Troubleshooting and fixing issues

Hey Guys,

I followed the TOSNA on my last batch and made a mistake. I think now the results have appeared. my mead has a "sour" flavor to it. That sour (to me) reflects the mistake I made but doesn't make it undrinkable but more like a flavor portion of the mead to troubleshoot and fix (hide maybe). the off flavor is probably 30% of the overall body, the rest being the honey flavor and what I call "white wine" flavor of the alchohol.

so, to help facilitate any suggested solutions, my mistake (I assume) was that I dosed my must with too much fermaid-o; for example, to start, I gave the must the 4th dose after 1/3 sugar break. second, my yeast choice likely had a "very low" nutrient need but I calculated with 'medium' needs. so I think I effectively made a metheglyn with the flavor-spice being that of fermaid-o.

ok, so what could I do now (besides wait on aging)? how could I recover from this 'sour' flavor and/or what else could be done?

Thanks

Yeah, my luck with clarity is some what foggy ... the mead still has suspended stuff. so then the details, in a 6.5 gallon food grade pail, I:

combined 6 quarts honey (my own), 5 gallon local spring water. 6and1/2 gallons of pre pitch must (68deg) at 1.100 OG. I go-fermed the yeast (m05 mangrove jacks mead) and acclimated it (pitched) to must over an hour on May 22 2017. after pitch I gave it pure O2 for 3min from a .5u stone, I assume "lightly" (how do you rate O2 provision, cubically?). post pitch OG was 1.095. the fermaidO calculation showed a dosage was ~25G for 6gal and 6g per 1/4 dose.

over the next 3 days, twice a day, the must was stirred for degassing and aerated manually. once a day it was aerated with pure O2 for at least 1 minute after stirring in the 1/4 dose of the fermaid-o. the following week I degassed and stirred daily (twice daily for a few days) to raised the lees all the while checking the SG and sniff checks. after a week I settle to raising the lees (lengthy gentle stir) every 2 days to have this ferment curve:

day 01 may 22 pm: 1.095 (post pitch)
day 02 may 23 am: 1.088 (at this 24 hour mark add 1/4 dose of fermaid o)
day 03 may 24 pm: 1.073 (2nd 1/4 fermO dose)
day 04 may 25 pm: 1.060 (3rd 1/4 dose fermO, also last pure O2 aeration)
day 05 may 26 am: 1.052
day 06 may 26 pm: 1.046 (last twice daily degass/aerate)
day 07 may 28 pm: 1.029 (4th dose of fermaid-o)
day 08 may 29 pm: 1.015
day 09 may 30 pm: 1.008
day 10 may 31 pm: 1.003
day 11 jun 01 pm: 1.000
day 13 jun 03 pm: 1.000
day 15 jun 05 pm: 1.000 (after a good stir, move, siphone the mead to 3 gal carboys)

eventually I let the must settle for several days and racked it when I had a lees pile I could "clearly" see. the two 3gal meads that I could gaze into and distinguish the lees pile through to the other side of the carboy were racked to new clean 3 gal carboys. I topped off both new carboy's headspace with nitrogen and plugged it with an airlock of sanitizer. that was july 22nd at about 2 months.

so since then, I've watched it and watched it and it hasn't cleared much beyond that initial rack and so I dove into it. on oct 22, 6 months into the mead batch, I pulled out a glass and found the taste to have a sourness to it. it's not lime sour; it's not salty sour; it's like the sour you get with vodka sours ... chemical-ish-fake-like sourness.

anyways ... thoughts?

thanks

this 6gal effort is my 3rd batch ever. The 1st two were traditionals as well, but 3gal each, pitch-and-leave-like. they came out just fine, if only too much honey profile made it to the taste. in my first mead attempts, and my first mistake, I used my crappiest honey, a very strong buck wheat.

anyways, with this batch I chose to follow TOSNA and my intention was to actually use all the different additives for mental exercise. however, I didn't get a fining agent. maybe some cold crashing would also help.

I'll move on that clearing and see what changes.

thanks