Strong (bad) flavour. What went wrong?

[Dadux]

Ok, so i did this and sumarizing, 4 batches of 5l, SG 1'12, white wine yeast, and it was fed at start & sugar breaks with nutrients and boiled bread yeast. Temp was quite constant around 17-18ºC. The fermentation stopped at day 9. it is quite cloudy.

Now at day 13 it has a super strong flavour that makes it taste somewhat bad. its hard to describe it. its not acidic though. I wonder if it is fusels or what. Maybe im overreacting but if something went wrong and i can fix it i want to know. And if i have nothing to worry about i wanna know too.
Also i wonder if i should cold crash and rack into secondary or wait. Or if and when i should add k-meta and k-sorbate.

Well any help is appreciated.

 

[willowhix]

I'm a newbie myself but it sounds like 13 days is a bit early to worry about your mead not tasting great, and certainly too early to worry about it being cloudy. With the exception of JAOMs and BOMMs, mead really needs to age for a while before its drinkable, and then a while longer to get something delicious. Even if your fermentation didn't go exactly well and you stressed your yeast a bit, my understanding is that the mead will taste hotter (harsh alcohol taste) for longer, but the best "fix" is simply to age it for a longer time.

I had a look at your hydrometer readings and plugged them into an ABV calculator and it's roughly 15% alcohol. It seems to have fermented to completion, so you're fine there, and you could cold-crash and rack it into secondary, though waiting another week or so shouldn't do any harm either if you want to make sure it's fermented as much as it's going to. I'm not too familiar with the k-meta and k-sorbate since I've gone without additives in my batches, sorry. By any means, good luck!

 

[Dadux]

Yeah i thing (and hope) that too. My main doubt (apart from the bit of paranoia) is if the racking has to be done later in case of having this flavour (i read somewhere that in case of fusel taste it might be good to let it in the primary stirring the lees to help diminish the flavour). By what you say i assume it doesnt matter.
Also, the cloudiness was just a note about its state. it doesnt worry me.
Anyway, the post is appreciated, at least i wont worry for some time.

 

[Squatchy]

So you will probably be alright in the long run. The higher alcohols will age out over time. 15% ABV takes a while to melo as well. Oaking can help to round out the alcohol burn. Leave it on the lees for a few weeks and stir it gently every 2-4 days. You could also raise the temps a couple degrees. It might make things kick off a little bit. The warmer temps and a bit aggressive push may blow some of the faults away. After a few weeks stirred on the lees, cold crash it if you can for a week and then get it off the rough lees and then just put it away until it clears on it's own. If it starts to smell sulpherish get a piece of copper wire or small piece of pipe. Clean it good with TSP and put it in your mead for a few hours ,,, or overnight and that could help remove the sulpher smell.

I think in the future if you used yeast we have experiences with, as well as nutrients we can better help to make sure your metrics are correct. With the mystery stuff you used no one knows what the ingredients are.

 

[Dadux]

Ok thanks for the tips. Will do that.
The thing is i dont really have any homebrew shops around so i ordered them from a hombrew web from my country.
Guess it was a bit of a noob mistake in the end.