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Shaking during aging

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pwizard

NewBee
Registered Member
Oct 17, 2015
587
0
0
Birmingham, AL
I have a batch of traditional mead that has been split into three one-gallon jars for bulk aging (they all have airlocks). However, the mead was pretty gassy when I tasted it on Friday. I did some research and the sour flavor my batch has may be caused (in part) by carbon dioxide in solution, i.e. carbonic acid. The airlocks are totally still normally but I noticed they bubbled more often for a few minutes whenever I picked up a jar or sloshed it around a bit during moving. This gave me an idea: maybe I could pick up the one-gallon jugs and shake them up once every few days to get the gas out during the first few weeks of aging? Good idea or bad idea? The only harm I can think of is oxygenation but surely most of the oxygen that was in the headspace has been displaced by CO2 now.
 
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bmwr75

Worker Bee
Registered Member
Oct 2, 2014
464
2
18
Northeast Mississippi
I degas my meads by shaking or stirring them every day until water is put in the airlock (typically when SG reaches 1.03). After that I don't degas anymore.
 

Mazer828

NewBee
Registered Member
Sep 9, 2015
791
4
0
Inland Empire
Shaking itself isn't the problem. It's what kind of gasses are present in your head space. If you've been actively degassing a while, and you haven't taken the airlock off at all, you can shake it as long and frequently as you want, because there's nothing but CO2 in there. Once you pop the top for a racking or to draw a sample, now you've got some O2 in there, and you risk oxygenation if you agitate. My method: keep agitating until I get no foam or airlock activity. Then leave it alone a week or two. Then do it again. If there's no gas release, then I'm pretty sure it's done. Take successive gravity readings after that to confirm stability before bottling.
 

Stasis

Honey Master
Registered Member
Jan 10, 2014
1,123
13
38
Malta
there should be no ill-effect to mead aged in a semi-carbonated state. Some meads are bottled naturally carbonated after all. What then is the hurry to degas the mead? I usually age my mead, and during this aging I would rack around 3 times. During aging and racking any Co2 would naturally dissipate and when the mead is finally bottled there would be no sign of Co2. Perhaps if mead is aged for a short period Co2 would be a problem. In my opinion if Co2 could offer protection against oxidation I'd want to keep it around during aging for as long as possible.
 
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