First time at mead-making

[dohertyc9]

I've been making mead, I guess. I've been going by The Art of Fermentation and I have lots of raw honey from a local beekeeper. The batch I have going now is probably 1:4 or 1:5 water and honey. It started in a pop bottle and it went through the explosively fizzy stage (overflowing if I so much as looked it wrong) and then eventually just bubbling with these little micro-bubbles continuously, day in and day out. A fair amount of lees, maybe a centimeter at most, accumulated at the bottom, so I racked it into new bottles and they're still going, and more lees is accumulating. Should I just let these go until they stop bubbling, and consider that the primary fermentation done? Should I worry about the lees before then? At what point would you rack a still-bubbling fermentation just because of the lees?

When I racked I mixed up honey and water again in the original pop bottle and that one is explosively fizzy again.

When I started out I had a few false starts, some mixtures fizzed up and I consumed them, others that didn't fizz so well, and eventually smelled like urine or just unpleasant. These batches smell sweetly alcoholic and not 'off'. I think I could let a new batch fizz a couple of days and just make mead soda pop. Did I just land on a good batch? Should I continue using this as a starter as long as I can? Or were my other batches okay too?

Would I ever put anything else in this? Nutrients, etc?

I've also tried a few fruit mead ferments, with blackberries, mulberries, peaches, etc, and added white sugar - these are good and smell sweetly alcoholic but never fizz up nearly as much as the straight honey and water. I wonder why that is?

I've googled and read other support forums for brewing and mead in particular, but almost every source is against using native yeast, in favor of boiling and sterilizing everything and using nutrients and clarifiers etc. It doesn't seem like I should bother with any of this stuff if my batch smells good, looks good (not clear, but nicely yellow, not gunky looking), etc.

Any tips are very appreciated.

Chris

[porcupine73]

That sounds nice, I've just recently gotten started in meads too.

I've been adding some raisins and bee pollen for yeast nutrition. I also add a little dolomite powder and azomite.

I think everyone's tastes are different, but I've found aging _on_ the lees seems to be bring about nice complex albeit perhaps strong flavors.

What everyone keeps telling me is meads need at least six months aging to taste good. I don't know, even at two months old it doesn't taste at all bad to me, so I imagine long aged meads are probably amazing.

Racking may result in additional fermentation if not all the sugar was consumed by the yeasts and they just needed a bit more oxygen to get going again. Or if your alcohol content has reached the maximum the yeast can tolerate.

I think so many sources are obsessed with perfect sanitation and boiling everything moreso if they eat a conventional diet. I really think it's because they are so used to eating refined foods that a raw natural fermented alcoholic beverage tastes 'off' to them. But if you're used to eating natural fermented foods I think that kind of person will also enjoy the flavors of good homebrew that hasn't been pasteurized boiled had sulfur added and things like that.

[Tim Hall]

Chris, that's a lot of questions. Might be easier if they were posted one at a time.

Everything you're asking (in terms of procedure) just depends on what you're after. If your system suits your taste, roll with it.

It is a little unusual that mead would ferment more vigorously than fruit wine, but that's certainly not a bad thing. That your mead is fermenting strongly is great.

I don't know what your berry-honey-sugar recipe is, but if you have a really high gravity (loads of fermentable sugars) this can make it hard for the yeasts to work. They have a certain happy range (depending on the particular strain) of dissolved solids where they operate best. Of course with wild yeasts it's hard to know exactly where this is.

When to rack? Should you rack? Normally I wouldn't rack for at least a couple of weeks, maybe 3-4. My approach is to let the primary fermentation play out as much as possible before racking, because even some of the yeast at the bottom of the fermenter is still working. Racking too soon sometimes leads to stuck fermentation. But again, if what you're doing is working, keep doing it.

Nutrients? If your ferment doesn't seem to need them, why bother? Often mead is low in nutrients, and also contains anti-microbial agents, so nutrients of some kind often help. You don't seem to have this problem.

Using the same starter over and over? This may continue to work for you. Just be aware that yeasts change very rapidly, and you'll undoubtedly see them doing something at least a little bit different over time. They may ferment faster, slower, make different flavors, aromas, etc. as they go through successive generations without some tight quality control.

But this kind of quality control isn't necessarily required for what you're doing. Don't make too much of "by the book" meadmakers' opinions. If you're aiming for consistent, predictable results, then get some tips from them. If you're happy with wild, keep doing what you're doing.

[Tim Hall]

I think so many sources are obsessed with perfect sanitation and boiling everything...

Yes. Even when I make mead by more conventional methods, I NEVER boil the honey. A sin in my opinion.

[10kFerment]

Usually add some raisins, yeast (for nutrients), and a pinch of potassium chloride (morton salt substitute) to the primary ferment crock first. The potassium chloride is a trick I picked up from sake makers... the potassium is very useful to the yeast.

I'll add a quart or two of boiling water to make sure that's all clean and that the yeast is dead. The honey gets stirred into the hot water after about 3-5 minutes. That's as close as I get to boiling my honey. :)

No chems, ever. No campden tablets or any of that nonsense. Hot boiling water to clean stuff and boiling water for some of the fruits and add-ins. Au natural. :)

You want to kill your yeast without waiting a year or so? Make a "Sack" mead. Keep adding honey in increments (boil SMALL amount of water and stir in honey, siphon into fermenting mead) until the yeast kills itself off. Bread yeast usually runs anywhere between 16% and 21% alcohol when it finally dies off.

FUN!

[Tdlotus@gmail.com]

Hi there,
We have just made our first honey mead. We were wondering how to tell when to transfer from the carboy with the airlock to bottles. The mead has been in the carboy for four weeks. The airlock bubbles have slowed to about every 90 seconds but there is still some slow visible bubbling.

Second question, when we transfer it to bottles should we cork the bottle or but them in a wire lock top bottle?

Third question, do you rack them again once you have bottled?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Tim Hall]

No you won't rack it again once bottled - that's essentially the final step for storage.

If it's still visibly bubbling at all, I'd be patient. Mead tends to ferment slow, and you may easily be looking at another 4 weeks or longer. The longer the safer. Over time that small amount of CO2 will add up to a lot. I once had a mead (bottled too soon) that started pushing the corks out the necks of my bottles...had they not been heavy sparkling wine bottles, they may have exploded.

Are you wanting a still mead or a sparkling mead?

[Tdlotus@gmail.com]

Thanks Tim, We are doing a still wine this time. So are you saying you do not put anything in the mead to stop the fermentation? Sounds wonderful if you can just wait the process out with no additives.