Spices? fell to bottom of 1 gal mead carboy

[ceefo1]

Hey all!

New to mead making. I just started a primary with some ground spices and less than 5 minutes into the process, it seems they have all fallen to the bottom. I used 1tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger and 1/2 tsp nutmeg. I also used ec1118 for yeast and some ferm K. It's this normal? I've never used spices before. Do I need to stir it routinely?

Thanks!

P.s. I found out after sealing it up that I could have added the spices to the secondary. Also that I may have used too much cinnamon..... womp

 

[hotbeer]

Whether the spices are on the bottom, top, or middle, their aromatic substances will still get into the beer mead.

If you get a very active fermentation for a day or so, then that will churn the stuff on the bottom up and circulate it some. But even that circulation is not really needed, IMO, for the flavor and aroma notes to be taken up by the beer mead

It'll be beer mead regardless. The earlier dump of spices might mute some of the flavor expression. Or you might get too much expression of some particular note from the spices. But you'll find out when it's finished. If you go mucking around with it now doing other things then you might make it bad mead. Just accept it for what it is and becomes. You can make the next one better and learn from anything you feel was a mistake with this one.

Oh... sorry about the beer. Might be some passive aggressive thing in me!

You'll find a lot of other info here too if you hang around and read the threads that draw some of your interest. You'll find that for beer making, many of us don't use secondaries any more. I can't say what's appropriate for mead since I've never had interest in it. However for beer we just do it all in the original FV (fermentation vessel).

 

[Rish]

You should be degassing your mead a couple of times a day for the first week or so. I do this for 1 gallon batches by swirling the fv, starting out slowly to avoid to much CO2 coming out at once, then getting more aggressive as it is released. This will get your spices back in suspension. You might get more opinions if you have a moderator move your post to the mead forum as this one is for beer (see @hotbeer ). Good luck!