Four of my planned five experimental batches settling out. The Nesquik-based meads have cleared up quite nicely and I racked those. The Liquid Sex is also fairly clear, but I decided to let it sit for a bit longer while I waited for the Leap Year to ferment a bit longer. The Leap Year has been unusually slow. The cake at the bottom is not nearly as substantial as the others, and there's still a stream or two of bubbles coming up from it. Using it to start another may not be a good idea. Besides, I also read that reusing yeast cakes after high gravity brews is not recommended.
I did taste the two meads I racked. Pretty harsh and bitter at the moment. I'm a little concerned since they both measured 1.000 gravity. I didn't have a hydrometer then, but the first batch of AOCC mead I made was pretty sweet still. I used Fleischmann's yeast for that. These batches used Red Star champagne yeast. I wonder if it's an issue with the yeast as my first cider batches were also extremely dry.
I wonder if I can backsweeten with extra honey. Hopefully, it mellows out more, and that won't be necessary. I'll go ahead and rack the Leap Year onto a vanilla bean, but I'm not sure how to proceed next. I could use part of a packet of champagne yeast to start the 5th batch. Or I could just use Fleischmann's since that turned out well. Also thought about carbing some mead. Might just end up brewing up a 5-gallon batch of general purpose mead for various infusions and carbing.
Addendum: I finally got around to racking the other two meads. I did a pour instead of siphon but I was pretty careful with splashing so I figure I'm ok. The cocoa mead had a sweet cake stuck at bottom. I did figure out why my leap year mead had still been bubbling. It has apparently carbed itself. It foamed a bit when I racked, a little more when I dropped in bits of a vanilla bean that I was using in some sugar (along with a bit of sugar). So that's interesting. I didn't taste any of it, but I did get a whiff of some serious alcohol.
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