Question about bottles for competition (Mead)

[Dennis Burnett]

Question about bottles for a competition at the NJ State Fair. I usually bottle mostly in 750ml (~25fl oz) and what I was planning on submitting is as such (corked). They have it posted that you may submit 2 x 12fl oz bottles. Should I try to split and rebottle into 2x12 fl oz bottles, or is the one 750ml bottle sufficient? No carbonation, so I wouldn't have to worry about it running flat after opening.

 

[Josh Atzert]

Question about bottles for a competition at the NJ State Fair. I usually bottle mostly in 750ml (~25fl oz) and what I was planning on submitting is as such (corked). They have it posted that you may submit 2 x 12fl oz bottles. Should I try to split and rebottle into 2x12 fl oz bottles, or is the one 750ml bottle sufficient? No carbonation, so I wouldn't have to worry about it running flat after opening.

From my experience, they want two bottles in case of best of shows. You need two, or else you can't move on as they are usually with different judges and sometimes at different dates. I.e. Two 750ml would be better, else two less sized and sealed bottles.

@Brian Pylant can speak to this better.

My suggestion would be to uncork your one bottle, at the last possible date, and transfer into two 12oz beer bottles to cap and immediately take to the drop off. Further more if you have the ability to purge the bottles with a CO2 wand, it will greatly help to fight off oxidation.

 

[Brian Pylant]

Sorry I'm seeing this so late... Josh is correct, you need to submit two bottles so a fresh one can be opened if your mead makes it to the Best Of Show table. (I have seen single-bottle entries go on to BOS and win, but that is not common although you stand a far better chance of this with still mead or cider than you would with anything carbonated, obviously).

In regards to opening and re-bottling, the primary concern is the risk of oxidation. If you decide to do that I would do it at the last possible moment (the night before you plan to drop off your entries, or the day of if you have time), and to do this at the last possible day before you have to drop them off, to minimize the time between re-bottling and judging.

For future batches if you think you might want to enter some in competition, bottle a few in 12oz (or 375ml) bottles, and the rest in 750s. Worse-case you don't enter, and end up drinking the smaller bottles yourself!

Good luck in the comp!

 

[Dennis Burnett]

@Brian Pylant @Josh Atzert
Thank you both for the feedback.

 

[Brian Pylant]

You're welcome, good luck if you enter!

 

[Brian Pylant]

One quick note: I was doing a little research into zinc nutrient / Servomyces, and in one of those threads I ran across this little tidbit:

... a friend of mine in the Master Homebrewer Program recommended this. He adds potassium metabisulfate and potassium sorbate when bottling. He does this by having two vials with 100 mL of santizied water in each, then adds 1 gram of the K-Meta to one and 1 gram of K-Sorbate to the other, shakes them to they dissolve, then adds 1 gram of each liquid to his bottles. The K-Meta will scrub oxygen and the K-Sorbate will prevent any bugs that get in during bottling from growing. He said since doing this, he has not had a judge mention oxidation or any bottling funk issues.