How Long Should You Age Your Mead?

Today I'm talking about aging mead.. how long should you be aging your mead? Well... there are lots of factors and I'm hopefully going to help you understand them! Let me know what you think below and be sure to subscribe for more!

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[jacob]

I think one super helpful thing to do is, if you're making a higher-abv mead, try to make sure you don't have too much headspace in your carboy. That way you can bulk age for as long as you need to and use a wine thief to take samples occasionally. Once it tastes good and you can tell it's on the upswing of that bell curve, go ahead and bottle. That way, you can be confident that whenever you open one of those bottles, it'll be good enough to drink and enjoy.

[eddavanleemputten]

My take on ageing meads is: RELAX.

I’ve heard from a lot of beginner mead makers stress about how long they should age their meads, how to store their meads, when to serve their meads, how to serve them.

My advice is usually as follows:

Storing: temperature stability is more important than temperature. I got that from master vintners and master sommeliers. If you have a cellar and it’s cool in winter but warm-ish in summer, it’ll potentially do more damage to your mead long term than the back of a closet where the temperature never shifts more than a degree or two.

Bottling: if you plan on storing long term, go for large bottles and the highest quality cork you can afford (natural or synthetic). A lot of home brewing stores can advise you on this. Go for longer, slightly wider corks that make a better seal.

When is my mead at its best? That’s a question even master vintners constantly battle with. A trick to monitor your meads is to have at least part of your product in smaller bottles. Open one every once in a while. Depending on ABV and ingredients, you can open one at 3 months, 6 months, a year, 18 months, 2 years… and still have your main stash remain mostly intact. Every time you open a bottle, jot down your tasting notes where you jotted down your recipe.

More tannins = can/needs to age longer
More alcohol = can/needs to age longer
Adding stabilisers = can age longer
More sugar = can age longer
Healthy fermentation = can age longer.
More acidity = can/needs to age longer

BUT: most important of all is how YOU like it. A younger brew might he harsher, but usually has more brightness to it. That means if you have something that doesn’t have overly tannic notes, is in the mid-range for ABV and is bright and crisp, you might prefer it when it’s a year old rather than when it’s 18-24 months old… or older. If you made a mooreish, dark, more tannic mead with a similar ABV you might prefer it a little older. You might want to give a very bright lower ABV mead 3-6 months more time because the acidity is a bit harsh and needs to mellow. You might want to drink that darker mead a little earlier because it does have some brightness to it that it might lose later and you like those bright notes.

It also depends A LOT on the moment itself. A warm Summer evening with just a glass of chilled mead might not suit the bottle you want to open. That very same mead at that very same age might he perfect with a rich dinner or with some chocolate cake. Or with a platter of strong cheeses, dried and fresh fruit, nuts and cured meats. That younger, brighter mead might go better with fish or served chilled solo. A year later that very same lighter mead might be better at room temperature with a dessert containing cream and fresh fruit.

It frustrates them. There is no right answer. There are loose guidelines. Those, in combination with personal preference and checking your tasting notes at bottling and over time, will help you guesstimate when your own meads MIGHT reach their peak.

The good news is that even when a mead starts down that bell curve, it’ll still be nice to drink. You can enjoy it yourself, give it away, share it… and most people who drink it won’t know it seemed better to you a while before. Tell them to drink it soon or it’ll be less enjoyable. And when you make the same recipe again, you’ll know when it’s more or less at its best. Because we all need to remember that we’re using natural products and live organisms in an ever-changing environment when home brewing. There’ll always be some variations. And THAT’S OKAY. Part of the fun is never completely knowing. We’re always playing hide-and-seek with perfection.

EDIT: Thank you so much for openly saying there are no cut and dried answers. It irritates me when content creators blab about a recipe being absolute perfection in XYZ days, months or years, and their recipe turning out perfect within that time range every time. It might be perfect TO THEM, in THEIR brewing conditions and in THEIR storage conditions. And either they can’t taste batch-to-batch differences, or they’re lying through their teeth. Different batches will be very similar, but never identical. From season to season, year to year, batch to batch, their honey, fruit, herbs, spices, fermentation conditions and storage conditions will vary. At best they should say “for me this recipe will be at its best at X age.”

[mattraino]

New to brewing mead - I made a simple one gallon batch around 10 abv- tasted fantastic in two months. How would it have been at the 12 month mark…..we will never know. Too good to wait.

[Willberg-]

My one tip: Use smaller bottles or make bigger batches. That way you can sample your brew more often to see how it is aging. Tasting a brew as it ages and seeing it develop is one of the things I enjoy about the hobby!

[AMPMReviews]

I brewed an 8% grapefruit wine and it was really sour at first like grapefruit obviously but after five months now it taste mellow and smooth and juicy and I’m surprised how the perceived pH changed. It’s quite remarkable.

[MeatPez]

Love this video. I’ve made 6 week mead and it turned out great! It turned out around 12% and tasted a 7/10. All the extra stuff is really just for fine tuning and perfection. Nothing wrong with a good easy short mead.

[michaelg]

Thank you for making all of this content! The main things that I've learned, as an amateur home-brewer, from you and a few other channels I follow is that there are some best practices when it comes to mead making but, overall, it's about making something that you, your friends, and family enjoy. Who cares about everyone else!

[sheldonnicholl]

I haven't made mead in years. I am going to re-start this summer. However, the last two batches I made had a number of bottles left over (i.e., my bandmates didn't drink it on me). The mead was in brown glass (self-capping) bottles that were also stored in boxes and left in my garage. Years later (7 or 8), my wife and I were cleaning out the garage and I found about a dozen bottles (some from each batch/flavor). I thought it would have gone bad. So, I started to just pour out the bottles. I decided to try one (and risk puking). Turns out, it was fine. In fact, all of them were fine.

[chuppathingy]

I appreciate whoever is suggesting your videos are incorrect, gives you great content to create and aswer more questions! :D Well done!

[chickenwallerfarm]

I’ve been brewing mead for over 30 years. My Scottish grandfather taught me how to brew (and distill). I’ve drank mead that was less than a month in the bottle. And I just cracked open a 14 year in the bottle. I always bottle some small testers. But every one I’ve ever drank didn’t really change much after a year. IMO. Great video!

[djtomchay]

Great video. While this hobby is a science, it is also an art. As such, we have to realize that things like "good" can't be quantified. You just know through experience

[martharetallick]

I bottled mead a few days ago, I wanted a drink, so I'm having some! It's something like 8% ABV and it tastes just fine.

[RyanD_C]

i like your videos man, what you're doing for people like me, who haven't brewed much is outstanding. a lot of us are very grateful. i know i am. best channel for mead-making out there.

[ellieharper]

I do both archery and brewing/mead making, and they're both hobbies full of people telling you that you need to do things a certain way. I think the best tip for any brewer/mead maker is that it's all suggested advice that can help improve different aspects, but not law; especially since everyone's tastes are different. Don't be afraid to try things, don't be afraid to fail, and at the end of the day, make the mead you want to drink not the mead the internet tells you to.

[kensummers]

Ive been listening to you since the beginning, youve really helped me with my mead making. been doing it a few years now, Its felt like I kinda went on the journey with you.

[forcemarine]

I brewed 5x 1gallon batches about two years ago and ended up letting them sit. Depression sucks. I just recently racked and bottled and, boy, what a difference.

So much smoother and cleaner tasting. I cant say why aging works, but it works.

[samshepherd]

Been watching heaps of your videos man, thanks for taking the time to share all of your knowledge here on YouTube.
Lots of love from Australia 🦘 🤙

[Biedrik]

This is a great video! Regarding the bell curve, I think storage conditions are an important factor. Most of us don't have the optimal conditions (temperature, humidity, etc) for storing mead at home, which is why I think a lot of homemade mead tends to drop in quality after a couple of years. If you are lucky enough to have optimal storage conditions then that peak will potentially last years.

I'd also add that high gravity Polish meads are meant to age for ridiculous amounts of time. Some commercial varieties aren't sold until a decade has passed. The micro-oxidation simply can't be rushed. That's not to say these meads might not taste great far sooner, but if there's a certain style you're trying to emulate then long aging might be necessary for that rather than just for overall drinkability.

[patriotsedge]

10 months has been the best average for my meads. Been brewing for 5 years now. 10 months is the sweet spot. Have some longer, but not much difference in taste, etc.

[reallybigphilly]

At a whisky tasting the instructor once explained in perfectly clear terms how to recognize a good whisky:
When it goes in your mouth and you enjoy it, it's good whisky. Whether its aged 6 or 18 years, blended or single malt, Irish or Scottish, doesn't matter. If you like it, it's good whisky.
I am applying the same wisdom to mead (or any other drink or food, really).
I am only working on my first batches, but from all I've read and watched about mead making so far, two other principles become apparent:
1. It's pretty much impossible to get the perfect mead (wtf is perfect anyway);
2. It's also really difficult to truly irrevocably ruin it.