I did rehydrate the yeast, something i always do do with dry yeast, beer or wine.
I did not take a ph reading, which is hind sight i could have very easily since i have one of those hanna checker 1 pH meters, what should my pH be at, i am making a mango melomel and i have not pitched the yeast yet so i am woulndering what it should be.
i am aware that up front acid additions are unnecessary, but i am cloning a recipe i made about 4 years ago, when i did not know that and i really wanted to get it excatly like i made it before (or as close as possible) and this recipe had a tspn of acid blend for 4 gallons.
as for the fruit, i cleaned it, removed the green top and the core that is under the top, then cut them in to little peices, quarted the fruit is what i mean, put it into a corse straining bag. i did punch the fruit cap down daily something i do with all real fruit fermented beverages (mead, beer, & wine)the bag di kind prevent it from forming a fruit cap like i have seen in the past when i did not use the straing bag this small (usually use the jumbo ones).
i did stir during the fermentation and oxygenated (direct o2 with a stone and tank) for 2-3 days every 8 hours. the fermentatio was a bit cooler then normal. i have recently (about 2 yrs now) started doing cooler fermentations and i know most beer yeast that ferment down in the lower temp range produce more sulfur but i do not think the 65F is that cold?
now i see this in your post your directed me to:
“you gotta rack this off the lees and trub right away because letting your mead sit on the lees is baaaad!” That’s a load of hooey, as this recipe and others I have posted will prove to you.
my melomel did sit in the lee and trub for 3-4 weeks and i was thinking this could have something to do with the sulfur? but i have never heard of sulfur be produced by trub in beer but that is protien and not fruit fiber. so who know?
i will tell you from my experiences making beer leaving you beer on the yeast cake for months can lead to autolysis which is a nasty flavor and those flavor can be sulfur. now the one thing that i did do that was different was i pitched 4 times the amount of yeast 1 pk of red star montrachet. now i do know most home brewers do not have to worry about autolysis because they under pitch but i do think here i did hit the propper pitching rate and maybe could have went over?
this is from the BJCP website:
Sulfury/Yeasty
These flavors, not to be confused with DMS, have the aroma and taste of rotten eggs, shrimp or rubber. The compounds responsible for these flavors originate from sulfur-containing amino acids such as cysteine and methionine. Possible sources include yeast autolysis, bacterial spoilage and water contamination. These flavors can be quite putrid and are not desirable in any style. In the same family are sulfitic flavors, which recall the aroma of a struck match. They are usually due to the overuse of antioxidants, and while rare in beer, are quite common in wine and cider.
now the trub from beer is a different substance made of cuagulated proteins and at high fermentations temps can leach off flavors into your beer, but since fruit mead does not have this i was not worried about that. maybe i should have thought about that added yeast.
what do you think Oskaar?
do you think bubbling co2 through the mead will get/help get rid of the aroma, it is currently undrinkable, i was thinking about just giving it to my friend who has a still (for distilling water only) because i can not drink something that is this nasty smelling. which i do not like the sound of i hate dumping, and luckly for 14 years of homebrewing i have only had to do that a few times (worst was the dopplebock which the mash got burned, undrinkable tasted like nasty burnt toast).
now i can readd the lost aroma i can get some honey aroma and strawberry aroma, which i hate using, but if it can rescue this batch i would try it.
i was also thinking that maybe adding a pound or two more of honey and get refermenting and the would scrub the sulfur out witht he co2 action, but i dont want to waste good honey on a lost cause, and i am only talking about a gallon of 1 month old mead, it cost under $15.