Green Olive Taste?

[Hopinista]

I just bottled my first mead ever, it was simple with clover honey, Meyer lemon juice and zest, and fermented with Red Star Pasteur champagne yeast.

I took a sample 2 weeks ago and it tasted great.
While bottling I noticed a slight olive smell, and I opened a bottle and it has an olive taste. It's not so bad that it's undrinkable, but it's there.

Is it an infection? Will it age out? I'm very confused and any help would be appreciated

 

[fuelish]

Is it an infection?

I doubt it, do you see anything growing in the bottles?

Will it age out?

magic 8 Ball says, "Likely, yes"

I'm very confused and any help would be appreciated

Just let it age ....and age some more....and some more. If the olive taste is still there down the road, just drink it youself if you think others might be put off, or use it for marinating meats. I think it'll be fine in the long run...time is your ally

 

[Hopinista]

Thanks for the response, it's just weird because it wasn't there when I sampled it two weeks ago

 

[Arpolis]

Olive taste seems pretty unique to me. Not a description I have seen before. Also I do not really eat green olives so it is hard for me to imagine. Does it taste like pickled olives? So a slightly vinegar sour?

Is it more in texture than flavor so it is silkier or buttery almost?

Since using lemon could it be more of a sulfur like taste?

All of those can be explained but not sure if it is really just like fresh green olives.

 

[WVMJ]

Like in salty? Grassy? Was there a pickle bucket anywhere in the process (yes cheapos have used pickle buckets before for wine). That is the first time I have heard that description also. Maybe you just discovered a new fault in mead, luck you! WVMJ

 

[phug]

If it doesn't clear just call it a Greek or Mediterranean mead



Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[sablesurfer]

Going to bump this thread because I found a pretty big olive flavor in my meads that were going to secondary. There were four recipes in all. Two were JOAM with that recipe, two were same honeys but with orange peel, juniper berries, and ale yeast.

The two honeys were daisy honey from midwest and a 14yr old honey we found in gallon jar in my dad's garage.

It was the old honey that is producing the olive aromas and taste. It is straight out green olives from one of those olive buffets in Wholefoods. (That is only ONE of like a zillion flavors, but it is right in the middle and even the GF says, oh yeah, right.)

They were all brewed on 1/10/15, so still very young.
The old honey with ale yeast has it worse, and it is WAY hot still.
The JOAM has it about half as strong, and like JOAM it is much less hot.

She looked up off flavors and tried to make it sound like an oxidized, but <shrug> I ran it just like my ales and those don't get oxidized. The really hot ale stuff is in bottles now, the JOAM has been moved to smaller fermentors and put back into basement until I have more bottles to fill.

But yeah, this is a very savory mead at this point.