Bottling question

Old_Skool said:

OK --- Its time to bottle my first batch of mead. I have 5gal of a berry mead that I will bottle as a still mead. This mead fermented down to 1.001 (from a SG of 1.109) in the primary fermenter. Racked to secondary about 3 months ago. The airlock shows a slight positive pressure - but there is no visible action.

I'm doing no additions or back-sweetening so I'm not going to add any sulfites etc.

Due to finances I'm not going to use wine bottles but rather use 22oz beer bottles as I have plenty from brewing beer. I am considering dipping the tops of the bottles in sealing wax to create a better long term seal .... any comments on this pro or con

Thanks

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Since there are still sugars remaining I'm wondering what kind of yeast you used? it could be stable now but if the bottles warm up at all it could kick start those yeasties back up.

I think I saw that Akueck uses caps with wax over them so that's no problem.

Old_Skool said:

I used Lavin 71B

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So you're sitting a little above 14% abv, which is the posted max according to Lalvin (this is based off of wine though) so you "should" be safe.

Just be aware that there are some sugars left so you might get some carbonation in the right conditions. Yeast can be come active again and it usually occurs when it gets a little warmer so if you have the ability to store it in a basement where it is cooler that is where I would put it.

At 1.001, any additional fermentation that might occur would be very minimal. It's possible that a very small amount of carbonation could end up in there but that would be perfectly safe with crown caps.

One idea - if you can afford it, get some oxygen absorbing crown caps which should hold out better long term than standard crown caps.

I would tend to doubt that the wax would affect the seal much (positive or negative) but it would keep the cap from getting rusty (which I've had) and should look nice.

It may not be "ideal", but I have corked beer bottles. In fact, I still have 3 beer bottles filled with my amazing Cyser that I made two years ago. Last time we opened a bottle (about a 6 weeks ago), it was even better than the last bottle. As Nathan said, at 1.001, whatever fermentation happens in the bottle will be minimal, so you probably won't have to worry.

Nathan K said:

At 1.001, any additional fermentation that might occur would be very minimal. It's possible that a very small amount of carbonation could end up in there but that would be perfectly safe with crown caps.

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Doing this from memory, but if I remember correctly every 3 gravity points can produce 1 atmosphere of carbonation and since I've seen meads ferment down to .990 (and read of people getting slightly below that) it is possible that he can get almost 4 atmosphere of pressure which I believe is what beer bottles can handle and well above normal beer carbonation so he definitely would not get the still mead he was looking for and would have close to a sparkling mead instead. Personally I would not consider this minimal carbonation. Plus we are assuming that he adjusted his hydrometer reading for temperature so he might be closer to 1.003 which would put him over 4 atmosphere of pressure (I think that's the correct term).

Edit: It's volume of CO2 not atmosphere but the facts are the same even if I used the wrong term and the source I just looked at stated that every 2 Gravity Points is 1 volume of CO2 so he could possible get up to the 6 volume mark depending on yeast strain. Typical beer is between 1.5 and 3.5.