Mead No. 1
Gravity: 0.995
Racked it for a fourth time. There's really too much headroom in this one gallon carboy so I'm going to need to pick up a smaller bottle to put it into. Taste is really improving. It's still hot and I don't think it tastes like the Midnight Jack from Melovino -- it's got a chocolatey taste to it -- but it's not bad and after I rack it one more time into a smaller container I'll just let it age.
Mead No. 2
Already bottled.
Mead No. 3
Will wait till tomorrow for this one as my notes last time said it's ready for back sweetening and bottling, so I'll read up on the procedure for that first.
Mead No. 4
Broke my hydrometer trying to attach the hose to the racking cane so I'll need to get a new one (don't ask. Okay, I had the racking pump in the tube holding the hydrometer while I got the hose out of the StarSan. While trying to attach the hose I pressed down hard, forgetting the hydrometer was there and it cracked. Oh boy). I may just hold off on doing more mead work until I get a new hydrometer.
Mead No. 4, however, had been clearing and had only a little sediment on the bottom, but my methods of racking suck so I ended up stirring up a lot of the lees so it will probably need to be racked one more time.
Mead No. 5
This was a sort of JOAM, and it's turning pretty sweet. Still a little hot, but probably ready for some long-term aging now. I'll need to clear out a shelf where I'll put those that aren't going to be checked for some time.
Mead No. 6
Gravity: 1.010
Removed it from the refrigerator and racked it to a new carboy. I had forgotten to take a gravity reading after adding the pomegranate juice last time so I'm not sure what the difference was. However I sampled it, and Oh. My Goodness! This tastes really good. I see in my notes from last time that it had a tart taste after adding the pomegranate juice which also overpowered the raspberry flavor, but now the pomegranate flavor is much more subtle and there is definitely raspberry flavor throughout. Still a very slight "hotness" to it, no doubt from being young, but as I said it tastes really, really good. I'm quite pleased with it so far.
Tastings
Mead No. 7
Very sweet. No alcohol hotness discernible. Tastes pretty good, but in reality is probably too sweet.
Mead No. 8
There is a white film with some bubbles on the surface of the mead, which is a cyser. I still tasted it and it didn't taste bad, though it's flavor has weakened considerably over time.
Mead No. 9
Not very good. Dry tasting, and no sweetness. May need to back sweeten this one to make it palatable.
Mead No. 10
For some reason I keep expecting a chocolate syrup-like taste, but it's more of a hint of chocolate. It's good, but not great.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Thursday, October 6, 2016
The Calm After the Storm
Today's de-gassing sessions went a lot smoother than yesterday's, and all without the mess. I imagine this evening's de-gassing could have had an explosion, but I was watching carefully this time and as the foam started to accumulate I raised the mixer and knocked them back down. After that it never roses to such heights again.
I also added the next step in the nutrient addition, except I accidentally added a 1/2 tsp. of nutrient instead of 1/4 tsp. I hope that's not a problem (but I don't think so).
I did take a gravity reading this morning, but forgot to record it. I think it was around 1.095, but that would be surprising since this evening's reading was 1.083, which would seem to be a pretty big drop in just 12 hours. But what do I know?
Now I'll wait for the one-third sugar break. With the OG of 1.108, that would mean when the gravity reaches 1.040 I'll make the final nutrient addition.
It should be noted that this SNA is slightly different than the one Bray Denard recommends. With that one, you take you OG, divide it by three, and as the gravity hits each one-third drop you add one third of your total nutrients.
In the recipe I'm following, you divide your nutrient additions into fourths, and and one quarter when you pitch the yeast, and then 24 hrs and 48 hrs afterwards. The final addition goes in when the gravity reaches one third of the original. I guess it's about the same...just a little different.
So I'll continue to de-gas for the next few days and take gravity readings waiting for the sugar break, which I figure will be in about 2 days. As said in a prior post, I'll de-gas for a full week.
I also added the next step in the nutrient addition, except I accidentally added a 1/2 tsp. of nutrient instead of 1/4 tsp. I hope that's not a problem (but I don't think so).
I did take a gravity reading this morning, but forgot to record it. I think it was around 1.095, but that would be surprising since this evening's reading was 1.083, which would seem to be a pretty big drop in just 12 hours. But what do I know?
Now I'll wait for the one-third sugar break. With the OG of 1.108, that would mean when the gravity reaches 1.040 I'll make the final nutrient addition.
It should be noted that this SNA is slightly different than the one Bray Denard recommends. With that one, you take you OG, divide it by three, and as the gravity hits each one-third drop you add one third of your total nutrients.
In the recipe I'm following, you divide your nutrient additions into fourths, and and one quarter when you pitch the yeast, and then 24 hrs and 48 hrs afterwards. The final addition goes in when the gravity reaches one third of the original. I guess it's about the same...just a little different.
So I'll continue to de-gas for the next few days and take gravity readings waiting for the sugar break, which I figure will be in about 2 days. As said in a prior post, I'll de-gas for a full week.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Foam Explosion!
Okay, that didn't go as planned. I actually remembered to de-gas mead No. 13's must today -- twice! -- but things went completely awry on the second attempt.
This morning I went and de-gassed without incident, using my mixer with a cordless drill I stirred the must for about 5 minutes, and did so rather vigorously. However, this evening when I went to do the same thing before I added the second SNA addition, I had barely put the mixer into the must and turned it on when the foam rapidly rose and spilled over the side of the bucket. And kept spilling and spilling and spilling! What a mess! Fortunately, I did get it all on camera.
I'm not sure how much of the must I actually lost and though it was a lot of foam, comparatively speaking the amount of liquid it turned into on the counter (and cabinets and floor) didn't seem so much. Oh, sure, it was still a whole bunch, but certainly I'd say less than a quart, and probably closer to a pint.
After cleaning everything up, I stirred up the must again and there was hardly any foam left. After 5 minutes I added a 1/4 tsp. of energizer and 1/2 tsp. of DAP. I didn't mix it with any water, but added it right to the bucket and then mixed up the must again. Hopefully that was okay, but I was admittedly flustered by the foam explosion and wasn't quite thinking properly about procedure.
Tomorrow morning I'll de-gas the must again, but using much more care. As they say, the burned hand learns best.
This morning I went and de-gassed without incident, using my mixer with a cordless drill I stirred the must for about 5 minutes, and did so rather vigorously. However, this evening when I went to do the same thing before I added the second SNA addition, I had barely put the mixer into the must and turned it on when the foam rapidly rose and spilled over the side of the bucket. And kept spilling and spilling and spilling! What a mess! Fortunately, I did get it all on camera.
I'm not sure how much of the must I actually lost and though it was a lot of foam, comparatively speaking the amount of liquid it turned into on the counter (and cabinets and floor) didn't seem so much. Oh, sure, it was still a whole bunch, but certainly I'd say less than a quart, and probably closer to a pint.
After cleaning everything up, I stirred up the must again and there was hardly any foam left. After 5 minutes I added a 1/4 tsp. of energizer and 1/2 tsp. of DAP. I didn't mix it with any water, but added it right to the bucket and then mixed up the must again. Hopefully that was okay, but I was admittedly flustered by the foam explosion and wasn't quite thinking properly about procedure.
Tomorrow morning I'll de-gas the must again, but using much more care. As they say, the burned hand learns best.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Mead No. 13 - The Canadian Sasquatch Competition Blueberry Melomel
I finally started the blueberry melomel I want to enter into the Canadian Sasquatch competition. It was much more work than I anticipated, but only because I wanted to video the whole process and start up my YouTube channel for mead making.
Of course, recording everything is time consuming, and trying to remember all the steps as it is, and then making sure I captured it on camera, is a pain in the ass. But I think I got everything, and now just need to edit it into a cohesive and intelligible video. Still, I forgot how much fun it isn't to record everything.
The hardest part was figuring out the conversions. Since I went with 3 gallons instead of 5, I needed to figure out how much water I actually needed. Using MeadMakr's BatchBuildr calculator, I was originally supposed to use 7.5 lbs. of honey, but got confused on just how much water that meant I was supposed to take out. In the end, I accidentally substituted adding that much honey rather than taking out the water, which ended up using all the honey.
What the calculator said was 7.49 lbs. of honey which I calculated to be 14.4 cups of water to be removed. Instead, what I did was attempt to put in 14.4 cups of honey. 10 lbs only came to about 13 or so cups, at which time I realized my error. Honey weighs 3/4 lbs per cup, so for 7.5 lbs of honey, I should have added about 10-3/4 cups of honey.
Of course, this just means I'll probably have a sweeter mead since, to account for the extra honey I had to remove more water, or around 1-1/4 gallons in total. However, it didn't seem to quite all add up properly.
The stainless steel pot I was using is a 2.5 gallon pot. Somehow I thought it was bigger. But I placed one gallon of spring water in the pot, and after warming up the two 5-lb. containers of honey in a sink full of hot water to liquify it, poured it into the pot and stirred with a mixer for about 5 minutes. I then added what I thought was the appropriate amount of water, minus a half cup to mix in the yeast, which brought it right up to the brim. At the time, I didn't realize it was a 2.5-gallon pot, but decided to measure how much must was in there and that's when I discovered I was coming up short for what I needed.
I subsequently transferred the must into the 5 gallon plastic bucket I'm using as the primary fermenter and then added extra water to bring it up to 3 gallons. With a starting gravity of 1.108, that seems like the appropriate volume, but it was a bit confusing. I'll need to pay more attention next time, maybe write everything out first rather than afterwards.
The yeast was pitched, I added a 1/4 tsp. of energizer and a 1/2 tsp. of DAP to the must, swirled it all around and placed a lid on it with an airlock. Hopefully tomorrow I'll remember to degas the must and add more nutrients.
UPDATE: As I was closing down all the windows that were open on my computer, I looked at the BatchBuildr calculations again and realized I actually should have used 2 packages of yeast, not one. Apparently increasing the amount of honey necessitated more yeast so I went and pitched another package of D47 yeast.
Of course, recording everything is time consuming, and trying to remember all the steps as it is, and then making sure I captured it on camera, is a pain in the ass. But I think I got everything, and now just need to edit it into a cohesive and intelligible video. Still, I forgot how much fun it isn't to record everything.
The hardest part was figuring out the conversions. Since I went with 3 gallons instead of 5, I needed to figure out how much water I actually needed. Using MeadMakr's BatchBuildr calculator, I was originally supposed to use 7.5 lbs. of honey, but got confused on just how much water that meant I was supposed to take out. In the end, I accidentally substituted adding that much honey rather than taking out the water, which ended up using all the honey.
What the calculator said was 7.49 lbs. of honey which I calculated to be 14.4 cups of water to be removed. Instead, what I did was attempt to put in 14.4 cups of honey. 10 lbs only came to about 13 or so cups, at which time I realized my error. Honey weighs 3/4 lbs per cup, so for 7.5 lbs of honey, I should have added about 10-3/4 cups of honey.
Of course, this just means I'll probably have a sweeter mead since, to account for the extra honey I had to remove more water, or around 1-1/4 gallons in total. However, it didn't seem to quite all add up properly.
The stainless steel pot I was using is a 2.5 gallon pot. Somehow I thought it was bigger. But I placed one gallon of spring water in the pot, and after warming up the two 5-lb. containers of honey in a sink full of hot water to liquify it, poured it into the pot and stirred with a mixer for about 5 minutes. I then added what I thought was the appropriate amount of water, minus a half cup to mix in the yeast, which brought it right up to the brim. At the time, I didn't realize it was a 2.5-gallon pot, but decided to measure how much must was in there and that's when I discovered I was coming up short for what I needed.
I subsequently transferred the must into the 5 gallon plastic bucket I'm using as the primary fermenter and then added extra water to bring it up to 3 gallons. With a starting gravity of 1.108, that seems like the appropriate volume, but it was a bit confusing. I'll need to pay more attention next time, maybe write everything out first rather than afterwards.
The yeast was pitched, I added a 1/4 tsp. of energizer and a 1/2 tsp. of DAP to the must, swirled it all around and placed a lid on it with an airlock. Hopefully tomorrow I'll remember to degas the must and add more nutrients.
UPDATE: As I was closing down all the windows that were open on my computer, I looked at the BatchBuildr calculations again and realized I actually should have used 2 packages of yeast, not one. Apparently increasing the amount of honey necessitated more yeast so I went and pitched another package of D47 yeast.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)