Made my first Mead, after 4 weeks smells and tastes a little like green olives. I plan on transferring soon and aging for a few months at least. Wondering if this is a normal aroma/flavor for something this young and if it will go away?
Northern Brewer Artisinal Dry Mead Kit
12# Ames Farms Clover Honey
5 Gallons Filtered Tap Water
Wyeast 4021 Champagne Yeast, Made a 1.75 liter starter with about 1 to 1-1/2 cups Sue Bee honey, S.G. 1.045. Decanted starter, (I may have decanted some good yeast as it was not very compact.)
Staggered Nutrient additions at day 1-2-3-4.
Fermented at 60-64
Made 10-26-2014, tasted 11-21-2014.
Filtered tap water, do you have chloramines in your water supply?
Total volume 6 gal w/ 12# honey is around 1.080 OG or less. Using champagne yeast will chew this down to dry. If you did a 4 day nutrient addition, you may have added nutrients well past 50% sugar depletion giving an off flavor and aroma if fermentation was vigorous.
Charcoal Filtered water is same as used for brewing beer, no chloramines that I am aware of.
5 Gallons O.G. was 1.091
Made 10-26-2014, 10-29-2014 refractometer reading of 1.076. I did not adjust the reading as I just wanted to get an idea where it was. The last nutrient addition was done on this day. I don’t think it was past 50%.
11-21-2014 Hydrometer reading .995 to 1.000.
No signs of “vigorous” fermentation during first four days when mead was stirred for degassing.
I did not measure pH at anytime during the process. I should have.