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Why so long to age?

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WhiskeyPriest

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 14, 2007
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Why does it take so long for Mead to age? 6 months to a year, as opposed to around 2 months for a beer!?

Is it just the Alchohol content? If that is the case, I would be happy making low alchohol meads for ready drinkin' I guess that less fermentation would also mean less flavor profile, in a sense.

I know there are some mead recipes for speedy delivery, JAO for one. But this calls for Bread yeast, which has pretty low Alchohol tolerance from what I understand.
 
As far as I can tell, there are several differences between beer and wine (we'll lump mead in with wine for this) that affect aging times. First is the alcohol content as you pointed out. More alcohol = longer to age, all other things being equal. Beers usually end up with more residual sugars as well, and more sugar = less time to age, generally (sweetness covers up other flavors which only mellow with time). Last thing I can think of is the pH: beer pH is in the 4s, wine in the 3s. The acids take time to mellow and meld with the other flavors, so more acid = longer to age.

With that in mind, it's totally possible to make quick-drinking meads. Sweet, low-alcohol versions are the way to go, and JAO is a prime example. You can try using a low-attenuation ale yeast if you don't want to use bread yeast. (English ale yeasts are a good choice.)

Another thing that is a consequence of long time to age before drinking is that wines tend to be more stable over long-term than beers, due to all the factors listed above. So your quick meads will not age as gracefully as your "normal" meads, though they'll be ready sooner.
 
i made a cyser with ale yeast that was awesome after just a few months. "dangerous cyser" is the post, its listed in the recipes section too.

lower alcohol content meads will have used less honey, so they will have less honey flavor, kinda. the flavor thats left over from a dry fermentation is delicate and takes a long time to come back, but when its not fermented to dryness the flavor is alot stronger becasue basically there is still unfermented honey in the mead.

oskaar mentioned once in a chat session about making dry meads with stronger flavor and more body is achieved by using the absolute maximum amount of honey that the yeast can ferment so you will have contributed as much of the honey flavor as possible.
 
Yes, good point. A low-alcohol dry mead with be very thin-bodied, like a "light" beer. A dry mead, low alcohol or not, will take longer to age than a sweet mead, however. So a sweet mead will both help with the body problem and cut down on aging time.
 
In addition to the good iformation already posted, I have found that the faster the mead ferments, the less ageing time is required.

I had one mead ferment for 4 months. It was my first batch, I had no idea about nutrients, let alone SNA. That took, well it is still taking time to age well (15 months old, 9 months in the bottle).

Lately, most of my mead is good to drink after 1 month in the bottle (and 4 to 6 months total processing time). After 6 months in the bottle they are much better. After 1 year in the bottle and they are excellent.

My biggest problem is getting them to last that year though.
 
Look at my "Day at the Fair Mead" in the Patron recipe section. It's a cyser hybrid with nuts and spices.

It was very drinkable in 8 weeks, incredible at 12 weeks.

I've made it a couple of time now and my LHBC made it for a group braggo project. Make sure NOT to aerate with O2 as the yeast will go to 18% easy.

If you stir and follow the SNA it's out of primary in 7 to 10 days.

I've found that a quick ferment encouraged by proper stagger nutrition additions, aeration, stirring, correct temperature et al. is a clean ferment. You don't have to allow a lot of time for the various esters and stress byproducts to age out. Most of my meads have been really good at about 2 months and just keep getting better. I continue look forward to seeing how they age.

My ON-topic thought is that the main chemistry happens in beer during the boiling. (For every degree C that you increase a reaction, you double the speed of the reaction.) There are so many things that happen in the 4 to 6 or so hours that it takes to make a batch of beer.

Mead (I've never made wine) you can put together a batch in 45 minutes or less so I propose that the chemical reactions that transform the various ingredients into magic need the time to occur. I also am thinking about the environment of a sealed bottle. I wonder myself about the various reactions that occur. What makes a bottle of grape juice throw the flavors that you can taste in a good bottle of wine - raspberry, flint, cassis, etc.?

Good question though. Shop it around on the various wine/beer lists to see what they think and let us know.

All the best,
Leonora
 
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