I'm jumping into this a little late. I've been making mead for the better part of twenty years now, but my style is different from Oskaar's and many of the other old hands. I often let my meads stay on the lees, more out of lethargy than any real plan or intent. This means that battonage is not a technique I usually practice. I think my style (in this regard, anyway) is more like Pewter's than many other people who do lees aging.
Purely opinion here, but one based on experience: lees aging -- even rather extensive aging of up to several months -- has only rarely brought out what I considered to be off-flavors. I've let EC-1118 go up to (if memory serves me) about four months on a cyser once...blasphemy, I know. The effect...? A slight bittering in the aftertaste. I back-sweetened it a bit, let it age in the bottle for a month or so more, and had a perfectly pleasant mead for my (lack of) efforts. In a championship or competition level mead, this would certainly have been a flaw that a good judge would have picked up. But I didn't care.
Why?
Because the effect was not overly-pronounced and it didn't detract anything from my own enjoyment. I do this a lot -- that is, not worry, and just let the magic happen. Is it good procedure? Sure -- for me. For Oskaar, and probably many others it wouldn't be.
See, to me, it's all about what you're after. I'm after a nice mead without a lot of trouble. At one time, I was much more technical. I might go full circle one day and re-examine my basic mead making roots, but mead can be hard to screw up, once you're past the very basics. At some point early on in this hobby, you cross the routine "danger point" of mucking up a good thing, and get into an area of pure subjectiveness.
I'm sorry that some of the comments in this thread are gone, because I missed them the first time around and it's evolved into something pretty important, and, it seems, afield from the topic of lees aging. My view on lees aging is nonscientific and nonempirical: by and large, it's harmless and/or even quite beneficial for particular flavor effects. Again, we're talking about subjectiveness. Just because most of the professional and accomplished-amateur thinking in the wine and mead worlds leans towards the view that lees aging is (depending upon wine/mead style, and yeast used) a good thing, doesn't mean it ever was in ancient times -- or is now for people who seek to emulate and improve upon historical styles. And Pewter runs in that crowd, and comes from that tradition.
Outside of basic sanitation techniques, stating that "thus and such is good/bad practice", which we all tend to do, either overtly or otherwise, is greatly dependent upon background. Many of us like the science behind our opinions to have hardcore documentation. But in times long gone it was word-of-mouth, apprenticeship, and practice, practice, practice that made a mead its best. For his background and current desires, I'd say Pewter is doing things correctly.
By the same token, stating from the git-go that he's been taught by people who do things a certain way because it has proven to make the best mead for them time and again, is probably the best way to avoid miscommunication or apparent misinformation in the future. I'm as guilty as anybody of making blanket statements, and I've had to back off of them or substantiate them whenever I've been called on their validity. For historically-minded mazers of proven skill, such as some of Pewter's SCA friends reportedly are, it probably should be taken -- if not as fact, then certainly as truism -- when they say that something is good or bad practice, because they've found that particular thing to be that particular way by both tradition, and trial and error.
Now, I share what I consider to be the majority opinion here, when I say that it is quite regretful that the SCA and Renaissance Festival mead makers have been all but absent from these boards. With luck, that will someday change, but so far, we have yet to hear from even one "master brewer" of any house on any matter of importance. They have their own boards elsewhere on the Web, I assume, but by the very nature of their organizations, these places must be exclusive of more modern brewing approaches, and the people who practice them. That's fine, because Vicky was willing to devote as much space as they could ever want here at GM to post, persuade, or pontificate to their hearts' desire -- space that is nearly unused. Sad to say, but without their presence, nasty skirmishes like this one will happen again.
All that being said, I think much of what has transpired here is due to pride, miscommunication, and, yes, a difference of philosophy. Nonetheless, there isn't one of us currently posting at GM who wants to see anything but the betterment of our hobby; we all want newcomers to improve their skills and enjoy themselves; and we want the respect of the overall brewing community, society itself, and most of all...each other.
And now, vertigo forces me off of my soap-box. Thank you.
-David
;D though it does taste better chilled according to them. My bad though, I didn't keep it under wraps so the bad evil roomie drank the vast majority of it. GRRRRR!
LOL ) the temp in the garage is climbing upwards of 75 degrees...what are the potential impacts of the higher temps?
