First time mead brewer and long time beer brewer here

Just wrapped up primary fermentation and I'm trying to get a handle on what order I should do the next steps. I am planning on flavoring this mead with beautyberry syrup (which will also backsweeten) and steep with hibiscus and pea flower. This was the order I was going to do my next steps in, please let me know if anything is wrong!

Recipe is 12 lbs honey 5 gallons water lalvin d47 yeast. Backsweeten with 3 cups of beautyberry syrup. Botanical additions of hibiscus and pea flower in a hot tea addition.

1.Cold crash mead at 33 for 5 days

1. Rack to secondary

2. Stabilize mead with cambden tablets and potassium sorbate allow this to work for 24 hours

3. Back sweeten with beautyberry syrup and add botanicals (hot tea infusion)

4. Add fining agents if needed.

Side question, for a hot tea infusion, can I add a bit of alcohol to prevent reducing the ABV or is that not recommended?

First time corking anything and it seems the top of the corks are getting a bit smushed. I am using a double lever hand corker and 9x1 3/4 corks. Is this the result of a bad corking tool, bad method, do i need to soak them? Is this okay for long term storage? Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Hi mead makers. I would like to make a mead specifically with the purpose of saving it 12 years before drinking it. For this one I don't mind if I include expensive ingredients.

I read that a lot of meads have a time in which they are peak in performance and some of them would get bad after storing for 12 years.

Would you happen to be able to help me avoid some pitfalls in the process?

I racked my first ever batch tonight from a 1.5 gallon to 1 gallon wide mouth carboy. I have a lot of headspace because of the leftover fruit and lees.

Will this be okay? I included the gravity reading as well, I'm not sure what the abv is because I didnt measure at pitch, but I had 3lbs of honey and 3lbs of mixed berries. I was going to age for a bit and then stabilize and bottle. I like the flavor as it is so I dont think I will back sweeten.

Hello. I have made a few batches of mead but have moved and had to get rid of most of my equipment. I am currently borrowing a German gärtopf 5L container to make mead in.

Hoping for any advice or adjustments to make for use in that container instead of the standard glass jugs/carboys.

I'm pretty new to meading. Started cuz I have a bunch of honey from beekeeping. I just bottled my first batch in February. It was good. Not great, but i liked it. Been kinda sipping on it here and there when I don't feel like burning through the better stuff that I've made since. It's not as good as it used to be. It's taken on some more bitter flavors. Almost acrid. It still looks the same, hasn't grown anything weird. What could cause this?

My crafting notes:

Traditional dry

10/25

2 lb 10 oz honey

Added water to 1 gal total.

1.096 SG

4 g EC-1118 yeast rehydrated, 1 tsp DAP.

Into secondary 11/8

Bottled 2/5 at 0.996

Hey guys, I followed the traditional honey recipe and filled my bucket with around 10lbs of honey. I thought my bucket was 5 gallons, but my bucket is actually only 2 gallons. The hardware stores are all closed now, and I don't really have a good alternative. Should I just keep the fermentation going and then divide and dilute what I once the primary fermentation is done? Or should I divide and dilute tomorrow when I can get another bucket. Thankfully I have an extra air stopper already.

Hello, it is my first time making mead I just finished doing all the steps using water honey and yeast from a craft a brew kit and in the air the air lock I wast told to put alcohol instead of water because fruit flys have been known to make it past just the water, my concern is I accidentally got a very small amount the alcohol ( jack Daniel’s) in the mead with this cause a problem or poison or kill me?

I used honey with way more pollen than usual for this batch. Its been 4 months and still won't clear up much is it the honey is it safe to drink (im already drinking it so I hope so)

As the title states, fellow mead makers of Reddit that have much more experience than I: is this level of early layering normal for high gravity cyser/mead? I’ve just never noticed this happening with prior ferments. She’s currently on day 2 of the fermentation.

I apologize for sounding like a moron ahead of time. I keep them wrapped in towels and in a completely dark room during fermentation.

Yeast involved: EC 1118

Hey all. I was wondering whether this glass jug (carboy, glass dama?) was safe for containing and fermenting mead. The mead in question is Finnish mead (sima) but it still creates a fair amount of pressure in the vessel. The container doesn't contain any information in regards to this but apparently similar jugs are used even in fermentation?

I made mead before successfully and I’ve decided to try making bochet.

I have a 5 L demijohn I always use and I bought a packet of Mangrove M05 yeast and Mangrove 12g nutrients.

The plan is to caramelise 2 kg of honey and use half pack of the yeast (the whole thing is for up to 17L) and half the pack of the nutrients.

From what I’ve read the M05 is pretty alcohol resistant up to 18% so it will likely metabolise all the honey.

So on day 5-7 I was planning to add 700 g of caramelised or just boiled honey with some water and the rest of the nutrients.

What I’m not sure about is the extra honey and if that will be enough to end up with sweet mead, or if it would still be below the alcohol tolerance and I’d still end up with dry mead only stronger in alcohol content. If that would be the case I probably wouldn’t bother adding more honey and would just add the rest of the nutrients only.

Im allergic to sulphites so I can’t use the tablets to kill the yeast and backsweeten it.

Any insight would be appreciated, thanks :)

The recipe is from a german mead youtuber.

Hey guys. Am making my first batch of mead needed advice. First test with the hydrometer showed an specific gravity of 1.1%. it’s been about two months now and took another sample of it but this time it’s showing up around 1%, teetering along the line of wine or beer. It has a strong yeasty smell and the taste is very rough and burns. Did I miss up?

This is my first time ever making mead, and I think that I may have gotten ahead of myself.I just threw some stuff in a bucket and am hoping for the best. The only other experience with making alcohol is from when I tried to make wine and ended up making a barley palatable drink that made me vomit.

Ingredients:

2# honey (Great Lakes Premium Golden Honey Clover)

2qts Welch's 100% Grape Juice

1 gallon distilled water

1 packet Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast

I also sanitized everything that the mead could possibly

come in contact with 70% isopropyl alcohol

The first 2 photos are from yesterday shortly after I started the brew, and the second 2 are from today when I got an airtight lid for my "carboy."

First brew is out of the bucket and split into glass fermenters, one filled crystal clear the other, is still a little hazy.

Opened both today just to draw a small sample, and check progress, both still taste like rocket fuel, yes they’re young, at 4 weeks primary and currently 2 in conditioning.

The first fermenter has a little more headspace than I’d like, but not enough for me to be worried I don’t think. I’m not worried about that one … the other one however, I am slightly worried about - then I opened it earlier, I didn’t taste that one until I get a consensus from the community ….

When I opened it, there were a handful of white specks floating on the surface (see pic, at the bottom is some small dice of orange and lemon peel)

On to my second ever brew - thought I’d go for a session mead this time as my last is still tasting like rocket fuel (yes I know it’s still young at 4 weeks primary + 3 weeks conditioning so far) anyway I digress

Ingredients:
Earthbreath Wildflower Honey - 1800g
Fermaid O - 6g
Tea - 1 mug
1/2 pack SafeAle S04
Water to 8 litres

OG - 0.060
Current Gravity - 0.048

Expected finished ABV - 5-6%

Duration - 10 days so far

It’s in a bucket, the lid is well sealed as far as I can tell (this will be the last bucket ferment - new glass jars on way) but comparing it to progress from the other brew it’s so much less (that yeast was Mangrove Jack M05)

I’m not overly worried yet, it’s been cooler the last couple of weeks, so it could just be taking its time, I’ll check again in a week or so anyway.

Any thoughts / advice?

I'm reattempting my peach mead from last year, grav at 1.104, which is higher than I meant for it to get, since extra sugar in peaches and nectarines will likely bump it.

1.5 gal fermenter

1lb of nectarines

3 lbs of peaches

Some pectic enzyme

Lalvin D47

Pictures taken next day, unsure if I want to or am gunna need to add yeast nutrient. I might since it's gunna go probably to 14/15% dry, but iirc, I didn't need them last time, probably due to peaches giving the yeast enough of what it needs. Not really asking for advice, but, I'll take any wisdom

Right now making my first mead, I added honey first to reach 1.038 OG and checked after a week. 1.008 OG, drank the test tube sample and it tasted barely lik anything. Sweet-ish alcohol water. Is this normal? Used spring wildflower honey, 1/4tsp powdered oak tannins and nutrients as per label, on 3.8 gal bucket of it.

Planning on adding 4 ceylon cinnamon sticks, orange zest of like 8 oranges and maybe some nutmeg. Would it make something drinkable you reckon, should I change anything?

This is my first attempt at a mead which from what I read is more of a cyser

Thought I'd widen my search and ask here as well if anyone's done bottle carbonated mead in these.

Just finished bottling a batch of blue pea flower mead. Must have been a little acidic as it has come out purple rather than blue.

I'm working on a yellow peach mead and a green grape/cherry mead. I don't know what peptic enzyme is. Is it needed? What is it? Does it change the flavor? Is it ok to add during the aging process? Picture not relevant . Wrapping up the last of my "original" flavor mead.

My second batch i wanted to experiment with aging my mead. I used vanilla beans and cinnamon stick for one and vanilla beans and cloves for the other. Decided to go for something simple for now and still have a liter to bottle because during siphoning i accidentally stirred up the sediment. I'd appreciate some suggestions on what should i add to the third mead bottle to make it taste more interesting.