Mason jars for aging/storage: regrettable?

[dayid]

Started my first mead 11/10/2020.

2 gallons with 71B, 2 gallons with D47.

I've been watching hydrometer every few weeks and had already racked these off the lees in March.

The hydrometer readings have been flat, so I wanted to remove the plugs & airlocks.

For the two D47 gallons I just put on a wax sealed cap to the 1 gallon glass they'd been in.

For the 71B I put it into Mason jars since I had them handy. I've seen a lot of arguments about keeping mead in mason jars. I'm sure my fermentation is done. I'm racked off the lees once already and my jars aren't showing sentiment thanks to filtering when I used my racking cane to transfer the mead.

I have some grolsch flip-tops and other bottles, but I shoved these two gallons into Mason jars. This gave me a nice way to open "some" occasionally. I expect to open some during the winter holidays in 2021 and then maybe keep some even longer.

Should I transfer some of this to wax-sealed, flip-tops, or corked bottles? Had anyone sealed in mason jars and regretted it? They're stored in basement in year round dark and 65-70*F. I'd like to hear actual experience and science behind any yes/no. I've seen a lot of "Oh no! This is the worst idea ever" without any information to back it up, as well as "Yeah, my brother's wife's grandmammy did it all the time."

 

[Dan O]

Started my first mead 11/10/2020.

2 gallons with 71B, 2 gallons with D47.

I've been watching hydrometer every few weeks and had already racked these off the lees in March.

The hydrometer readings have been flat, so I wanted to remove the plugs & airlocks.

For the two D47 gallons I just put on a wax sealed cap to the 1 gallon glass they'd been in.

For the 71B I put it into Mason jars since I had them handy. I've seen a lot of arguments about keeping mead in mason jars. I'm sure my fermentation is done. I'm racked off the lees once already and my jars aren't showing sentiment thanks to filtering when I used my racking cane to transfer the mead.

I have some grolsch flip-tops and other bottles, but I shoved these two gallons into Mason jars. This gave me a nice way to open "some" occasionally. I expect to open some during the winter holidays in 2021 and then maybe keep some even longer.

Should I transfer some of this to wax-sealed, flip-tops, or corked bottles? Had anyone sealed in mason jars and regretted it? They're stored in basement in year round dark and 65-70*F. I'd like to hear actual experience and science behind any yes/no. I've seen a lot of "Oh no! This is the worst idea ever" without any information to back it up, as well as "Yeah, my brother's wife's grandmammy did it all the time."

In my experience, I have had no issues thus far, but, mine all have airlocks & are not sealed with the Mason jar lids.
I hope this helps
Happy meading

 

[bernardsmith]

Not sure how much of a problem it is to store or age wine in mason jars. We use wine bottles or carboys because of the narrow necks. Grolsch bottles are the same. Narrow necks means that if you fill the bottle appropriately there is very little surface area exposed to the air INSIDE the bottle. Corks, caps, bungs with airlocks all adequately seal air from outside. Not hermetic seals but that is OK. If you use a mason jar the surface area of the wine that is in contact with air is relatively speaking far greater. And that is likely to reduce the shelf life of your wine. I write all that knowing that commercial wineries are likely to use barrels to age their wine and the surface area of the wine inside a barrel that is exposed to air is large BUT wine makers constantly top up their barrels (evaporation is a problem) and the surface area exposed is relatively small compared to the total volume of wine... Bottom line, I would argue that unless you really know what you are doing and you have added enough K-meta to provide about 50 ppm of free sulfur in your wine mason jars should not be a first choice. Wax seals are unnecessary and Grolsch bottles, assuming the O-rings are relatively new, seal well enough to hold carbonated beer.

 

[dayid]

I'm not sure I understood that. I understand air exposure - and agree there is slightly more air inside the top of these than in a small necked bottle, but is there any actual information or studies regarding the impact of this? I know very little of wine and only could only even try to compare mead aging to whiskey but since it isn't distilled and also isn't being stored in oak all that knowledge is useless too.

Perhaps I'll make myself the experiment and put some of these into flip-tops and others more into cork and be able to more readily answer regarding this than the answers I've been able to find.

 

[Ty520]

mason jars are designed for long term storage, so I don't think infiltration/contamination is an issue - my biggest concern would be spontaneous re-fermentation turning them into little bottle grenades. (assuming they weren't stabilized)

 

[dayid]

mason jars are designed for long term storage, so I don't think infiltration/contamination is an issue - my biggest concern would be spontaneous re-fermentation turning them into little bottle grenades. (assuming they weren't stabilized)

That's sort of my thought. I know the seals aren't "activated" since I didn't pressure nor water bath them to seal (just warmed lids and then screwed on really tight). I've been tapping the lids to see if I have pressure building up (hopefully before and kabooms). I will definitely keep some in jars just for comparison but likely will transfer some also once my local shop opens again do that I'm not risking an entire batch.

 

[this_is_my_username]

I made watermelon wine that I ended up storing in mason jars. It had been 2 months in primary before I jarred it so I was pretty sure fermentation was finished. It was fine for about 4 more months but then the lids started to push up and deform. I ended up needing to burp them.

 

[dayid]

FWIW this was late June, here in mid-October still sitting flat/fine.