New to Mead got Questions

[brewskiez]

I found a quick easy mead recipe online

1 qt honey
1 orange sliced
1 cinnamon stick
yeast

I used some extra LALVIN 71B. I'm fermenting in a 1 gallon Carlo Rossi jug I fitted with a stopper and blow off tube. The sg of the top liquid after mixing was 1.105 it appear to have stratified a little bit some I'm sure I used more than enough honey hopefully the yeast will die from alcohol poisoning and I'll have sugar left for sweetness if that's desired?

I did not add the yeast nutrient I have some and will do so when I get home but it wont be until 14-15 hours post pitching yeast It should be ok right?

I plan on eventually making a batch I age but... can I cold crash this jug once it hits final gravity then put into secondary cold crash again then bottle and drink realistically in a month or month and a half?

If its a little hazy whats the big deal it should be fine right other than maybe not an award winning mead?

 

[AkTom]

Patience Grasshopper.
Yes you can. I usually go 30 plus days then rack. Wait till it clears. Rack again and wait. I've found that 6 months is pretty minimal for aging. I have had some that was good in 3 or 4 months. It all depends on what you want and like. I had a cherry mead that wasn't very good at 6-7 months. At a year it was so good im irritated I sampled my way through the gallon batch. I just started another one and won't drink it for a year.

 

[brewskiez]

I guess I need to add a ph buffer what is recommended for a 1 gallon batch? I see people adding Potassium bicarbonate which I have.

I get that mead takes a while but between some wine, lagers, and a future 5 gallon batch of mead I will have fermenting shortly I've got about 50 gallons of long term projects going. I'm just trying this out to see what its like. I've got a pretty robust tolerance for bad tasting alcohol so it would have to be pretty bad to turn me off to it

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi brewskiez, You may have a good tolerance for drinking crappy tasting mead or wine but your friends may not - and even if you have very great tolerance for slugging down an awful tasting mead why should you if you can make a fine drink. Rule of thumb - the higher the ABV the longer the mead needs to age to soften fusels and other off flavors and junk left by the yeast. The solution is to aim for lower ABV meads A challenge perhaps, because all the flavor in low ABV traditional meads come from the honey while all the alcohol comes from the honey too, so you reduce the ABV then you reduce the honey and so the flavor... The trick is then to make a low ABV mead - a session mead - that is flavor rich rather than flavor poor.

 

[brewskiez]

Will I die though?

 

[brewskiez]

Like I said I will be making a 5 gallon batch this weekend I'm just trying figure out if theres anything I can do with this small batch so I can sample it earlier. Can I wait until its like 1.01 or a slightly higher gravity than finishing and hit it with k-meta and kill the yeast?

 

[Drewed]

At any point you can heat the mead to over 140 and kill off all the yeast.

 

[bernardsmith]

You can (and perhaps it is best practice to) sample your mead from the minute you pitch the yeast... There is nothing that will make you ill (unless the sugar content at the beginning is too much for your health or the alcohol content at the end is too high and you get behind the wheel of a car).
Stabilization while there is a large active and viable colony of yeast is never easy. K-meta AND K-sorbate are used to inhibit further fermentation but that works when there are few cells in the wine or mead. What you might do is cold crash the mead and rack the mead off the yeast that will have dropped out of suspension. You may need to repeat this several times and then add K-sorbate and K-meta in tandem... BUT you need to make sure that the gravity has not changed an iota over say, 48 hours before you add those stabilizers.

 

[bernardsmith]

At any point you can heat the mead to over 140 and kill off all the yeast.

And that is not a problem if destroying the flavor and aroma is not an issue.. although presumably if you are making a mead and not a fruit wine then the flavor and aroma of the honey is an issue...

 

[brewskiez]

I also don't plan on bottling so I'm not sure why stabilization would be a concern if I can get it clear enough I plan on sticking it in the fridge and pouring glasses until it's gone.

 

[bernardsmith]

Stabilization may be an issue if you hope to drink your mead with some residual sweetness. Even in a fridge there is no guarantee that 100 percent of the yeast will cease their work. In other words, it is very possible that fermentation will still continue - albeit far more slowly - and over time the sugar will be transformed into CO2 and alcohol.

 

[Drewed]

And that is not a problem if destroying the flavor and aroma is not an issue.. although presumably if you are making a mead and not a fruit wine then the flavor and aroma of the honey is an issue...

I didn't say it was a good idea, just an idea.

Still, 140 is under the boiling point of alcohol so I wonder how much would really be lost.

 

[bernardsmith]

I didn't say it was a good idea, just an idea.

Still, 140 is under the boiling point of alcohol so I wonder how much would really be lost.

I hear ya... But John Skinner at the U of Tennessee has argued that heating honey at 140 or higher for any length of time results in the degradation of the honey... so no loss of alcohol , perhaps but loss of flavor and aromatics , perhaps.