Recipe 1,2 and 3: Final tasting

This weekend I decided to do the final adjustments to my meads.

Recipe 1: Cyser
This mead has been covered in dark plastic for quite a while now. When I removed the plastic I was surprised to see that it had almost turned black (?) - Not sure that was a good sign. Opening the 20 L volumetric flask, I was a little hesitant to smell it. But to my surprise it just fantastic :o). I took a sample and found that when the light paths was reduced, the mead had a very pleasing dark golden color. A thin layer of precipitate was found on the bottom so now it is even more clear. pH was measured with strips to about 4. So looks good. The taste was the best surprise. The stinging acidic taste was almost gone, and the sweetness of the honey is not overpowering the the acidity. All in all, I have much more hope for this mead now. Since this mead did not ferment to very low sugar and has killed any attempt to be re-started, I am not worried that it will start up again later. Bisulfite/sorbate was therefore NOT added - hope I will not be proven wrong (again) on this.

Recipe 2: Sack mead
The mead is very clear and with only a week yellow color. pH was measured to just above 4, again with strips. It does not have much initial taste but still an acidic aftertaste. Not as pleasant as my cyser but then again I should probably not have tasted this mead after the cyser.

Recipe 3: Elderberry Melomel
This is my experimental mead. It is very strong tasting and has clear red color, which is less intense than for example a red wine. It is quite acidic tasting but pH is up between 4 and 5. I think the alcohol is quite high so it should be well protected against microbial growth despite the high pH. The taste of anise that I added several times was gone - again. Perhaps the anethole (which is responsible for the fragrance of star anise) is not stable in the acidic alcoholic solution? Not sure of the degradation pathway though.

Finally I covered all 3 meads with 5 L CO2 each from the reaction sodium bicarbonate/citric acid as described earlier.

.... and then it was time to clean up..... In the near future I think I will by myself a pH meter .........