First batch results: mostly ok but a little bit sour

This is my first-ever batch-- 3 gallons (ended up with about 2 2/3 gallons) made from 7lbs wildflower honey, Deer Park spring water, and D47. I fed it with some DAP/Urea mix my homebrew store sells (I'm not going to use that anymore). I started the batch on 10/17, racked to secondary on 11/1, and just racked into tertiary (3 one-gallon bottles, the last one is only 2/3 full). This was fermented at about 72-74 degrees (I know, I know, too hot) but there was nothing I could do about it at the time.

I inadvertently got a few mouthfuls of this stuff while siphoning. It's not bad but it's definitely not ready either. The mead tastes a little bit hot (nowhere near as fusel-y as I feared) but it has a sour taste up front. I don't think it's tainted/infected because the smell is ok-- it just smells like regular mead with a bit of cidery tang to it. It fermented bone dry, so the guy at my homebrew shop thought the sourness was caused by there being practically no sugar left.

I had to go out and get an auto-siphon today because my racking cane refused to cooperate. I just couldn't maintain good suction even when I put a small hose clamp on where my tube attached to the cane, so I would end up siphoning a little bit and then the rest would fall back into the carboy. I was able to get the first jug filled just by siphoning with just the tube this morning when the carboy was almost full but I had to use the auto siphon to force-pump the rest of it into the other jugs. I probably degassed it while doing it that way but I hope I didn't over-oxygenate it. At least I left all the dead yeast behind.

Is everything progressing as it should be at this point in time? Now I'm going to leave it alone for a few months and I'm hoping the hot alcohol will age out and more honey character will come to the front. In the meantime, I put 2 cinnamon sticks in a hop bag and put it into one of the full jugs to start turning it into a cinnamon metheglin. I'm going to back-sweeten the other full jug and carbonate/bottle the half-filled jug first so it won't oxidize too much.

So I shouldn't worry about the partially-filled jar going bad during aging?


I'm not going to use the DAP + Urea yeast food anymore. I still have lots of it but next time I'm going to use Fermaid K and prep my yeast with Go-Ferm (I ordered both tonight since my local store doesn't stock them for some reason).

My primary was done in a bucket and my secondary in a 3-gal carboy. I kept the primary bucket in a laundry hamper full of water with ice packs in it. I thought temperature wasn't as big a deal after primary ferment. Isn't the whole point of keeping the must cold during primary to prevent off-flavors/fusels from forming? I'm now in the bulk aging stage on this batch so fusels aren't still being made, right?

Fermentation picked up a bit during the first week in secondary, then slowed to practically nothing (just a periodic bubble from the airlock). After that, the yeast started to drop out and the mead began to clear. I may have racked out of primary too soon since at the time my hydrometer said the must had 5% potential abv left (1.020).

I meant there was nothing I could do at the time besides keeping it in an ice bath. I'd swap out the ice packs twice a day and it seems to have helped. A brew fridge would be nice but I just don't have the space and money.

The fact this past October was freakishly warm complicated my ability to keep this batch cool, so I did the best I could with what I had. I'm going to wait until daily high temps are well under 70 before starting my next batch.

I just took a sample of the mead I was going to backsweeten. I was going to transfer some to another jug to make some headroom so I could add some honey to sweeten this up but I liked it so much I drank what I was going to transfer! This stuff clarified and became drinkable this week, much sooner than I thought it would. It is still dry and the mouthfeel is a bit thin but it isn't bad at all. Additional aging would make it even better. It still has some tartness but I've figured out what that is--I had some ordinary wildflower honey similar to what I put in this batch for breakfast this morning with my oatmeal and the aftertaste from that was just like my mead. (you know how honey tastes a few minutes after you've eaten some and the sweetness is gone?) It's pretty strong too... i don't have an exact ABV but I'm buzzing a little bit after only half a glass.