I've been making mead for a few years now and have never had this issue before. We make 5 gallons at a time and it usually starts working immediately by the next morning. It's been a week and we do not have any bubbling action happening. We used the same recipe we always do, but I did add one more orange slice than usual and no cinnamon. It's a blueberry mead that always turns out.

Is there anything I should do to save it? Or should I wait it out like the internet suggests or is there something I should be doing to encourage the bubbling? We are using brand new fermenting buckets this time around, but everything feels secured. Any suggestions would be appreciated 🙏

UPDATE: I checked the gravity and it is working, just super slow. Might be my new buckets I am pretty sure it's where the air lock sits. They came very obviously drilled and had to be sanded down. It had literal loose pieces of plastic hanging down. Will keep an eye on it thank you for all the insights

This is my first 5L batch and I was wondering if I had too much headspace with the secondary fermentation stage.

Yesterday, I set out to finally join you all in making my very first mead, or more accurately, my first melomel.

Last Christmas, I received a "Jigger N' Dash - Mead Making Kit" from my family. Yesterday, as stated above, I set out to create my first batch. Spurred into action by a mixed berry mead from a local bar, I planned out a nice raspberry melomel with no experience to my name.

Three pounds of honey, two pounds of raspberrys, two packets of nutrient, one packet of D47 yeast all topped off with spring water, my first batch was finally mixed together in its carboy. The fatal flaw in my creation had not yet shown.

Fast forward to this morning. I wake up eager to check on my creation, stored in the back of a cabinet to keep it from the sunlight. I run to the kitchen. To my horror, red drops were dripping from the cabinet. Opening the cabinet reveled a scene I can only describe as akin to your average saw trap aftermath. Red raspberry juice and flesh everywhere.

The valuable lesson I learned today was to leave very, very ample room in the carboy, lest you want to make a bomb.

Hopefully, whomever reads this, can learn from my mistake as well. Praying this batch isnt compromised because of it.

Picture of before explosion, and after being cleaned off.

Today was the day.

I was going for a single gallon of Viking's Blood variant.

• Tart cherry juice 3x 940 ml

• Dried hibiscus tea

• Honey.

But while making the must, I ended up with way too much liquid and not enough honey, with a gravity of 1.094.

So I split the must, made a full cherry hibiscus one on the right, and for the mixed berry, I just made an extra hibiscus tea, mixed what was left of the must into it, mashed about 3 pounds of frozen mixed berries (thawed from the freezer) directly into it, and used it as the base for the second one. To my absolute surprise, it ended up with 1.094 - 1.096 gravity also.

So hopefully, they both end up good.

Also, I know... headspace is almost nonexistent; blowoff tubes were used for that exact reason!

This is my second time making mead and today I found this white suspension inside the fermenter, the one I made before didn't make those white things inside. If anyone can be of any help I would appreciate it

Im getting back into making mead and was wondering if anyone had any good fall recommendations/ recipes. Looking to try something new any help is appreciated

I’ve never seen this before, any idea what it is?

People always ask us, how did you get started? It was making micro batches like this. It’s a cheap way to learn the craft, work on your ratios, cold crashing, racking etc for cheap. If you mess up a batch, no problem. We now do 1200 gallons at a time every 3 weeks but it started with 1/2 gallon.