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Take a tasting and see where you are with the cloves. I agree with bernardsmith, a little goes a long way. -j-

Little late to this as I have been out of the world for awhile. hibiscus mead - 5 gal triple berry melomel - 5 gal traditional orange blossom mead - 10 gal 154 + 20 = 174 -j-

I think you meant that “she’s done at .996”. -J-

I would give it another taste and see where you are at. If you like it, bottle. -J-

I am in support of dry hopping. Recently dry hopped an orange blossom mead (5gal) with 2 ounces of Citra and it has been one of my favorites. If you boil the hops, it’s going to make your mead bitter. -J-

I do. -J-

If I can add a small step to bernardsmith’s post, once you land on a mix that you like, walk away from it. Come back in an hour and make sure you are still happy with it. You can develop palate fatigue from all the previous tastings. Best to make sure. -J-

In regards to the amount of fruit you need to add, I have always used Ken Schramm’s book The Compleat Meadmaker for a starting point. There he recommends 3-5 pounds of tart cherries in the secondary for a mild flavor, 6-8 pounds for a medium flavor, and 9+ for a strong flavor. These are all for...

Never like hearing that a batch had to be dumped, but it has happened to us all. It still sucks and all you can do is figure out what happened, then move forward. Good luck finding the problem. -J-

Nice!

Another option for bottles is a restaurant. If they have a champagne brunch, you might be able to get their empties pretty cheap simply by asking. Also, they might be crown finished as opposed to cork, saving you the effort of corking and caging. As for improving your meads, staggered nutrient...

Actually, judging by the hydrometer reading, it’s pretty much finished. I would leave it where it is and let it clear, effectively “cold crashing” the batch. 40 degrees should clear it in a couple of weeks. -J-

Patience is key. We have all been there. -J-

I do not filter my meads. I have always been successful with cold crashing for a week or two. On the rare occasion that doesn’t work, I use plain gelatin and let it sit another week. Never had a cloudy glass. -J-

Very nice Stokems! I applaud your willpower. I have a blackberry melomel resting in their bottles right now, but I have already gone through 15 so the last 5 don’t have much hope of making it a year. -J- Damn. Just noticed that this thread is 7 years old. Lol.

As SKbugs said, take a look at the BOMM (Bray’s One Month Mead) sticky at the top of this forum. It’s where I started making mead and it will walk you through the process. -J-

Generally speaking the sulfur smell is a sign of a lack of nutrients. 71b has a lower nutrient requirement than many other wine yeasts, so that might be the reason it smells fine. I am not familiar with the requirements for D47, but if everything else was the same, it seems reasonable. However...

At this point I would just let it sit. If it is infected it will continue to grow and that will answer the question, but you have noting to lose by letting it sit. -J-

I recently made an orange blossom mead dry hopped with 2 ounces of Citra for 5 gallons. Dry hopped for 2 days after most of the signs of fermentation had finished (gravity was at 1.015 from 1.100), then let it finish to 1.002. Turned out to be one of my favor meads to date. The Citra goes well...

Just to add to the idea that the published tolerance of a yeast are more of a guideline than a rule, I step fed a mead using Wyeast 1388 (tolerance 13%) to a total of 21% abv before I got tired of feeding it. To be clear, the yeast was still consuming the honey at 21%. Tolerances are a...