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All my beginner meadmaking questions

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davmmcdonald

NewBee
Registered Member
Feb 22, 2023
1
0
1
USA
I am fairly new to brewing home brewing and have made a couple of batches of wine, mead, and beer. I have some recurring questions that I can’t seem to find any consensus on and wanted to get some clarification. Thanks in advance!
  • When racking and/or taking hydrometer samples throughout the process, I feel like I’m losing too much liquid and creating extra headspace. I’m concerned about oxidation, particular when bulk aging in secondary. Should I be topping off with store bought mead?
  • Is it really important to rack multiple times after transferring to the secondary? Or can I just leave it there until it clears and then bottle?
  • I have almost no experience with mead, but I’ve seen a lot of recommendations to degas multiple time a day throughout the primary fermentation. Is it enough to just swirl and/or stir the mead a bit, or is this not adequate? Frankly, I find degassing tedious and try to avoid it as much as possible. I typically only degas my wines once after fermentation, but is mead different?
  • I’m experimenting with lots of different recipes and only have a limited number of carboys for bulk aging (with limited space to store them). I’d like to start bottling some of my first batches to free up some carboys. Is 2-3 months bulk aging adequate, assuming I bottle age a bit after that?
  • I’ve heard a lot of homebrewers talk about bottle aging for years before drinking their mead. At this point I’m just small batch experimenting and want to try out a bunch of different recipes. I understand the importance of patience, but I’m really not interested in waiting to open bottles for 3+ years. I know this is a contentious question, but what is the minimum amount of time you’d let a bottle of mead age before its “good enough”?
  • Any thoughts on sulfites + sorbates vs. pasteurization? I've always felt like I have a mild averse reaction to certain drinks with sulfites, so I'd like to avoid it. That said, I've used it in my wines / meads so far just because most recipes call for it.
 

Squatchy

Lifetime GotMead Patron
Lifetime GotMead Patron
Nov 3, 2014
5,542
261
83
Denver
I am fairly new to brewing home brewing and have made a couple of batches of wine, mead, and beer. I have some recurring questions that I can’t seem to find any consensus on and wanted to get some clarification. Thanks in advance!
  • When racking and/or taking hydrometer samples throughout the process, I feel like I’m losing too much liquid and creating extra headspace. I’m concerned about oxidation, particular when bulk aging in secondary. Should I be topping off with store bought mead? $$$$$$$ you don't need to be so afraid of oxidation with mead. You can measure you mead and pout back the sample, or just measure in the mead with a clean hydrometer.$$$$$



  • Is it really important to rack multiple times after transferring to the secondary? Or can I just leave it there until it clears and then bottle?$$$$$$$$ You never want to sit on rough lees for very long. There are many ways to clear you mead rather quickly. Add dry bentonite after the yeast has started fermentation. Or use clarifying adjuncts after the fermentation is over.$$$$$$$$$

  • I have almost no experience with mead, but I’ve seen a lot of recommendations to degas multiple time a day throughout the primary fermentation. Is it enough to just swirl and/or stir the mead a bit, or is this not adequate? Frankly, I find degassing tedious and try to avoid it as much as possible. I typically only degas my wines once after fermentation, but is mead different? $$$$$$$ no need to do that. I started teaching that before I realized it's not needed. I'ce since made that public and apologized$$$$$$$$$

  • I’m experimenting with lots of different recipes and only have a limited number of carboys for bulk aging (with limited space to store them). I’d like to start bottling some of my first batches to free up some carboys. Is 2-3 months bulk aging adequate, assuming I bottle age a bit after that?$$$$ that's up to you and how well you understand the science. I've won medals at 3 months out of fermentation. Even then mead taste significantly better after a year. And some becomes even more majical than it was after a year . Providing you know how to prepare it so it can age without degrading and going down hill after a period of time$$$$$$$

  • I’ve heard a lot of homebrewers talk about bottle aging for years before drinking their mead. At this point I’m just small batch experimenting and want to try out a bunch of different recipes. I understand the importance of patience, but I’m really not interested in waiting to open bottles for 3+ years. I know this is a contentious question, but what is the minimum amount of time you’d let a bottle of mead age before its “good enough”?
  • Any thoughts on sulfites + sorbates vs. pasteurization? I've always felt like I have a mild averse reaction to certain drinks with sulfites, so I'd like to avoid it. That said, I've used it in my wines / meads so far just because most recipes call for it. $$$$$$$ That is a really loaded question. Most beginners make a lot of mistakes. THerefore it takes a long time for the mistakes to age out. If they even do/can. I think you might be involed in something your not very well made for. The longer you age your mead. The better it taste. If you know how to prepare it to age in the bottle. If you can't see the advantage to that then drink away. Do you know what a 3-4 year old bourbon taste like compared to a 10 year old bottle? It's even a bigger difference with mead. Especially when you haven't even figured out how to make it well$$$$$ Suit yourself.

Go start listening to the Gotmead podcast on 9/5/17 if you want to make better mead right away.
 

Chevette Girl

All around BAD EXAMPLE
Moderator
Lifetime GotMead Patron
Apr 27, 2010
8,443
53
48
Ottawa, ON
A few things to add to what's already been said...

If you're confident in your sanitation, you can return samples to the carboy. I drop my sanitized hydrometer into my sanitized wine thief and fill it up, get my reading, then release the must back in the bucket, unfortunately doesn't work in 1 gal buckets with the size of wine thief I have so I'll sometimes measure those straight in the carboy with my sanitized hydrometer, though with glass on glass, gotta be very careful. I used sanitized waxed dental floss tied to the top of the hydrometer so I could get it back out of the carboy, but do a calibration with water if you tie anything to a hydrometer to see if it affects the buoyancy. I bucket ferment so I like to make a bit excess to make up racking losses once I move to carboys. I keep it in a sanitized mason jar or rack it into a sanitized PET or glass bottle. I've also made small batches of topping mead too, though in my experience so far, mead is a lot harder to oxidize than fruit wines.

If you're building up a lot of lees, you might want to rack, but I often don't rack after the first racking until just before I want to bottle. I do like racking a week before I bottle, because now and then I have something that hasn't dropped sediment in months and looks perfectly clear, drop a bunch of sediment after being racked or bottled, sometimes the agitation can knock it out of suspension.

The only reason I bother with degassing during fermentation is when I need to add nutrients to an active fermentation and don't want to have a need for the floor drain in my meadery :)

Some meads and wines are great at 6 months and less so at a year, some are great at 6 months and amazing at a year but start to be not as good after a few years, some only come into their own after a few years. Depends on the contents and how well the fermentation was managed. Badly mismanaged meads and wines can age forever and perhaps become tolerable but not good. Putting down a few small bottles of each batch for longer term storage is not a bad idea to see how things tend to age, though if you're going to drink it all within a few months of bottling, I wouldn't bother as it will never be relevant for you. I make more than I can drink, so I like to see how stuff ages. Higher-alcohol, sweeter stuff tends to age better longterm than dryer less alcoholic stuff.

2-3 months bulk aging may be fine for taste and clarity, but may not be enough time for safety's sake if you're not going to stabilize. I'm very sensitive to inhaling sulphites but ingesting them doesn't seem to bother me (had a siphoning incident once where I ended up slugging back a mouthful at sanitizing strength and I was fine, but I can't inhale anywhere near a bucket I've just sprayed with sulphite solution sanitizer or it triggers my asthma, and I actually get worse hangovers from unstabilized meads versus stabilized with sulphites and sorbate), if you wish to avoid using sulphites you may need to consider longer aging or as you mentioend pasteurization, though I'm not sure precisely how one manages that safely at a homebrewing level. I also know people who thought they had sulphite issues but it turned out that tannins were a migraine trigger for them. So if you're using sulphites currently, pay attention to any reactions you feel you might be getting, and compare with how you feel if you try a sample of something before stabilizing. And be aware that sulphites (in smaller amounts that we use to stabilize) can be a natural byproduct of fermentation too so you might not be able to claim that a mead is free from sulphites, only that none were added.
 
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