Mead has musty smell

[JohnnyB78]

First of hello, I havent been here in a while due to busy with work, and I keep forgetting my dang password. Ive gotten a lot of great advice here in t the past, so hopefully someone can answer this question. I recently decided to try my luck with a Mead. I looked at a ton of recipes, I had no idea how many ways there were to make mead. I used a pretty simple recipe for 5 gallons, I believe I used approx. 19lbs of decent local honey maybe even close to 20. I used a yeast starter, consisting of corn sugar and yeast, let it go about 2 days then added to my honey and water to make 5 gallon. I did however heat my honey slightly for about 20 min(not boiling), recipe said to do this, hopefully not huge mistake. Every thing seemed to work wonderfully very active fementation I believe my O.g. was around 1.120. I racked to secondary when S.G was around 1.030, and just racked again to get it off the sediment, S.G was .990. So heres my main question, it has a funky smell, like a musty smell, I gave it a little taste, and of course it wasnt very good due to its so young, but im just wondering will this go away, is it normal, and how can I either get rid of the smell, or mask it. Any advice would be awesome, Oh and I didnt use any campden, or Kmeta, I was told not to.

 

[fatbloke]

I'd guess the musty sort of smell will fade.

0.990 is dry dry dry..... if you want too sweeten it you'll likely have to stabilise it first (no knowing exactly which yeast you've used).

It'll likely need aging and may recover some perception of sweetness and aroma....

130 points drop is about 17.5 % ABV, so I'm guessing sort of 12 months ageing - I prefer bulk aging for consistency but you can bottle as it is pretty much once its clear as its unlikely to drop further.....

 

[JohnnyB78]

yes I let it go all the way dry, I cant remember the yeast I used, I got it from a wine supply store here near me, that refered to a chart and it was recomended for Mead, and had a potential to reach 17 or 18%. I have also heard that the smell is common, and one of the characteristics of mead, not sure if thats true. Someone said people add spices and such to mask it, also not sure, and if thats true is it too late to maybe incorperate some sort of herbs or spices?

 

[SouthernChemist]

That's quite a strong fermentation! My guess is that your adding a strong starter helped a lot in that regard. I wouldn't worry about adding anything at this point. You can always add some spices or other flavors later, but my inclination would be to see how it develops before making any decisions. This being a straight up mead, it will require significant aging time. Depending on who you talk to, some will say at least a year while others might say longer than that. The smell is probably something that will mellow with age (unless your honey actually has a musty aroma). What type of honey did you use?

 

[JohnnyB78]

It was local honey, from what I understand most honey from here is clover.

 

[SouthernChemist]

It was local honey, from what I understand most honey from here is clover.

I would just let time mellow it down some before you decide whether to add anything to it.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

I would find another source of mead information, maybe some folks that have made some good meads. Does EEC118 or Previer Cuvee sound familar yeasts you may have used? Did your honey in any way have musty tones? Goldenrod and buckwheat can have some powerful contributions to the honey if even a small part or included in the blend. You might want to add some KM just to be sure it doesnt get worse if it is an ongoing. What is your next batch going to be? Cooking is a personal preference, "most" modern meadmakers have preferred to not cook to preserve more of the good things we are using honey for in the first place. WVMJ