I've got a batch of Blueberry mead that has been aging on lees sediment for nearly 10 years. It is an experiment that I still continue to run. I taste test every so often and it is one of the most wonderful tasting meads I've ever made.

I feel like this has more to do with a lacto infection and oxidation in the non lees version. The on lees version wasn't racked and the only possible source of infection was the wine thief. The vessel is a possibility on the other. Since there was no sulfite, racking multiple times and increased head space oxidized the non lees version. Lacto bacteria in the presence of oxygen creates butyric acid which is sour and a bit vomity. It's commonly seen in poorly executed kettle sours, but as lactobacillus tends to rest in homes quite readily, it's very easy to infect a wine or mead when not stabilizing. Metabisulfite will ward this off. Sorbate will prevent cellular reproduction of wild microbes as well as protect your color and flavor. Just my 2 cents! Enjoyed the video!

This was a tad bit confusing, I'd recommend video tapping marking cups and pouring the samples in future so your not stuck second guessing yourself. Simple to hit a quick pause and bring that video up to make sure your on same page. Love you work though! Both you and doin the most have given me a lot of good info!

Super interesting experiment. We hear these bits of advice and generally don't want to test the worse result for ourselves. Thanks for doing the leg work for us on this one!

Great video! I've been binging your podcasts for the last 2 days (10 hour work shifts and headphones), I love your interviews with the heavy hitters and pioneers of homebrew mead making! Keep up the great work

Thanks for taking the time to do this video. The time travel aspect is fun. I have a mead that's been in primary for 3 months now, sitting on 71B. After watching this, i think a taste test might be in order.

Thanks for taking a whole year to do this!!

I’ve wondered about this. Thanks for investing a year to do this

When left on lees spicy, tropical, citrus notes develop and the wine is said to have a silky persistence. Lalvin ICV D47 from its spec sheet

Cool long term experiment! Good to know that the difference isn't monumental

Thanks for the time you put inn 😊

I really appreciate this experiment. I have a mead that got away from me big time and it's been chilling for so long. At the very least I can rack it, stabilize, and backsweeten to take something camping. Thanks man!

7/21/2024: I have 4yr.old bottle conditioned Scottish Wee Heavy80. It is kept in a refrigerator and has plenty of sediment in the bottom. It is absolutely excellent and shared on special occasions. I have been brewing for many years and can’t remember having an off flavor batch. I am truly Blessed ☝🏻

Like your approach to videos. I have been binge watching your videos before I try to make my first mead.

Thanks for doing this experiment! I assumed there would be a much more significant difference in flavor profile between the two, but maybe that difference increases over time.

I will tell you, I love this tests. Plz, continue.

I’m really loving your videos as a new brewer!

When doing these types of comparisons, please please please do it as a triangle test!! A blind sampling in a triangle style is so much more telling. For those interested, a triangle test is when you start with three samples (2 of #1 and 1 of #2 or vice versa), then remove one at random and see if you can discern if the two remaining are different.

Great video! The takeaway I got was leaving on lees for a short time (under 60 days) is virtually inconsequential to flavors. However, when getting close to the 90 day mark it should be racked to avoid unpleasant flavors.

BC looks like he's on Rumspringa from a farm in a Pennsylvania.

This was a great experiment!

At a wine conference one presenter noted that if you leave a wine on the fine lees for a LONG time - ie until the lees are almost completely re-absorbed the resulting wine improves dramatically. I have no idea if mead is different. Obviously, sur lie aging is done often in France and the US for Chardonnays

Interesting! I left a traditional on the dead yeast for about 4 months (got lazy/forgot about it) and it tasted better than its counterparts that I'd racked off primary immediately. Opposite finding you seem to have! One off? To semi quote The Mandalorian "Is this the way?"

My understanding is Autolysis is a concern with larger productions that home brewing. Basically commercial size productions where more than 10 gallons is sitting on the stagnant yeast. Crushing and causing the yeast cell to burst from the shear weight.

Great Video! I'm just getting started and I'm finding your content really useful. Thank you! Way to take the L on autolysis like a pro and just correct it.

Most winemaking gurus say that it's a good idea to get the wine off the sediment after three months or else the dead yeast can corrupt the wine. So it's a better safe than sorry kind of thing.

Thoughts on making 4 meads with 4 different waters for your next experiment? I used mineral water, expensive spring water, cheap spring water and distilled water. Almost 2 months in and you would be surprised on the difference of taste from each of them.

Really so very much extremely interesting!

Great video I’ve been letting everything I make, wine, mead or melomel I let set on the lees for another month or 2 and bottle I’ve had such great results

One years info in one video thats some real dedication youve earned it i will subscribe from now on keep it up friend

I'm pretty new to mead making so a lot of this is new to me lol. Racking a gallon of blackberry mead with wildflower honey this weekend (: Much love everyone!

you need to do a triangle taste test to see if you can actually even tell the difference between the two.

LOVE THE CONTENT. came from fermenting hot sauce- and a coworker from my local university got me some primo honey from the entomology lab. so super upkept hives. I'm PUMPED. Anybody barrel aged the mead? Doing a one gallon batch and plan on using a 'barrel aged in a bottle' corkscrew that I'll soak in bourbon for a little extra flavour.. I'm in Kentucky and we throw any liquid in a bourbon barrel for a little umph.

“That’s not me throwing shade or anything” but that’s exactly what it is 🤣

Great experiment like always! I'm curious if you've tried the product Sur-Lie which is supposed to accomplish the same effects in 3-4 months vs the typical 6+ months of aging on the lees. Cheers! Appreciate the content

I feel you missed an opportunity with this. I've been making Meade since the early 80s, and I admit that when I started, I was just an ignorant high school kid. I didn't know about sterilization or stabilization. So those early batches were terrible. But since then, I've educated myself and learned a great deal. I've made meade both on and off the leeds and have had some interesting results. The batches that have had a "bad taste" tasted almost like mold. When I did my testing on these, th pH was way off, usually upwards of 7.1 or 7.2. Yeast usually works best at 5-5.5. I didn't see any pH results at all in your testing. My conclusions concerning bad on the leeds after taste is perhaps a fungal spore contamination growing in the yeast cake at the bottom of the carboy. Contaminates can be introduced at any of several points during the process when checking the specific gravity or taste testing. I don't think the bad taste comes from the leeds so much as from contamination, the yeast cake is just a convenient place for the contaminate to grow.

Hello, i just started my first batch of mead earlier this week and i wanted to thank you for providing me with the information i need to get started and for helping me understand the whole mead making process.

One thing i have learned very quickly whilst making mead... ageing on lees is not necessarily a bad thing, infact i have found that removing the main bulk of dead yeast in the first rack and but aging for a while on the remaining lees actually gives a nice flavour.

I actually tried doing the sur lie aging thing where I stirred up the lees once a month with EC-1118 and an avocado blossom honey mead, and it's one of the smoothest meads I've made, so I can personally recommend that yeast as a good candidate for sur lie aging. I aged it 8 months and then bottled it. Every time I shook it up, it seemed to clear a little faster afterwards than it had the previous month, so it was like the longer the yeast aged the more they wanted to clump together and the more easily they fell out of suspension.

been lazy and have left a lychee mead on not only the lees but also the blended up fruit for nearly 6 months now. no off smells or mold or anything, if anything it's been smelling more like lychee as the days go by. gonna finally test it out in a few weeks then leave a gallon or two to age off the lees

The French allow some wines to be left on the lees for the specific flavors that it imparts.... So it is not so much "Off" flavors, but rather different flavors.

I would say it very much depends on the strain of yeast. Sauternes yeast for example is excellent for aging sur-lie, whereas lavlin d47 is horrible and bitter.

It would be cool to see you make that mead with peppers in it. Not a lot of youtubers do it

use red and clear or blue cups color next time guys

I found if I let my Mead's age on the Lee's it would give off a smell reminiscent of permanent markers

I'm making my first mead and I did not realize that I should have two carboys for the same mead. I appreciate your effort in making this video!

I see at 18:30 the left carboy has a thin 'film' around the edge. Mine does that too and it is now starting to form spots on the inside of the bottle.... is it mold ? , I've had it going since last year June , it is July now. When I crack it open it gives off strong alcohol but slightly musty smell to it. It was my first attempt and I think the film formed when during xmass ~5 months I gave a few folks a taste test and never topped it off.... what to do ... what to do ...

Back in the Olden Days ,20 Years ago ? 😜😂🧐🤔🤐 . You'll get there. 🐯🤠

hi great Info

Question - when regularly racking to avoid the lees, would you normally use metabisulfate/campden to avoid oxidation? Such a coincedence that you posted this video now, as I was just wondering this very question... I had just racked a big batch of mead off of some fruit/spices the other day which was beautifully clear, and after racking I was disappointed that it became a little hazy again. I must've picked up too much lees too soon (shouldn't have dipped the siphon to the bottom until the end). I was hoping to be able to bulk age it for most of the year without re-racking again, but now I might. Wondering about avoiding oxidation with subsequent rackings... or maybe I just don't worry about a small bit of lees on the bottom of a 5-gallon batch?

Love it :)

Oklahoma represent

It total depends on the yeast also what off flavors you can get, some good others really bad, D47 can give just weird funk but still drinkable, others can give a soap flavor of 71B

Interesting experiment! Are you a science teacher? D47's spec sheet says that it is beneficial to let your brews sit on the lees. That's the only yeast I've noticed that says this. Anyway, when I use D47, I've been letting it sit for a month or so before racking off the lees. No idea if it makes any difference.

Interesting video! Just out of curiosity, do you know any methods that can speed up the aging process? I wasn't sure if that was possible of you have a video on it?

Have you considered making yeast extract from the lees and adding that back to the mead for an instant sur lie?

au-tol-y-sis (ah-tall-i-sis) I was interested to see what the outcome would be. I have read about this process in a wine making mag and there is a process where aging on the lees is an artistic process to add body and smoothness to the wine. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea for mead (and I'm still not), but now I have something to consider. Cheerz.

Ok for smelling and tasting you need to smell coffee and rinse your palate/ taste buds with something else so that you could actually have a better Taste of them

Am literally doing the same experiment!

vinigar, the "not azetone, but kinda not alkohol smel" is vinigar. that mead will soon turn sour.

I don't get it. You run the experiment and the result is aging on the lees produces a better mead. And your recommendation is not to age on the lees. Why do the experiment then? Also, I believe autolysis is in fact the yeast eating each other. As I recall, this will happen when the yeast run out of nutrients. But what you're talking about is the cell walls of the yeast rupturing over time and producing an off taste. I'm going from memory here, but I did research this once. The guy said that as long as you have a healthy stage one fermentation your yeast walls are not going to rupture after a few months on the lees. He said this myth came from the commercial beer industry, if I recall correctly. There they use conical fermenters, or at least it's common, and the amount of liquid above the small conical point in the commercial process will indeed, if left for a few months, cause the cell walls of the yeast to rupture and create an off taste. But there's not enough pressure to cause that to happen in a home mead unless you've got an unusual amount for a home brew with a high gravity - maybe. That's not to say that aging on the lees won't change the taste. It definitely does, and your experiments show it helps the taste. But your experiments are not showing that at any point (3, 6, 9, or 12 months) the cell walls actually ruptured. Now, I like your videos. And I like that you're experimenting, cuz it helps me a lot. I'm critiquing for the benefit of making better mead. AND, I won't be surprised if some of what I wrote has errors as well. Critique away.

Hi!!! I’ve been watching your videos for a long time, but it’s the first time that I’ve seen this one...I have like 10 brews sitting on leese since 2020...🥴🥴🥴...I haven’t tasted any of them, not even once...any advice???

Why not pour new glasses you know is correct to confirm whats being tasted. I suggest purging head space with c02 if your concerned. A good straight mead towards dry is best under complex honeys. It gives the brew something to age on well. As far as body or tanic goes, guess use a tea starter to give it that. I did a rhubard with assam black tea and it came out pretty good. May use it more than almost never. Possibly type of water may be a factor.

I think I have watched 80% of everything you have put out. And many times over additionally. Not often do I recall you using the Tannins or any additives. Is it just my poor memory or do you not use them after and stick to the simple ingredients from primary?

this might sound like a stupid question but do you add water after each racking and tasting? I notice your mead level doesnt seems to go down after each racking, I usually lose at least 1 inch which is about 1/2 glass of mead

I’ve made 5 batches and I still am not sure if it’s good or not. I can’t tell if I just don’t like mead or if I messed it up. Store bought is good but it’s all very sweet and most of the ones I’ve made turn out very dry

my big question would be if the lees version is taken OFF the lees, would it "repair" or age out the off flavors from the lees.

"Aww- tall- ahh- siss"

it tends to be a bigger issue for yeast under high pressure in large aging vats, it takes a lot longer for most yeast to start the process from what I have read on the subject, it seems very environment dependant on when and how fast that happens. I've seen brews with a 5 and 7 years lees cake not have the issue so far

First time i tried making meed i jumped the gun, i drank a small glass 2 weeks after starting it, not much had settled. I went to work the next day and shit my pants 3 times. Didnt even make it 2 hours into work.. if yeast is still alive it acts as a natural laxitive. Dont make the mistake i did.

Do you like brewing beer as well? I have seen many cannels on brewing beer but none to many dedicated for Meads only.

What do you mean by flabby? Like weak bodied? Nothing there to help hold up the taste? Sry, kinda new to this and would love to understand more 😃 thanks for your time.

Im new and maybe a dumb question .How come your mead you have in the background are not in a dark place? Thanks

Thank you for the video! 😉👍•♥

Is it okay to fill the jugs that much? Wont it get I to the airlock?

Ever thought of heating your final brew to 175f for 15 minutes to burn off your acetone and methanol?

i dont know where you store ur meads ..but what i do understand is that light can change the flavor of ur mead .. is that an issue for u?

I left my mead on the lees in a cold environment for about a year. It became so extremely reductive that I could smell olives even a year after. However, why not try the wine making technique? You mentioned that lees stirring is a strange thing, but in the wine industry this is done in almost every single wine that goes under lees ageing at all. The ageing times, however, are shorter -haven't seen many wines that spend more than 9 months, and of those almost 100% are sparkling, which is a different beast-. Typically 6 months is a healthy maximum, with gentle stirring about once a day. Here is why I think lees stirring is important when leaving it for longer than, say, two weeks: 1- Lees that are buried on the bottom will probably sit in a reductive environment and will probably develop too much of a dull smell. Moving them around will help avoid this. 2- Autolysed yeast cells release manoproteins into the liquid, which enhance a creamier, rounder texture (thus maybe why you found the no-lees mead drier). These can also act as a clarifying agent to some degree, which may be why the on-lees mead was clearer in your experiment. Wine typically has a more intense aromatic profile as well as a more tense structure (along the acid-tannin axis mostly). This is why the impact of lees is relatively subtler. I do believe that the textural and flavour effects of lees ageing synergise beautifully with mead in general. I think it's just tricky to do it right and it's a largely unexplored area.

I prefer a sweet mead, I cannot stand dry

I think autolyse means self digestion.

Man have you ever made Tepache?

OU WOOOOO HECK YEAH

BC: my right hand is more, pleasant. Me:😱😂😂

I started experimenting with Kilju made with inverted sugar to try and hone my skills and get the nutrients and everything down. Inverted sugar is VERY similar to Honey, in that most of the sucrose disaccharide, is broken into separate monosaccharides of Glucose and Fructose. The only 3 major differences are, honey will have slightly more disaccharides (only very slightly and mostly in theory) than inverted sugar syrup, honey will have more floral notes which helps cover off flavors, and honey has slightly more natural nutrient value than inverted sugar which is just pure sugar. Honey may also have more residual sugars that aren't broken down and converted to alcohols, because when the yeast get done with the monosaccharides, they CAN work a little harder to break down the disaccharides to convert them, but often times, unless they're far below their alcohol tolerance, they'll instead get lazy and be like "yeah that's enough, I'm going to sleep. Here in the US sugar is MUCH cheaper. As you can get a 10lb bag for $8. Where honey costs about $10/lb for even cheap junk honey. Another difference is, without the floral notes you're REALLY getting every little bit of yuck hlthat yeast put off. Or what I call "sweating and complainjng" from where they're either working too hard or have unfavorable conditions. So it's a little easier to hone in on an optimal or ideal process of what they like and what they need. Then you carry that over to you mead, the slightly over-the-mark additional nutrients from the honey itself won't make a big difference, but the characteristics of the honey will make a HUGE difference. So... just a personal philosophy on how to REALLY hone in on how to make a good fldry mead. Don't make mead, make Kilju with artificial honey.

Have you tried fermentation under pressure( like in beer making now) , to eliminate any chance of oxidation? This would definitely prevent any chance of aeration during racking. Headspace would also be a non factor. This would only leave yeast, ingredients, and type of aging for factors. Looking at the carboys on your shelf you might think about using a Burton union blowoff during fermentation rather than the fermentation locks. That will help get rid of un desirable fermentation byproducts. That would eliminate Headspace issues during primary fermentation by letting you fill your carboys near to the top.

6.07 u say both been racked. I thought only the non leese was racked?

Im so confused, whats on leese

Too hard to follow... What was the verdict?

I feel like this year long experiment answered zero questions. If you have them around still, have someone else set up the experiment so you can go in completely blind and find the truth. Simply choose which one tastes better, and the person running the experiment can tell you what is what.

Think of yeast extract, that's what autolysis smells like.

What is lees

5:43 chacter

This was rough. Super interesting topic, but not executed to the point of being worth posting or watching. Would love to see a redo! With bigger sample size than 1 batch as well, different yeasts (but same honey), etc

Hm

I wish you didn't tell him what you were testing. Just an opinion on each without the already negative assumption that one was inferior.

Was hoping for something more definitive 😅

Just wanted to say hello

Sc

Algorithm

please Listen to a doctor pronounce autolysis