Sour aroma on the 3rd day of fermentation - probably lactic

Welcome! I live in tucson too. The heat can be a killer.

Sounds like a plethora of possible things going on...
-2 types of yeast? This could cause stresses of the yeast and maybe off aromas and or flavors.
- Temperature. This defiantly can cause the yeast to make funky stuff too.
- If you got funk in there of some kind, that is a possible contaminant cause of off odors.

At this point there isn't much you can do except ride it out and hope things mellow with time.

From what I understand also you want to add the acid blend after fermentation and aging because you may not need it with all things finishing.

Defiantly read the NewBee Guide for lots of great info and I would be happy to get together being in tucson too

Irish moss?

wildoates said:

Irish moss?

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A staple in beer brewing that is used as a clarifying agent. It must be boiled to be useful, and you'll see it in old brewer's recipes for mead that invariably included boiling the must. Such old recipes often included acid additions at the beginning because they didn't realize that will sometimes cause a mead to stall.

5th, sour smells are part of mead and wine making. The yeast produce acids that contribute to it and you can get a lot of other strange smells when brewing as well. However, Montrachet is a yeast that is well known for producing medicinal phenolic (and plastic-like) odors when fermenting at temps in the 80s. I hope your batch turns out, but if you are going to craft mead at those temps, you probably need to change yeast.

Welcome to GotMead!

Medsen

Oh, I know what it is, just surprised to still see it in a mead recipe. I don't even use it in beer.

All my meads have smelled and tasted plenty acidic, I can't even imagine how they'd be with that much acid blend!

There is, yes...I haven't ever had to use it, but I keep some calcium carbonate on hand for any eventuality.

And tannin powder isn't artificial, so no worries there. You're right about the pectic enzyme, no fruit, no need.

There is a lot to learn, but fortunately for you this is the place to learn it. My son brews beer and a lot of what I do to make mead totally freaks him out--he's certain that I'm doing it all wrong. Thanks to the experts here, so far, so good. And remember that there is actually very little that can't be salvaged one way or another. My daughter and I just found a bottle half full of a traditional that I'd closed up with a zork from a sparkling wine we had for Easter. We had the traditional left and figured what the heck, let's try the zork and see what happens. Then we forgot about it until we happened across it today. Tastes just fine.

If you do wind up with too much acidity, you can also sweeten to balance it, and in many cases you'll end up with something quite good.

You don't need to add nutrients at this point. You need to add your nutrients near the beginning of fermentation for them to be useful. Any nutrients you add now will likely just be there to feed spoilage organisms.

Plan on aging this for a long time (2 years) and perhaps that will allow the aroma to come around.

The5thHerring said:

So I have another question! Two actually. One: is that "airlock" actually airtight enough for sanitary purposes?

Two: Is it normal to have little white patches of fairly persistent *very fine* bubbles, and/or bubbles of any size that don't pop when you tap the carboy? I may be hypersensitive because I got bona-fide bacterial bubble-trapping mats on a wine previous to this. These don't look like that, but still.

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Let me add to the chorus of voices providing you with advice and suggestions! ;D

First, with respect to your "engineered airlock," as long as the assembly restricts the flow of gases from the carboy out to the outside air enough, then there will always be a slight bit of positive pressure between the carboy and the outside. That positive pressure, along with any labyrinthine arrangement that keeps a direct path from the carboy to the outside blocked, is usually good enough to prevent spoilage organisms from getting into the must. You don't need a perfect hermetic seal for an airlock to do its job during primary fermentation. In fact, during my primary fermentations I will often just have a sanitized cloth stretched over my fermenter, or alternately when I'm fermenting in a bucket, I'll have a plastic lid simply setting loosely on the top rim of the bucket - completely covering it to prevent airborne stuff from falling in, but nowhere near "sealed."

That said, during the end of primary when CO2 production falls to the point where mixing of gases from the outside is possible within the headspace of your carboy, you should try to keep as good a seal as possible at the lock, in order to prevent as much O2 penetration into the headspace as possible.

Regarding the little bit of bubble entrapment that you describe, that is usually just a little residual yeast and yeast protein floating on the surface, forming a very thin film that can trap some CO2 bubbles. Some yeast strains are more prone to generate that film than others. It is only a problem if you start to see the film appear to grow in thickness, or to form either tendrils or small spherical structures - both of those can be caused by spoilage organisms. If in doubt, perform a sniff test. Most spoilage organisms will throw off foul or vinegary aromas. If you are still worried, you can rack the clear mead out from under that film layer and then treat with metabisulphite.

Good luck with this batch the rest of the way!