by: Rick Johnson 
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
RikJohnson@juno.com
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Ok, now the mead has clarified to a brilliant amber color. It even looks pretty! Stick a newspaper behind the bottle and if you can read it through the gallon of mead and glass, it is ready. You may notice that there is a layer of sludge on the bottom of these one-gallon bottle too. You do NOT want to drink that sludge.
Well, some people do and it won’t hurt you at all. If you have a good palate, you may taste a slight bitterness. Frankly, I don’t like it but don’t mind as I prefer the clear amber color which enhances the experience.
The day or three before you are to bottle, collect all those empty wine bottles and rinse them out again. Fill the bathtub with hot, soapy water. Dunk every bottle into the tub and soak them inside and out. Soak the labels off the bottles, get a bottle-brush and clean the inside of the bottle. Soap and wash and wash again!
I cannot emphasize this enough! WASH THE BOTTLES WELL!!!
I recently bought a multi-level bottle washer/sanitizer/drainer that I like but that isn’t necessary as for years I washed them in the bathtub with a baby-bottle brush and stacked them upside down in a plastic milk crate on an old towel to dry. It all depends on how much neat gear you want to buy. Brewing is like an addiction.. you have more fun buying the toys then drinking the result.
Now collect all your siphon gear. It can be a simple rubber hose or an elaborate piston-pump, air-locks and clamps.
Also corks! I have a selection of #4 and #5 corks as some bottles have a larger neck than others. You WILL need a bottle corker. These come in a number of forms from a squeeze-model to an elaborate one that sets on the counter, holds the bottle firm and has a lever to cork the bottle easily. My favorite one is a folding kind where I soak the corks in CLEAN water, place one in the corker, squeeze it together (gives me a great grip for karate) then I balance the bottle between my knees, set the corker on top and carefully, lever the cork into the bottle.
If I am off by the slightest, the bottle shoots across the room and I have to mop a quart of honey-wine up before the ants find it.
Step #1:
CAREFULLY place your one-gallon settling tanks on the counter in a row. Then go take a nap.
Why the nap? To give the sludge that you shook up when you moved these tanks a chance to settle again.
Better yet, set the bottles, gather your gear and practice corking a few empty bottles to get the hang of it. You’ll waste corks but the experience is well worth the cost.
When you feel confidant in your corking abilities and the settling bottles have settled again, it is time to bottle.
It is useful to have a friend help here. I do Mead Parties to get free labor for this.
It is important to siphon ONLY the mead and not the sludge. It is easier to do this if you have one person siphon and watch the wine bottle and have another hold the siphon hose in the settling bottle to keep the hose out of the sludge.
Have friend A stick the hose into the settling bottle far away from the sludge. Friend B sucks the mead from this bottle and as soon as it begins to flow, sticks that end of the rubber hose into the wine bottle on a towel on the floor.
Why on the floor? Because you need the bottle you are filling BELOW the bottle you are siphoning for gravity to help.
Why the towel? To keep the floor clean. You will make a mess anyway but this helps.
As the bottle fills, Friend A keeps lowering the hose into the siphon bottle to just below the top level. Friend B keeps his eye on the wine bottle and as the wine reaches the top of the wine bottle, pinch the hose, pull it from one bottle and start to fill another. You can get really neat clamps for this or a tube with a gravity lock that turns the flow off as soon as you raise it from the bottle.
If you have done this right, when you pull the hose out, the wine level in the bottle will drop. Good! You need a bit of air (not too much) and room for the cork. Allow Friend C to take that full bottle and cork it. Wash the outside of the bottle and set aside.
I find that I can get almost 4 bottles of wine form each one-gallon settling jug. When the siphon approaches the sludge level, Friend A will pinch the hose and move the hose to the next gallon-jug. Ideally, you will have a number of gallon settling jugs with sludge on the bottom and a half-inch or so mead on top.
What I like to do is to simply pour each of these into one jug, top with clean water and put another air-lock on the jug. Set aside and let it a) settle again or b) restart to ferment from the sludge that you mixed up.
By now you should have between 20 and 25 bottles of wine, corked and cleaned.
Label them!
Avery makes a bunch of labels that work. I like the #8464 because they are 3 1/3” x 4”. I took one of these, drew a really nice label, photocopied it 6 times, glued it to one blank sheet and ran all the blank sheets through a copier to make a dozen sheets of my personal labels.
NEW comes the hard part!
Stick the bottles on their sides to keep the corks wet (dry corks shrink and allow air inside to turn the wine to vinegar) and forget about them…. For a year or preferably 5. Some people feel that Mead should not be drunk unless it is 50 years old. You won’t be able to wait that long but remember that PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE and try to wait at least a year after corking to age the wine.
That’s it! Enjoy!
To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
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