Homebrew

[MrPahoehoe]

Approximately 1 year ago I started making some homebrew mead. The recipe was very simple: honey, water, yeast (we used a bit of orange juice to make a starter solution). It said something like 'allow to ferment' for several weeks before racking off and leaving for at least 6 months. Well, it all went fine, except I forgot to transfer it. Its been in the demijohn for just over a year now. I was going to transfer it, but someone who knows more about it than me said that we'd left too much air in the top and it will probably have oxidised. I'm not sure about this, because the airlock has been in since it started, so no air can possibly have gotten in there, so I would have thought that the yeast would have used up all the air and then died, although I seem to remember hearing something about secondary fermentation(?). I happened to be sleeping in the room with the mead the other day and I noticed that it is still bubbling through the airlock: very slowly admittedly, I only heard it twice over the course of a weekend, although I was visiting and wasn't spending much time in the bedroom.

Any ideas? I'd quite like to drink it, but I didn't take any measurements beforehand so I don't know how to measure the alcohol content, but if it will definitely have oxidised then it wont be worth bothering racking it off, or as its still bubbling now, then might be crazy strong??

[jennyp]

It might be worth asking on here. http://www.yobrew.co.uk/home.php

[taichiperson]

I'm almost sure it shouldn't have oxidised if there is still liquid in the airlock - but how much of an air gap is there? It can only get so strong as the rising amount of alcohol stops the fermentation. Try tasting it, I'm sure you'll soon be able to tell how strong it is!! There are some good homebrew sites on the web, try asking there - if you want a link, I can recommend one.