Reddit mentions of Wine Corker CK25 Burgundy, Wine Bottle Floor Corker (Superior Portuguese

1. Yes. It's a lot of extra work, though.
   
   
2. "Food Grade" marked buckets are fine to use. I don't know if I'd use them for long-term storage of alcohol even if they were airtight, but for 1-4 weeks of fermentation, they're fine.
   
   
3. During fermentation it's not important that you have a good seal. Fermentation causes the off-gassing of CO2, so the mead will protect itself from oxygen (but not fruit flies!).
   
   
4. I wouldn't use a bucket for long-term storage because of the vastly increased amount of headspace, and I'm not sure the buckets are meant for alcohol storage.
   
   
5. That's just fine. Remember to get enough airlocks. They should be about $1 each at your local homebrew shop. And have at least one spare gallon carboy, because you'll probably want to rack it more than once to leave sediment behind.
   
   
6. Okay.
   
   

• Anywhere it says to use acid blend before fermentation, don't do it. Instead, start with 1/4 or 1/2 of the amount they advocate, after the mead has cleared. Mix in a little at a time until it tastes good to you. (Draw out 1 cup of mead, mix in the acid blend, mix that back into the mead. You might want to experiment in a little with individual glasses of mead to get the balance just right. However, if you've got all your mead in 1 gallon carboys, that could get tedious and the amounts could be too small to screw with, so you might just want to add what they suggest - but do it after fermentation.
  
  
• Don't heat and skim. Do a no-heat must.
  
  
• Rehydrate your yeast with Go-Ferm. Or at least rehydrate in water according to instructions on the packet. You'll retain a much larger number of viable yeast this way.
  
  
• Don't be surprised if your airlock doesn't bubble on a plastic bucket. The seals are notoriously faulty (and that's fine, per #3).
  
  
• Upgrade from the L.D. Carlson nutrient additives if you want to open a real can of worms.
  
  
• Make a little extra mead in the buckets to start with, so you know you'll have enough to fill your carboys to the top, after racking losses, without using water.
  
  
• Caps are much easier to deal with. If you want to cork (because so professional, so cool, so good for aging!), seriously consider investing in a floor corker, especially if you're planning to keep doing this. I'm in love with this model.
  
  
• When you get to the part where you bottle, rack your mead one more time into a sanitized vessel right beforehand, being extra careful not to suck up any sediment, even if that means leaving half an inch or so in the carboy. You can get that stuff later and put it in a dregs bottle (or drink it). But you can have very clear and sediment free mead without filtering if you do this.
  
  

7. Use fresh fruit. What the hell are they thinking? Don't boil it. Just overpitch your yeast a little. (Use two or three 5 gram packets instead of one.) If you're worried, Google how to use Potassium Metabisulfite to sanitize a must. Okay, so I did it you.
   
   
8. Sort of. During fermentation it will be fine, but get real airlocks because during bulk aging the pressure balance can change with barometric pressure changes, and that can result in sucking gross jar water/vodka into your mead.
   
   
9. Mead is very forgiving. I bet you'll be okay. Don't let your airlocks go dry - I can honestly say that I've seen more good mead lost that way than any other way.

damn, I really appreciate this response, a lot of fantastic info about corks I did not know.

> those bubbles are probably from the original headspace and not coming from the cork

There hasn't been any mead leakage that I can see, and I have no concerns about re-fermentation, for sure. I'm curious how small, separated bubbles could move from the headspace to the neck, as the neck is lower than the sides. A few weeks ago when I noticed this I "reset" all the headspace to the side, making sure the neck was completely liquid, and after a week+ it looks like the picture above.

As far as equipment (probably irrelevant, but figured I'd share if it helps), I'm using this floor corker (brand new, this was the first time use). I did a few test runs with bottles of water to make sure the cork depth was good, but these were its maiden voyage.

If you don't mind a followup - I get from the responses below that dry corks are what cause the whole "crumbling cork" scenario - is there a particular timeframe that is relevant (or irrelevant) for? The current batches I have bottled were 1gal, expecting to go through them in < 1 year (with 1 bottle from each marked to be used at 1 year). I have a 5gal batch aging that I'll likely want to save some bottles to age into the 1-2 year range, with a few bottles reserved for tasting at the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 year mark.

Wisdom I had picked up sounded like technical corks are generally good for ~2 years (my assumption would be "at proper humidity"), with natural corks being desireable for longer term storage. If the majority are going to be opened in 2 years or less (probably closer to 1-1.5 at most), would using "opened for a few months" corks be as much of a concern?

I went all out and got this to cork: https://www.amazon.com/Wine-Bottle-Corker-Superior-Portuguese/dp/B002P0SF2I/

But bottle cappers work too:
https://youtu.be/qvRmiBar13M