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Mead came out sour

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Nineveh

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 27, 2009
9
0
0
Houston, TX
So in August I started my first batch of mead. The ingredients I put in were:

8 lbs honey
5 gallons of spring water
Sweet Mead Refrigerated Yeast
Cloves
Orange quarters(peel and all)
raisins
Rosemary & Chamomille Tea

Procedure:

1.Heated up water, honey, cloves, and rosemary chamomille tea in a large pot.
2. Let it cool.
3. Transferred to Carboy.
4. Added raisins and orange slices.
5. Added yeast with energizer mix.
6. Shook carboy.
7. Let sit in dark place.

However, when I transferred it to a new carboy after 5 months, I noticed it didn't taste "honey-like" at all. Its actually more bitter and sour.

Anyone have an idea at which point I screwed up?
 

trennels

NewBee
Registered Member
Nov 9, 2009
41
0
0
Knoxville, TN
I don't have a great deal of experience, but you started out with a potential ABV of about 7.75% and your yeast (was it the Wyeast Sweet Mead?) should have eaten through every bit of sugar you had. You don't say how many oranges you used, but whole orange quarters would add a bitter component, and after 5 months of them being in there it would be a pretty strong bitter taste with no sweetness at all to balance it with.

I'm sure if you post a little more information about your recipe you'll get some good suggestions for saving the batch.
 

wayneb

Lifetime Patron
Lifetime GotMead Patron
Hi, Nineveh! Welcome to the "Gotmead?" community!

Trennels is right on, both with the potential diagnosis of your situation, and with an appropriate request for a little more information. Even the Sweet Mead yeast strain (available from both Wyeast and White Labs), which can be problematic for most "wine-strength" fermentations, would chew through all the sugar in a recipe so light in honey. You might want to take a look at the Newbee Guide to meadmaking (links are on the left side of this page), and to invest in a hydrometer (an instrument for measuring the amount of sugar dissolved in your must, and one that can also help you to monitor the progress of fermentation as it proceeds), before you try another batch.

I do strongly suspect that your mead is totally dry (i.e. devoid of any residual sugar), so the acidic components from the oranges and the bitter flavor from the pith are dominating right now. You can improve the overall balance of the batch by a process we call "backsweetening," which is adding a little honey back into the mead after all fermentation has completed, and after you have stabilized the mead so it won't begin refermenation. You can learn more about all this in the Guide, and by searching on the terms backsweetening and stabilizing within the forums using the search tool.

If you have any questions after you poke around the site a bit more, post them here and we'll be glad to help you further!
 

Nineveh

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 27, 2009
9
0
0
Houston, TX
I don't have a great deal of experience, but you started out with a potential ABV of about 7.75% and your yeast (was it the Wyeast Sweet Mead?) should have eaten through every bit of sugar you had. You don't say how many oranges you used, but whole orange quarters would add a bitter component, and after 5 months of them being in there it would be a pretty strong bitter taste with no sweetness at all to balance it with.

I'm sure if you post a little more information about your recipe you'll get some good suggestions for saving the batch.

I used two small oranges cut up into eighth's. The yeast was White Labs Sweet Mead yeast.
 

Nineveh

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 27, 2009
9
0
0
Houston, TX
Hi, Nineveh! Welcome to the "Gotmead?" community!

Trennels is right on, both with the potential diagnosis of your situation, and with an appropriate request for a little more information. Even the Sweet Mead yeast strain (available from both Wyeast and White Labs), which can be problematic for most "wine-strength" fermentations, would chew through all the sugar in a recipe so light in honey. You might want to take a look at the Newbee Guide to meadmaking (links are on the left side of this page), and to invest in a hydrometer (an instrument for measuring the amount of sugar dissolved in your must, and one that can also help you to monitor the progress of fermentation as it proceeds), before you try another batch.

I do strongly suspect that your mead is totally dry (i.e. devoid of any residual sugar), so the acidic components from the oranges and the bitter flavor from the pith are dominating right now. You can improve the overall balance of the batch by a process we call "backsweetening," which is adding a little honey back into the mead after all fermentation has completed, and after you have stabilized the mead so it won't begin refermenation. You can learn more about all this in the Guide, and by searching on the terms backsweetening and stabilizing within the forums using the search tool.

If you have any questions after you poke around the site a bit more, post them here and we'll be glad to help you further!

Thanks for the help Wayne, I'll definitely see about backsweetening and stabilizing it.
 

Medsen Fey

Fuselier since 2007
Premium Patron
Welcome to GotMead Nineveh!

Sweetening this batch may improve the flavor quite a bit, but in this case I don't think I would stabilize it first since the alcohol level is quite low. Unless you were trying to make a really low alcohol mead, I'd add more honey and let the yeast ferment it until it chokes out (with this strain, it shouldn't take too much). Having a little higher amount of alcohol will add sweetness and body to the mead and should help it taste better along with extra residual sugar.

I'd start with about 2 pounds and see if the yeast chew that up.

Good luck!

Medsen
 

Nineveh

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 27, 2009
9
0
0
Houston, TX
Welcome to GotMead Nineveh!

Sweetening this batch may improve the flavor quite a bit, but in this case I don't think I would stabilize it first since the alcohol level is quite low. Unless you were trying to make a really low alcohol mead, I'd add more honey and let the yeast ferment it until it chokes out (with this strain, it shouldn't take too much). Having a little higher amount of alcohol will add sweetness and body to the mead and should help it taste better along with extra residual sugar.

I'd start with about 2 pounds and see if the yeast chew that up.

Good luck!

Medsen

Thanks for your advice! Do I need to add more yeast into it, or should there be enough residual yeast laying dormant in the liquid to start another fermentation cycle?
 

Medsen Fey

Fuselier since 2007
Premium Patron
They'll be enough yeast left, so you won't need to add any. They'll probably ferment most of 2 pounds without much trouble and you may need to add more if the yeast chew through it all, but you can follow the progress with a hydrometer (you have one, yes?)

If the yeast stall out before they finish that honey, then you'll be left with sweet(er) mead. You might need to stabilize afterward just to be sure they won't restart in the bottle, but if you age it long enough, you may not have to.
 

Nineveh

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 27, 2009
9
0
0
Houston, TX
Thanks again Medsen, I'm glad I asked around here before I decided to dump my batch wholesale and start from scratch :eek:
 

Squatchy

Lifetime GotMead Patron
Lifetime GotMead Patron
Nov 3, 2014
5,542
261
83
Denver
If the yeast stall out before they finish that honey, then you'll be left with sweet(er) mead. You might need to stabilize afterward just to be sure they won't restart in the bottle, but if you age it long enough, you may not have to.[/QUOTE]

HI Medsen

So, do the yeast die of old age? Do they starve to death if they have no food? What time frame are we talking about here?
 

Medsen Fey

Fuselier since 2007
Premium Patron
Eventually yeast pass the way of all living things.

However, people have reported renewed fermentation as much as 3 years out in unstabilized batches. This is likely to be more of a problem with a mead that has residual sugar, with a high-ABV strain (like Champagne yeast) when the ABV is well below the tolerance level. So if you use EC-1118 and have it stop at 1.010 with 14% ABV, and you decide to bottle without stabilizing, you're begging for a bottle bomb especially if it warms up.

Sent from my THINGAMAJIG with WHATCHAMACALLIT
 
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