It's been 1.5 months since I racked the non-JAOM mead batches to secondary, so I decided to bottle them and let them continue conditioning (aging) in bottles.

I first set out the fermenters (1-gallon carboys with airlocks) on the kitchen counter to settle and come up to room temperature (from the cold garage).

They look reasonably clear, especially the ones with D47 yeast.

I washed bottles...

...and flip-tops...

...and sanitized them...

After bottling, I ended up with 5 16-ounce bottles of each, and some left over for tasting.

The first batch (marked with the green yarn) was Orange honey with Lavlin 71B-1122 white wine yeast, was quite aromatic with scents of honey, and it tasted very sweet with an alcohol burn. The second batch (thick red yarn) was blackberry honey with Lavlin D-47 white wine yeast, a commonly used yeast for mead, and it was quite dry and yeasty, with minimal honey flavour. The third batch (orange honey with D-47, pink yarn) was just right (*grin*), not too sweet, not to dry, not too much burn.

The blackberry was the clearest, and each batch was still a bit cloudy.

None were as yummy as the JAOM, but all were definitely drinkable!

#Mead #Bottling