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.
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Canadian Sasquatch 3rd Annual Mead Challenge
Today I signed up for the 3rd annual Canadian Sasquatch Mead Challenge.
Canadian Sasquatch is a YouTuber who for the past two years has challenged mead makers to submit their meads for judging. There's nothing at stake more than just bragging rights, and the first year it was a traditional mead that had to be submitted and last year it was a chocolate mead. It was watching CS's mead tasting video for the chocolate mead that inspired me to try my hand at my own chocolate mead (No. 10).
This year, the challenge is to produce a melomel, or a fruit (or vegetable) mead. I, of course, have already attempted to make my own melomel (No. 6), which is a raspberry mead that was backsweetened with pomegranate juice, much to its detriment, at least so far. I'm hoping with time the pomegranate juice will mellow out.
For the challenge, though, I'll be making a new melomel. I'm not sure what flavor I'll be going with, but I'm thinking blueberries. It will be a 5 gallon batch, though, because part of the requirements for the contest is to submit enough samples that others will be able to judge the mead as well as Canadian Sasquatch.
Amongst the requirements are that it be bottled in at least a 12 oz (355 ml) capped bottle, and enough samples will need to be submitted for the number of people entering. As of now it's capped at 20 entries, so CS recommends making at least a 3 gallon batch so you'll have enough to submit plus have some left over for yourself. I figure 5 gallons will leave me with plenty afterwards. The real challenge will be capping it as I'm only just getting used to corking; now I'll have to figure out how to cap a bottle.
Other requirements include having a label on the bottles listing all the important information a judge would need to know to rate the mead and you have to rate at least 80% of the submissions or be disqualified. So if 20 people enter, I'd have to rate 16 meads. Why I wouldn't want to rate all 20 is beyond me!
There is a $15 entrance fee per submission (max. 2) and that will need to be paid by Sept. 1, 2017. Everything needs to be shipped by Oct. 1, 2017.
Looking forward to this challenge as it will mark the start of my video recording of my mead making process. I've put off doing so for so long and this contest is as good a reason as any to start.
Canadian Sasquatch is a YouTuber who for the past two years has challenged mead makers to submit their meads for judging. There's nothing at stake more than just bragging rights, and the first year it was a traditional mead that had to be submitted and last year it was a chocolate mead. It was watching CS's mead tasting video for the chocolate mead that inspired me to try my hand at my own chocolate mead (No. 10).
This year, the challenge is to produce a melomel, or a fruit (or vegetable) mead. I, of course, have already attempted to make my own melomel (No. 6), which is a raspberry mead that was backsweetened with pomegranate juice, much to its detriment, at least so far. I'm hoping with time the pomegranate juice will mellow out.
For the challenge, though, I'll be making a new melomel. I'm not sure what flavor I'll be going with, but I'm thinking blueberries. It will be a 5 gallon batch, though, because part of the requirements for the contest is to submit enough samples that others will be able to judge the mead as well as Canadian Sasquatch.
Amongst the requirements are that it be bottled in at least a 12 oz (355 ml) capped bottle, and enough samples will need to be submitted for the number of people entering. As of now it's capped at 20 entries, so CS recommends making at least a 3 gallon batch so you'll have enough to submit plus have some left over for yourself. I figure 5 gallons will leave me with plenty afterwards. The real challenge will be capping it as I'm only just getting used to corking; now I'll have to figure out how to cap a bottle.
Other requirements include having a label on the bottles listing all the important information a judge would need to know to rate the mead and you have to rate at least 80% of the submissions or be disqualified. So if 20 people enter, I'd have to rate 16 meads. Why I wouldn't want to rate all 20 is beyond me!
There is a $15 entrance fee per submission (max. 2) and that will need to be paid by Sept. 1, 2017. Everything needs to be shipped by Oct. 1, 2017.
Looking forward to this challenge as it will mark the start of my video recording of my mead making process. I've put off doing so for so long and this contest is as good a reason as any to start.
Fermenting Finally Starts to Slow
It appears the yeast in mead No. 12 is finally beginning to slow as the gravity reading today had fallen to only 1.000, which is where I would like it to end up around. However, since it's only slowed and not finished fermenting I added another half cup of honey to the must, which raised its gravity reading to 1.010. I'm guessing it will probably end somewhere around 1.005, but since this is my first time incrementally sweetening a mead it is just that -- a guess.
The taste of the mead is also improving as I backsweeten it each time. I think this is a great way to get the right taste without having to add chemicals to the batch. Just keep adding honey until the yeast conks out.
The taste of the mead is also improving as I backsweeten it each time. I think this is a great way to get the right taste without having to add chemicals to the batch. Just keep adding honey until the yeast conks out.
Monday, September 26, 2016
Continuing to Backsweeten
I took another gravity reading today of mead No. 12 and it had fallen to 0.995 so I added another 1/2 cup of warmed up honey which raised its gravity to 1.006 again. I also tasted it before the honey addition and it's starting to develop a nice sweet taste, not overpowering. I'll continue to add 1/2 cup of honey at a time until the yeast conks out.
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