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It's drinkable on the off - you'll get some improvement probably 3-6 mths in. If you can put a couple of bottles away and forget them - it'll be worth it. The stuff that I was on about earlier - up a to year, there was a very slight bitter aftertaste and some alcohol kick, had a bottle (leaving...

Yep as said tannin - mead isn't too hard to make, the difficult bit is the wait for conditioning

Generally the best honey you can get - cheaper probs isn't 100% pure ( a good guideline is to check for source on the label, if it states a blend of non-EU and EU honeys, that usually means China). Not to say cheaper isn't bad, as above mix it in with fruit for a melomel . A general recipe is...

Preservatives would be my guess too, you could try making a starter up, use apple juice - get something really lively up and pitch. Potentially be prepared to do it a couple of times - I've seen some posts where it's been theorised that it's possible to exhaust any preservative by overloading...

I've used the cheap Aldi honey in a cyser (also their apple juice) before, it turned out OK. One thing to avoid is boiling the honey, a general recipe would be something like 4 (or five) *340g jars of honey (generally the best you can get your hands on, avoid anything that says a blend of...

For a starter what I do is to warm either a small amount of fruit juice (if making one of those supermarket wines) or water with a dash of sugar in a sanitised mug for a few secs in the microwave. Just get the temp up slighty, sprinkle yeast on, cover with kitchen towel and pop somewhere dark...

It'll be fine, if you're worried make a starter up first

If you're using a general purpose wine yeast, that should get you to around 12-13% or so (ish), so there should be a bit of sweetness left.

Yeast should be fine (so long as your must isn't pure syrup)- you'll be left with varying amounts of sugar however (depending on strain of yeast used to ferment). As stated, what was the OG - you used nutrient too ?

Also OP - for sanitising purposes you can use something like this : linky I tend to drop two in a demijohn and leave for 30mins

Should be fine

I always use linky they're cheap enough that I can used 1/2 a tab per bottle or so (overkill I know), followed up by a rinse out

Swift update. Initially watery as described - sampled a smaller bottle last week and still the same, but there is something there a slight (v tiny) don't know if improvement is the word I'd use. Not much honey, but it's slightly more rounded. May be OK chilled down. So yep, time it is :)...

hmmm. Interesting on the cinnamon, I do have some ginger the freezer - could do something with that. Kind of reluctant to throw a decent honey into this brew, it'd revive it a bit, don't think it'd bring it back fully. yes, it's the honey, if you use something a bit more expensive it does show...

So as an experiment, I knew what was going to happen but I had 1/2 a packet of yeast just lying about, I concocted a mead using cheap supermarket honey (Morrison's brand). From racking into secondary, suspicions confirmed - watery, not much honey at all. I used the same recipe with some of the...

++ Yep, it's the improvement bit that I was thinking about

I've seen three months recommended, don't know myself, currently working through a few bottles (apple and also some mixed peach/tropical fruit combo). The later is quite nice planning on leaving a bottle for Christmas (racked start of this month) for testing purposes. I don't think (and again...

Thanks, there's pasteurisation I suppose, don't feel like faffing about with that. I think I'll let it sit in secondary for a good while, get some stable readings and then keep an eye on the bottles as you suggested.

What's the consensus with stabilising something that's finished with some gravity left ? I've got a mead here, OG 1.1120, looks to have stopped @ 1.010. Using CML mead yeast, so just racking into secondary now. Happy with the sweetness. Now, when this clears up, assuming it's still stable at...

Yes