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Thank you for the replies. Is this batch doomed, or should I do things like splash rack often and/or leave the air lock off for a while? I don't know of any other additives besides what I have already used that can get rid of the odor. Besides the offensive smell, the actual taste is rather good; I'd hate to have to scrap it.

I will eventually use copper, but I've heard this should be more of a last resort (also, I'm not quite sure how to go about using copper).
 
Don't give up on it so easily! :)

Splash racking, giving it some microwaved bread yeast (or yeast hulls) to absorb stink, aerating it are all things to try before admitting defeat. If you can find an old copper penny (I can't remember when the US stopped using real copper in the pennies but that info's on this forum somewhere) and scrub it well with steel wool or something so it's nice and shiny, what I did was tie it to cotton string, sanitize the whole works and then suspend the penny in the carboy for 24 hours. In my case that didn't help but a few days of agitation and "airing out" did so I think the problems I had were the early stages where copper wouldn't help anyway, I think when it goes from smelling like sulphur (eggs or matches) and starts smelling like rubber stopper is when copper becomes appropriate.

I actually have one batch that has an aroma of diesel, it developed in the bottle and rather than empty all the bottles and air them out in a carboy (because it is only an odour, the taste is fine), I use one of those wine-saver vacuum pumps and I open the bottle and pour out a few ounces, then shake the hell out of it, vacuum it, shake, vacuum, shake, vacuum... Takes a day or two of doing this every time I walk past it on the table but the wine is actually worth all this effort. If I were less lazy, I'd toss it all back in a carboy and splash rack it till it behaved.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. I have added yeast hulls, but I used a minimal dose. I will add some more and see what happens. I also took the air lock off of the carboy; I'll let it sit like that over night.

I remember writing a paper a few years ago in college about commodities, and was able to dig it up. The price of copper by weight of a penny exceeded one cent in 1982, so any pennies minted after that point are copper-plated zinc. I should be able to find an '81 or earlier somewhere (not pure copper, but 95-97%; should get the point across). If all else fails, I will suspend the penny in the carboy.
 
Heh, I don't know about Canadian coins so I use one that's older than me just to be sure :) Also if you have access, copper plumbing will work too. Pennies are just usually easier to find.
 
I was actually able to find some unused speaker wire in my basement I had left over from setting up my speakers. I stripped about three inches, wrapped it in a ring (looked kind of like a wedding band), ran some thread through it, and sanitized the whole thing. I put the ring in the carboy, about half way down, and tied the other end to an empty Jameson bottle to keep it anchored (yet another use for whiskey). I currently have it sitting with the airlock off. I feel like keeping it there over night might be the longest I should let it go, but I have no prior experience using copper.
 
I find the easiest thing for me is to take a copper scrub pad and stick it on the end of my autosiphon. The little black cap that goes on the tip cap be put on which holds the scrub pad in place. Then a good splash racking with the mead being sucked through the copper pad usually gets the job done for me.
 
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