Nervous first-time mead maker

[TopHatPeezy]

Hi all,
Nice to see an active and engaging community with some good advice here.
I am looking for some advice specific to my situation though as this is my first time mead making and I am a worrier!

I've had my first fermentation in carboy going for 9 weeks and 2 gravity readings a week apart have shown practically 1.0, seems the yeast is done with all the sugars (abv calculation suggests 14.02% so seems reasonable). I have just syphoned off into a second, smaller 'growler' as that's what I had to hand, though much more of the product was usable than I had expected thanks to a very settled lees and I've overflowed into two other bottles - will all three now need to be stoppered and airlocked or can I just seal them? If not, is it worth the time and effort to wash and sanitise the original carboy and syphon all of them back in to stop/lock just one container?

Hope this makes sense; I am at least looking forward to being more knowledgeable and confident for round 2!!
Thanks in advance

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi topHatPeezy and welcome. And congrats on making your first mead.
Aging any good wine is always preferable to drinking a wine when it is still "green" (young). Active fermentation may have ceased but there are still many, many chemical actions and reactions that continue as the wine ages. Acids can be transformed into different acids, acids and alcohol can combine, tannins fall out of solution, wines clear bright, flavors shift and modify, wines are subject to the (good) effects of micro-oxidation etc.
all that said, and others on this forum may have different opinions, but if I were you I would
1. Prefer to bulk age the entire batch in one container IF - IF you can fill that carboy up into the neck to minimize oxidation. If the surface of the mead is significantly below the neck (what is called the shoulder of the carboy) then you DO want to keep the mead (or wine) in smaller containers and
2. Prefer to use bungs and airlocks during aging.You COULD "seal" them but better if you treat this period as a phase before you "bottle" , not least because however free of lees (sediment) these bottles are today, in two or three months there will be sediment at the bottom (because of the chemical changes and actions and reactions. And though it may not apply to this batch, with many wines you can expect , even occasionally, spontaneously malo-lactic fermentation to occur. That's when malic acid in the wine is transformed into smoother , gentler, lactic acid, and that process is caused by bacterial activity. Like the production of alcohol, MLF creates carbon dioxide gas and that gas will increase pressure in any sealed container. Seals are for when you are ready to package and drink your mead or wine. Airlocks and bungs are for the wines prior to that point.

 

[TopHatPeezy]

Good stuff - many thanks for the full reply.
Have airlocked in the 3 containers they are in so will keep my fingers crossed!