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does it taste bad?

Barrel Char Wood Products
D

d.m

Guest
Guest
my friend and i are making a rasberry mead. a basic recipe. we have a 1 gallon and a 5 gallon jug on the go. the one gallon is still bubbling strong and the 5 gal stopped 3 days ago. we racked it to get the sedement out. it does not smell the same as the smaller bottle. the little one smells like mead should. the large one smells very strong but not awful. more like wine. it has a sulfer taste to it. is there any hope? its been 14 days.
 

frob23

Worker Bee
Registered Member
Dec 5, 2003
130
0
16
43
Is it possibe, or would it make a difference how aerated the different musts were? The only way I could see them being the same (considering the opening to the gallon bottle is much smaller) is brewing the 6 gallons together, aerating, pitching, wait, stir, siphon off one gallon. Which I am sure you didn't do.

Also, the gallon would have more surface area to volume and would lose heat quicker. So the five gallon might have been warmed, by a few degrees, even in the same room. I would think the opposite would be true but it might be possible that larger batches ferment out faster. I really have no idea but this is what I am thinking. It seems like most of the 5 gallon batch is done but the 1 gallon is a day or so behind.

Not sure about the sulpher smell. Again, this is all hypothesis -- I have no experience to back this up. My first five gallon batch sits dead in my closet from preservatives.
 

JoeM

NewBee
Registered Member
Jan 9, 2004
665
1
0
43
Your mead is probably fine. Just give it time. What were the recipes you used for both batches? Can you describe the deferences in smells? what do you mean it smells like a mead is supposed to smell? The sulfur is probably from the fermenting fruit...it should dissipate with time. it is probably less pronounced in the smaller batch b/c it is able to dissipate from the smaller volume at a faster rate. temperature differences between the two batches should be negligible, the only time fermentation causes a marked increase in temperature is in batch sizes in the hundreds or thousands of gallons.
 
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