happens, other than experience that has taught me that many young meads just taste bloody horrible. One of the regular "off" tastes you will experience, is "alcohol hot". Now as long as it's not something like fusels produced by the ferment (example being D47 fermented at over 70F/21C - despite it having a published temperature ability above that level, but it seems to be a "mead thing"), then the only way to explain it, is that "it mellows with time". It's often gone in 6 months to a year. Other flavours also change, like sometimes you'd get a batch that seems almost bland, maybe flabby, but with time, it seems to recover some of the honey notes/characteristics and with that, some perceived sweetness (not actual, measurable sweetness).
D - It's my understanding that temperature stability is an important factor in terms of the changing chemical composition of the mead during bulk aging, hence why bottling early poses the risk of inconsistency due to climactic fluctuation. Would it therefore be sensible to insulate each individual bottle by wrapping them in a towel/paper, in addition to storing them in a relatively temperature-stable room?
E - If temperature stability is important for the changing chemical composition of the mead during aging, does this therefore imply that cold crashing should only be executed prior to bottling, or would it be equally acceptable to cold crash prior to racking throughout the aging process (after fermentation is complete)?
Any method that might reduce temperature swings while it's ageing could be considered beneficial. Just that thanks to historical technique from the wine world, it's been found that, apparently, the ideal storage temp for ageing is in the low to mid-50's. I seem to recall that this was found, pretty much accidentally, by French vineyards who would store their product in dry, cool caves.
What's actually happening with these gentle, slow chemical changes in meads is anyones guess. Whether there is any academic study on them, I don't know. I haven't found any, but that doesn't mean there isn't any. Just remember, that the resurgence in interest in meads and their making, is a relatively recent thing. So it hasn't been put under as much scrutiny as wine making. Even with wines, it's the older, more historic types that have received most investigation.
As for temperature stability, as I alluded to before. Most of us don't have the facility to mimick a cool, dry cave or some spooky underground wine cellar. The nearest we can get to is to find the coolest practical place, that is frost/cold free and bulk store. Then at least we get a consistent product i.e. the home brew compromise. Apart from anything else, a 5 gallon carboy, takes up less room than the equivalent amount in individual bottles.
Cold crashing is usually done to help a brew clear quicker. Whether the low temp actually changes the electrical charge of the yeast/sediment or what, I don't know. Other than to say that it helps some/most meads clear quicker.
Also, those who insist on making high gravity musts because they want X amount of residual sugars left, have also noted that because the stabilising technique doesn't actually "kill" the yeast off (the sulphite stuns the yeast and the sorbate stops it multiplying), that the cold crashing process does to the yeast, what the onset of winter does. Puts it to sleep/hybernation. Plus as it helps it drop out of suspension quicker, it means that it's more easily racked off, so that the addition of stabilising chems stops any further, possible refermentation.
It's not a 100% guaranteed method, but it's been found to work and seems quite effective. The amount of time for the batch to be chilled seems to vary, as to who's experiences you're reading about, but it would appear that about a week or so at 1 to 4C/34 to 39F does the trick. Whether you have access to a fridge that will accommodate a 5 gallon fermenter for a whole week without receiving ear ache from your nearest and dearest is a completely different question........
p.s. as an "aside'', I've just had a quick look at google. The first link that seems to come from a "credible" authority was on the 8th page of god alone knows how many pages. So
this link might have some of the info you're looking to get. There was a few bits from winemaker magazine about meads, but after checking the first 15 pages of results, I couldn't see anything that looked even remotely like academic research. It was all forums, blogs, etc i.e. basically anecdotal.
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