Need advice - mead start gone wrong

Mead
1

Hi,

I had four gallons of non-pasteurized cider all set up to go and 10 pounds of great local honey all set up, but the place I get my yeast from is out of the White Labs Sweet Mead Yeast I’ve been using for my sweet meads.

So I waited.

Today, I came home and the four gallons of cider had puffed out and clearly the fermentation process has started on it’s own.

I know I can’t use this for mead, but wonder if anyone has any advice on what I can do with this.

Be a shame to let all this cider go to waste.

I did not mix in the honey and I have not added any campden tablets.

2

I would take a wait and see attitude.

If you have more than one bucket/carboy dump the cider in and let it go with the wild yeast. Taste it every few days to make sure it’s not going bad or to vinegar. Should be fine and if it goes bad you’ve just lost the cider, grab some more and start again with you cyser.

If it is still good after primary has slowed down you could just add the honey and go as planned.

Relax, have a home brew sort of thing.

dob