Still bubbling after a year?

[Q2XL]

Last June 6th I made a strawberry/banana melomel. Here is some info below that I copied from my notes....

18 lb strawberries
4 lbs bananas
18lbs raw wildflower noney
Lalvin 71B

8-10-2010---Racked to another carboy. Gravity was 1.010. It tasted very good. A bit "hot". Clarity was good.
12-10-2010...Racked for the final time to a 3-gallon Better Bottle, 1/2 gallon jug, and 1-22 ounce bomber. It tasted very good.


So here it is almost a year later and the mead is still releasing small bubbles that I can easily see in the better bottle and the other bottles. Is this normal? Also, I am in no hurry to bottle it, but would like to know how long the bubbling COULD last. And should I wait for the bubbling to stop before I bottle?

 

[MedsenFey]

Well, is the gravity still dropping? If not, it probably isn't active yeast. That would leave very slow degassing, which could be possible if it has been kept cold. The other possibility would be malolactic fermentation occurring (or a spoilage organism if it is stinky) which could easily occur having used 71B if you didn't sulfite it. That can go on for weeks or months.

I'd say bottling while it is still bubbling would be a bad idea.

Medsen

 

[Q2XL]

Thanks for the quick reply Medsen.

I went down and took out the airlock on the small 22oz bomber and smelled it. It smelled great! A lot of strawberry aroma. I did not check the other 2 as I was concerned about adding oxygen to the headspace of the bigger bottles. Btw, the temp in the basement over the winter has been in the low to mid 60's.

I guess that there is nothing nasty going on with them so I will leave it alone until it stops bubling....whenever that may be.

As a side note, I looked at my multi-berry melomel(71B) that I made last September 29th and after 2 rackings it is also still slowly bubbling. I looked back on my records and I did not sulfite either of these. Should I sulfite it now or wait til bottling or just skip it altogether? I am naive when it comes to sulfiting.