Mead help?

[Insomniac]

My first attempt at mead had just reached the 1 bubble every 4 - 5 seconds rate and there was a fair bit of dead yeast at the bottom so I racked it to a secondary.

It's now doing a bubble once every 50 seconds or so, though I imagine it will take a bit of time for the yest to recover after the move anyway.

I've been a little worried at the smell from this mead for a few days as it was quite "tangy" and tasting a tiny amount of it during the transfer I would say it's clearly alcoholic, but tastes of very little at all. This surprised me a bit because I thought I had put in more honey than the yeast would convert as I was aiming for quite a sweet mead.
I follow instructions found here: http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/brew-1-gallon-of-honey-wine-mead.htm for this particular batch, only I used 6 pots of honey (340g each) which I make to be about 4.5 lb?

Is this normal? Does it just need to be aged for the remaning 3 - 4 months or have I done something silly along the way? There were no visual signs of mold in the primary during fermentation or on cleaning it after.

Any help much appriciated!

 

[jscholtes]

Sounds like a young mead to me. Mead can take quite a while to age out to mellow the alcoholic heat and actually taste good.

 

[Insomniac]

Thanks for the feedback! I won't panic about it yet then and leave it for a few months to see how it goes.

 

[PUGBREW]

it just takes time to let all the flavors mellow and you will have something good. Time is the virtue here.

 

[commonsenseman]

Is this a 1 gallon batch? Did you use the D-47 yeast he suggested?

If so, you're looking at a OG of about 1.162 (very high) & an FG of around 1.055 (also very high). D-47 will work til around 14% ABV leaving you with a crap ton of residual sugars.

 

[Insomniac]

Yeah, just one gallon using d47. I tried to keep to the instructions as close as possible apart from upping the sweetness a bit. I used two teaspoons of a combined nutrient/energiser called Tronozymol, not sure if that would make a difference or not?

 

[commonsenseman]

Yeah, just one gallon using d47. I tried to keep to the instructions as close as possible apart from upping the sweetness a bit. I used two teaspoons of a combined nutrient/energiser called Tronozymol, not sure if that would make a difference or not?

Well, like i said, it'll probably finish pretty sweet. If you like that, then more power to ya!

The nutrient/energizer is always a good idea, especially in a traditional mead like yours. If it's really bad, like sulfur taste, it's possible your yeast was stressed by the high gravity though. Now that fermentation is over, your best bet is to let it age for a while & hope it gets better.

Here's hoping!

 

[Insomniac]

I like my mead sweet so if it ends up overly sweet then that works for me! Cheers for the advise, I'll leave it be for a while and just hope it comes out ok!

 

[Insomniac]

If so, you're looking at a OG of about 1.162 (very high) & an FG of around 1.055 (also very high).

I just got my Hydrometer through the post, and it only goes up too 1.112 (I think? The numbering is a little confusing...), I had previously calculated my OG using the PDF in the FAQ to be 1.118, which is already off the scale. How did you get to 1.162, are you missing an extra 1 in there?

 

[commonsenseman]

I used this calculator & based it on 4.5lbs of honey in 1 gallon. Sugar content varies a little from honey to honey, but not too much. D-47 will work to approximately 14%, under good conditions. I used the "Potential Alcohol Conversion" part of the calculator to figure that it would finish around 1.055 after getting to 14%.

If you used less that 4.5lbs or if you're not sure how much you used, then my numbers could be way off.

 

[Insomniac]

Do you have a link to the calculator? There's probably a greater chance of my maths being wrong!

 

[mmadmikes1]

http://grapestompers.com/calculations.asp

 

[Insomniac]

cheers!

Edit:
After folling that link and some thurther googling I eventually ended up here: http://brew.stderr.net/mead_og_calc.html
Where I was able to play around with the numbers, seems the issue is that my "1 Gallon" jug is actually 5L, which makes more of a difference to the SG than I was expecting!
That site gives 1.166 for a gallon assuming 15% moisture and 1.126 for a 5L batch. Confusion over!
Thanks all!

 

[commonsenseman]

Crap, i forgot the link. Anyway it's the GotMead? Calculator on their website.

5L sure makes sense now!

 

[Insomniac]

Hi all,
While I'm not giving up on this batch quite yet it still hasn't regained any of the normal mead smell and if anything smells like wine thats started to oxidise slightly.

Would it make sence at this point to bottle it up to at least get the fermenter free or should I leave it where it is so I can keep an eye on it?

 

[fatbloke]

Hi all,
While I'm not giving up on this batch quite yet it still hasn't regained any of the normal mead smell and if anything smells like wine thats started to oxidise slightly.

Would it make sense at this point to bottle it up to at least get the fermenter free or should I leave it where it is so I can keep an eye on it?

To start with, when working out gravities (using forms etc), a lot of them will be biased toward the US (just happens to be where a lot of them have been developed). So from that, remember that a lot of people will then presume 1 US gallon (about 3.78 litres from memory) and not 1 imperial gallon a.k.a. 4.55 litres. Hence it's best to use a hydrometer, which should give you a pretty accurate reading (if the must temperature is pretty close to the hydrometers calibration temp - which will either be on the actual scale or with instructions/info that came with it).

For a 1 imp gallon batch, 4 and 1/2 lb of honey is a lot..... I tend to use about 3 to 3 and 1/2 lb per gallon, or a starting gravity of about 1.100 to 1.110 (depends on the honey and % of water it contains).

As for taste, well it depends on the actual honey. You mention using 340g jars, which suggests "supermarket" honey (irrespective of whether it's branded like Gales or Rowse, or cheapo "value" stuff). Excluding the Rowse varietal range, most of them are blended for eating and not mead making. It's a "rule of thumb", that the better quality the honey, the better the mead. Which doesn't mean that you have to pay the most.

Oxfordshire is rural enough to have a bee keeping society, so with that in mind, you should be able to track down some raw, or at least, just filtered honey that tastes good. If it's been heated or god forbid, pasteurised, then it might have lost some of the more subtle aromas/flavour (the only heating I use, is if the honey is too solid to pour from the jar, jug, bucket etc, then it's just stood in a sink full of hand hot water until it's liquified enough be poured - doesn't have to be too runny, just enough to get it into the fermenter, adding water and mixing does the rest).

If, as it sounds, you did just use "supermarket" honey, then don't worry, you can still get round some of this. The main factor will be age. My first batch was made with cheap somerfield stuff, I also used Youngs high alcohol/dessert wine yeast. It did taste pretty rank to start with, but after the various stabilising, clearing, etc processes and ageing it for about 12 months, it wasn't bad at all. You'll be amazed how meads change and mellow/improve with age.

As for sweet meads, well I tried/tested 4 different UK commercially made meads a couple of years back and they all showed that they were in the 1.035 to 1.045 range and were labelled as being 14% ABV. They were cloyingly over sweet. I've found that to my taste, sweet means a maximum of about 1.020

What I tend too do to get most out of the profile of whatever honey I'm using, is to mix to the maximum as per the numbers above (1.100 to 1.000, or 1.110 to 1.000, presuming that 1.000 is dry - it's not really but it's hard to guess/calculate exactly where a yeast will stop) the 100 point drop will give me about 13.5% ABV and the 110 point drop will give me about 14.9 to 15% ABV. So when it's finished etc I then bulk age it for at least 6 months, though more normally 12 months. Then it's tasted to see how it's getting on and whether it needs anything else doing to it. The only exception, is if I get a dry reading and am intending to back sweeten using honey. If you do back sweeten with honey, you can find that it can cause a haze (protein haze I believe it is) in a previously clear mead, so I just back sweeten it early, then if it does haze, it should drop out naturally with the rest of the sediment.

Dunno if any of that helps any

regards

fatbloke

p.s. Oh and the % ABV chart I use as a guide is from Winesathome (this is the chart link - you'll need excel, works or open office to read it as it's an excel document.)

 

[Insomniac]

Thanks for the info! I will have to see if I can find out about Oxfordshire honey, for this batch I used half rowse blossom and half rowse acacia. It's in a 5l fermentor but agreed it was too much honey, I was aiming for 4lb but did the coversion wrong! I guess for now I'll keep racking off the sediment for a bit and see how it goes. Thanks again!