Just tried a glass of mead that was bulk aging going on a year now. I left it age in bulk cause I had put too much acid in it and after tasteing thought it was undrinkable. It was a light clover mead with heavy tartaric and malic acid that I added from a formula in Action and Ducans book "Making Mead". Their advanced English mead makers additives called for 10.5gms Malic, 6.5gms Tartaric and 3.5gms Citric. All this for 1 gallon. (Thats a lot of acid) The catch was this was for 1 Imperial gallon not US which I did not know at the time and I forgot to multiply by .8326 for my 1 gallon batch. Needless to say it was highly acidic after its long slow fermentation. I put in 2 medium toasted oak chips and sweetened it up a bit and let it sit for a year. Today , it was very pleasant with strong oak aftertastes and the acid turned from harsh to delightfully refreshing. By the way, I had used bakers yeast contrary to all recommendations. My conclusion is that time, acid and oak can do wonders with a an ordinary mead. Ever since I started that batch I have for the most part added acid at the finish to taste but now I find the taste at the finish is much different a year later. I also find that the English and their heavy use of acid and oak make for a really fine mead if you will WAIT for it to mellow into a golden nectar even with a mild honey. It will be interesting to see what my last English mead with buckwheat that I posted here will taste like in a couple years. It was already pretty good.
Joe
Joe
