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raspberry mead tastes pretty bad

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I have had the rubber smell thing; it ages out: may take a year; maybe two.

Your temperature was fine; so was your honey.

On your recipe, here's my 2 cents' worth:

Your tea concentration might have been on the high side: did you brew this tea up in boiling hot water first, getting all those harsh black tea tannins to release into a 1 gallon batch? Anyway, too late now.

Probably the vector to check out most was your yeast choice. Besides the fact that your choice, Fleischmann's, is optimally bred for a fast-acting fermentation job (i.e. bread), not really the best choice for fermented beverages, there is the issue of the raisins. Raisins provide nutrients, but also have their own yeast colonies, with you don't know what characteristics.

So that's where your rubber smell comes from. Anyway, Joshnir, give it some time. 3 months is nothing.
 
If left to age, H2S will form mercaptans quickly and over a couple of months mercaptans will start forming disulfides. Most of the disulfides have a higher threshold for perception so they may not be as stinky as mercaptans. However, if you have enough disulfides to to be above the sensory threshold, it will be stinky and you will have a much harder time getting rid of it.

Whats more, once you bottle it, there is a tendency for some of disulfides to revert back to mercaptan form possibly raising the level of "stinkyness".

When I have batches with sulfur odors, I believe in taking steps to eliminate those odors ASAP. Time is not on you side in this case, though in some batches you may be fortunate enough that the conversion to disulfides takes away the stench. You then have to hope that it doesn't come back later.
 
Medsen Fey said:
Thanks, Wayne (there's nothing like writing it backwards :confused3: ).
Click to expand...

Yeah - sorry, Medsen, for the abruptness of my response. I was attempting to type while dealing with three other unrelated things in parallel last night, so I was in a bit of a hurry.

I can't tell you how many times I've gotten sulfides, mercaptans and disulfides mixed up in my mind! Bottom line is as you have said in your last post -- if H2S is in the process of converting to mercaptans, even though their aromatic effects may be reduced in the further reduction to disulfides as the mead ages, if any of those break down back into mercaptans later (and they can in the presence of a little oxygen, which all meads will see during extended aging unless they're in hermetically sealed bottles) - the result is a stinky mess. MUCH better to get rid of the problem as early in the process as possible! ;)
 
Ok I ordered some ascorbic acid yesterday so it should be here in a day or two. I also ordered some DAP because the stuff I got from my home brew shop has Urea in it and I've seen some stuff on here stating that it's not so good for mead.
 
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