Meads need less SO2?

[worlddivides]

Hi guys, my mead has been in secondary for about 2 months and I'm planning on racking it to tertiary later this week. I know for wine, they say to add campden tablets at every racking, but I've seen it also said that for mead campden tablets should be added every other racking. I had a REALLY hard time racking my mead from primary to secondary and, as a result, the mead got splashed and sloshed around like CRAZY (which was incredibly unsettling. I'm convinced my mead would have horribly oxidized it if it had actually been beer), so I feel like I should add at least 1 campden tablet this time when I rack (maybe even 2?). As I'm not an expert on this, I just wanted to ask you guys' advice. (It's 5 gallons of mead by the way)

 

[buzzerj]

Hey Santa Clara! San Jose here. Lets make some mead together. Potassium metabisulfite is really a matter of taste first of all. Some object to the taste of sulfite wines/meads and they leave it out. They get away with that primarily if they like dry wines and don't sweeten at all prior to bottling. If you do sweeten, by all means stabilize the wine or mead with sulfites and potassium sorbate. That will also limit oxidation as will some ascorbic acid (1/8 tsp per gallon) added late. If you are sulfite sensitive and like dry wines/meads, consider limiting oxidation that way. One Campden tablet at every other racking is the standard recommendation to limit oxidation.

 

[worlddivides]

Hey Santa Clara! San Jose here. Lets make some mead together. Potassium metabisulfite is really a matter of taste first of all. Some object to the taste os sulfite wines/meads and they leave it out. They get away with that primarily if they like dry wines and don't sweeten at all prior to bottling. If you do sweeten, by all means stabilize the wine or mead with sulfites and potassium sorbate. That will also limit oxidation as will some ascorbic acid (1/8 tsp per gallon) added late. If you are sulfite sensitive and like dry wines/meads, consider limiting oxidation that way. One Campden tablet at every other racking is the standard recommendation to limit oxidation.

Hey, San Jose. What a coincidence. I'm about 5-10 minutes from West San Jose by car.

Thanks for the advice. I drink quite a bit of wine and I've never objected to the flavor of sulfites personally, so I doubt that's much of a worry. Although I do plan to stabilize before bottling, I do not plan on doing any sweetening.

If you think the mead will be fine without any campden tablets on this next racking, I'll avoid it. This time I should be able to rack it with zero to minimal splashing.

 

[buzzerj]

Yes your racking should be a smooth flow with minimal introduction of oxygen. Albeit the carboy you rack into is full of air. If you are really anal, guys partially fill the carboy with CO2 which is heavier than air before racking. But yeah you should be fine with adding a Campden tablet every other racking. Why go overboard unless you do bubble a lot of air into the wine/mead during racking. Just take due care in your racking process. Don't sweat it. Enjoy it. I'm near Downtown San Jose. We should compare notes and join forces sometime.

 

[worlddivides]

Yes your racking should be a smooth flow with minimal introduction of oxygen. Albeit the carboy you rack into is full of air. If you are really anal, guys partially fill the carboy with CO2 which is heavier than air before racking. But yeah you should be fine with adding a Campden tablet every other racking. Why go overboard unless you do bubble a lot of air into the wine/mead during racking. Just take due care in your racking process. Don't sweat it. Enjoy it. I'm near Downtown San Jose. We should compare notes and join forces sometime.

Sure. I'm mainly a brewer (probably around 90% of what I make is beer), but I do make cider, wine, liqueurs, and mead as well (mead being the one area I have the least experience in). Feel free to send me a private message anytime.

I'll probably rack this time without using any campden tablets, but if I'm feeling particularly paranoid, I might just use half of a single campden tablet for piece of mind.

 

[Frognostic]

I've never added Campden tablets to mead.

I do, however, use a comination of sodium metabisulphate and citric acid to sanitise mead-making equipment.

Only time I used Campden tablets was on a stinky-smelling blackberry wine that was only three months old and hadn't been given time to age.