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Thanks, that's what I thought but I wanted to be sure

Potentially stupid question, but does one add kmeta to mead once fermentation is done and it's gone dry? Or is that just a grape/fruit winemaking thing? I would assume you would want to add kmeta to prevent oxidation during bulk aging, but I haven't been able to find a reference saying to do so...

Thanks for the advice everyone! Glad to know this isn't a lost cause. I'm probably gonna see about adding a bit of glycerin to add some body and maybe reduce that tartness a tad, but I'll bottle it as is and let time do its thing. Worse comes to worse I can use it as a top up wine

I'm a big fan of Islay whisky that knocks you over the head with oak, smoke, and peat, so I probably need to have a much more careful approach oaking my next batch of wine. But this was an experimental batch anyway, and the nose is amazing, so maybe after a year or two this will be phrnomenal...

@Country glad to hear that you had a similar situation that worked out well. I guess this is where the "art" comes in haha

Thanks for the advice, I'll try tweaking a bench sample and see if what I can come up with. I'm in no hurry to bottle anyway. I also probably overoaked this. Would that cause the other "wine" flavors to be hidden (making this watery), or would that just add a strong oak flavor alongside them?

Just my 2 cents, but I would rather leave the skins floating free and not use the bag so you can just punch down the cap with a spoon/paddle instead of having to squeeze the bag daily during primary. Since you're doing an EM, they will sink long before your first racking. I did this for my Lodi...

I bought a cheap 1 gallon WE Merlot kit over the summer to mess around with. I fermented with the included oak dust and BM4x4, and everything went smoothly. SG stabilized at 0.996 after about 2 months, so I did a quick 3-day cold crash in my fridge to speed the clearing and then added 1/4...

Update: everything still looks the same and I'm down to SG 1.002. So yeah, appears to be some stuff from the raw honey just separating out. Thanks everyone!

I was planning on doing MLF too before someone on here mentioned it wouldn't work, saved me a lot of hassle haha

You can't do MLF with juice from a kit. The malic acid they add is synthetic and can't be broken down by the bacteria.

I just use a standard 7.9 gallon plastic bucket. The lid has a rubber gasket in it so it will seal tightly unlike the cheap ones. I did put a 1/4tsp kmeta dose at week 3 just to be safe, but I probably didn't need to

I did a 6 week EM on an Eclipse Lodi cab sauv a few months ago. The EM is very simple: just dump the skins into primary, ferment as usual punching down the cap and stirring twice daily. Once you drop below 1.020 SG, give 1 final punchdown and stir, and add an airlock. Then just wait, no...

I have never bought bottles yet. I soak them overnight in hot water and baking soda. Most labels come right off with a quick scrape (except the imported italian bottles, those labels are usually a real PITA)

It was on another forum where someone had asked about using raw honey for mead. But you're right, wax would have a lower density and would then float. I just didn't know if it was wax since it looked somewhat crystalline and not what I would expect to see.

I have 2 one gallon batches of mead that I just transferred to primary at SG 1.020 that seem to both have some white particles floating on top (see images attached) Both batches are made from the same 5lb jar of raw clover honey, and I used GoFerm and FermO during primary. One batch is...

Instead of using pectic enzyme, you could try a cold soak or extended maceration to get more color, body, tannin, etc. out of the grapes while having more control of the process.

Apologies for slightly hijacking this thread, but what's the consensus on "cold stabilization" vs "cold crashing"? I treat them separately, with CS being a several week process to remove acid and CC being a few days to speed clearing. But I've also seen them used somewhat interchangeably on a...

Depends on how many times you racked already. Leaving the fine lees in for a while is okay (and can actually help develop flavors and body). But if you have over an inch of lees, it's probably mostly gross lees which can cause off-flavors if left in too long. Personally, I would rack it now just...

@Phrazier I started this Lodi Cab kit during the summer and did a 6 week extended maceration on it. I also like a lot of oak so in addition to the included dust and cubes, I added a handful of Jack Daniel's chips, 1 Med+ french spiral, and about 1/4 heavy french spiral to bring out some smokey...