God I must SUCK at this!

[Wanne]

So I was really excited about a 3 gallon batch of cherry melomel I did. My mistake was adding TWO cans of sweet cherry puree (per recommendation from my brew store dude). But ok. OG was 1.160. Transferred a month later and got a 1.050. Well...my dad was in town for a bit and was hanging stuff in the closet my 3 gallon carboy was in and somehow knocked the airlock off. I'm thinking it was off for about 4 days or so. I gave it a good shake and got the airlock going again so I let it set for a couple weeks.

Did a reading and sitting at 1.040...but it's got a really really bitter taste. Did too much air get into it for a few days? It's honestly bad enough I'm thinking of scrapping it. Just bitter.

My other one I just did I was excited about. Did a strawberry melomel a month ago. This time used one can of strawberry puree...9 lbs honey and Lav V1116. Just did a reading on it and it's sitting at .9940 from what my meager knowledge of reading tells me. Original OG...1.180. Ummm...I'm not a rocket scientist but that 24.4 ABV. **** is like rubbing alcohol. I'm going What. The. F*ck?!?!? Have no clue how this one got so out of control in a month?

So is the strawberry one salvagable? I haven't even done a secondary yet on it...or what to do to improve it from Kerosene. Add another can puree in the secondary?

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

Don't assume the cherry is lost until you've tried backsweetening a sample.

 

[madscientist451]

The "hot" alcohol notes will fade with time. Get some glass jugs, rack it off and forget about it for at least a year, maybe two (or longer).
The batch that came out bitter needs to age as well before doing anything, but stabilizing and back sweetening will probably help.
Your post doesn't mention what your methods are, is this mead just mixed together and put in the closet? Are you doing nutrient additions? Degassing? Choice of yeast and temperature during fermentation are also important.
There are tons of books, videos, blog posts and forums about improved "modern" mead making.
If you like video Q and A, here's a place to start:
https://www.groennfell.com/blog/category/videos

My quick 2 cents:
If you want a mead you can drink without waiting years, make a low ABV "beer strength" mead and follow the modern methods such as degassing, nutrient additions, yeast re-hydration and pitch a proper amount of yeast.

More details can be found here on the basic brewing podcast:
http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/2/8/2/282...54980725&hwt=b9bc9fc05fe2168f2aa12f9f4b7852ef

 

[Maylar]

4 days without an airlock isn't going to oxidize a mead. And bitter isn't characteristic of that anyway. 1.040 should be super sweet, not bitter. Dunno what else could do that.

For future attempts, I suggest controlling your OG to 1.110 or less. Most yeasts get stressed from osmotic shock if you pitch into really high gravity must.

 

[NeverDie]

Maybe start with smaller batches until you get the hang of it. When I first got started with it I was making 5 cup batches, so if it went badly I could just pour it down the drain and not look back. Also, for the same amount of ingredients, you can run many more experiments.

I'm now doing gallon size batches. Soon it will be 2 or 3 gallon size batches.

With mead there's a lot of contradictory information online. It takes a while to sort out what's true and what's myth.