Racking Advice?

[danco]

First of all, thank you to all who answered my previous question.

I am currently on my third batch of mead with varying results. I decided I should watch some mead making tutorials on Youtube (Better late than never) and now I have even more questions. All seem to go straight from demijohn to bottling. Most recommend degassing from time to time (something not mentioned in my original recipe), but talk about bottling after a month or more. But they also talk of primary fermentation, and if they don't change demijohns part way through, I am unsure exactly what that would mean. I have never hear the term secondary fermentation, for example. The recipe I have been using recommends racking the mead to a new demijohn after two weeks, and it seems that by that time active fermentation is about done (no more activity in the airlocks). On my previous batches, I have bottled about two weeks after the initial racking. Although there has not been much activity in the airlocks, sedimentation has continued and my mead has been pretty clear. Another thing not mentioned in the recipe I have been using is the use of nutrients, although it does call for lemon juice and a vitamin c tablet.

Thoughts and comments please?

 

[Barzahl]

People often needlessly refer to "primary fermentation" even when they won't have a secondary one, doing a secondary fermentation is usually only used in melomels, certain types of fruit give better flavor when added partway through a fermentation the portion of the ferment after the fruit is added is usually referred to simply as "secondary" which can cause some confusion as mead is often racked into a "secondary vessel" (another demijohn) either for bulk aging to get it off spices or oak or as part of the clarification process this is too is often referred to as "secondary".

You should use nutrients, honey has very low nitrogen which is a necessary nutrient for yeast, you can make mead without it but the yeast will synthesize it which creates fusels and causes your mead to have a taste often described as "cat pee" which takes very long to age out.