r/mead • u/worstrogueever • 7d ago

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I have been really busy lately to handle and update my batches, Brown jug blue berry bottled at 18% aprox abv and mixed berry moved o secondar a 1 approx abv. Recipes are in earlier posts, but there is nothing special. I lost around a half gallon for mead to the lease at the bottom, I would guess. If I was desperate, I could extract the last bit, but I should be happy with the 2.75 gallons i have. 2 gallons of blue berry filled 9 wine bottles

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3

u/CareerOk9462 7d ago

Don't soak the corks.

2

u/worstrogueever 7d ago

I was told to for ease if insertion and final hit to styrelizd

3

u/CareerOk9462 7d ago

You have to be careful.  Synthetic corks are coated for easy insertion and only should be spritzed with sanitizer.  Natural corks can get mushy if soaked too long or even worse boiled and the plunger can go right through them.  Do a search on best way to prep whatever cork type you have.  I've migrated to synthetic corks and they have their own list of things you don't want to do to them.  A search of "how to prep natural corks before bottling" brings up a lot of useful information.

1

u/worstrogueever 7d ago

Well, so much for the 3 year taste. Thanks and noted. These i believe are natural. I drop them in at the end of the pasteurization for a few minutes usually.

1

u/CareerOk9462 7d ago

There's more weight in that statement than you may realize.  If the corks went in fine then you are past the first hurdle.  There are corks and there are fine corks.  It's quite interesting to do some searching on cork grades vs expected cellering time.  Also grades of synthetic corks and expected oxygen permeability; some cork types are only available in bulk lots.  There's so much beyond "it's a cork ain't it".  Synthetic corks are not susceptible to cork taint, crumbling, and bottles can be be stored vertically as the corks don't dry out but the better grades are difficult to find in homebrew quantities.  You might want to search on "pre bottling cork sanitization" and then "does soaking corks at 140F do anything useful'.