05.16.2011 Basic Mead Update

I had a lot of issues with this mead and I think that part of the problem was that I was still new had yet to learn that it's best to forget about it and come back in 6 months. It started out in a brown jug, which meant that I couldn't see what was going on inside. And when I noticed that some lees had formed and looked pretty thick I racked it out too soon being paranoid that it was going to cause off flavors. As it was there ended up being very little lees and it only looked to be a lot from the way that it stuck to the sides of the jug... I believe now that this early racking took away a lot of the healthy yeast and if not directly caused all the fermentation issues it certainly didn't help. I now know that it's best to wait until at least primary fermentation has been completed before racking to secondary. Another problem with this mead is that I don't think that I used enough nutrients and that I should have taken more care to allow the yeast to adjust to the half fermented must I was adding it to. But oh well, learning is what makes things exciting right?

Back in October of 2010 when I bottled the JOAM and Jalapeno meads this one was still cloudy and looked the same as it did when I first racked it into the clear jug. I can't remember if it was still fermenting or not, but I put it in the very back of the closet and pretty much forgot about it. I had thought about throwing it out at the time, but a lot of advice given on the home brew talk forums says to never toss something out unless it tastes really bad and that in a a lot of cases giving something time can help out with just about anything.

I pulled it out for a look sometime before April and was rather surprised to see that it had cleared! The next time that I was at a LHBS I got what I thought was a smaller jug to rack it into. I don't really like the idea of topping up with something other then what I'm making, which was the reason for the smaller jug. As it was the new jug was either the same size >.< or only slightly smaller and I ended up topping it off with some water anyway. In the end topping the mead up with water ended up being a good thing, I kept an eye on the airlock and about a week or so later noticed that it had started fermenting again. I'm thinking that introducing the water diluted it enough to un-stall the fermentation and kick the yeast into action again. And I'm also wondering if the closest may be too cool for the yeast and that adding room temperature water warmed it up to a more agreeable level. If I remember I will pick up some thermometer strips to stick to the side of the jug. Also given the gravity at the time of racking, 1.026, the yeast still had the potential to ferment out the rest of the sugars and end up below 1.000. I'm not sure how long it will go for, but I'm willing to forget about it until fermentation has been completed.

And for the gravities and the like.
OG: 1.118
FG: 1.026
ABV: 12.14%
Expected FG .998~
Expected ABV: 15.84%

At least in a prefect world, I topped it off with around 750ml of water. So everything has been diluted and the ABV will be somewhat less. But considering that it was already at 12% this is going to have some kick to it when it's fully done.

Brewing update - 08/22/10

Apfelwein
I've been reading a lot about cider of late and decided that I needed to give this a taste. It still has a fair amount of krausen on top and is very cloudy. The nose was fairly strong with the scent of alcohol with a hint of apple in the back. The taste was bitter/tart upfront with an overly bitter/tart finish, not undrinkable but something that would need to be paced. The funny thing was that after I had taken a sample the krausen started to dissipate. Which I thought may have been due to either the k-meta that I used to sanitize the baster or opening it up. But when I went back down 15 minutes later it was back where it was before the sample. 

Basic Mead
Has an unpleasant medicine nose that's just as bad if not worse then it was before, tastes rather sweet and fuzzy with a sour and unpleasant after taste. Somewhat disappointed with how it's come along. I may have made a mistake and stressed the yeast or it could be the yeast itself. So far I haven't been too impressed with the EC-1118 and hope that the Afpelwein turns out ok.

Jalapeno Mead
Took a gravity reading and did a taste. The gravity had fallen down to 1.036 from the 1.045 it was on the 13th, hopefully it will keep fermenting. I'll try and not touch it for two weeks and then give it another test. As for the taste, it had a peppery nose that didn't really appeal to me. If I try this again I'll look for a pepper that smells good on it's own instead of the jalapeno. It was very sweet with a cloying mouth feel with a jalapeno after taste and no heat at all. So far this has been a disappointment, but I'm hoping to catch it somewhere in the 1.002 – 1.010 range and cold crash it and bottle. Maybe some time in the bottle will improve it.

JAOM
I didn't touch this at all as per the instructions... perhaps that's what I need to stop playing with things. Recipes that say walk away after installing the air lock. The bubbling has slowed down a bit over the last few days and some of the orange zest has started to fall. Only a month to go on the 25th, so I'm hoping that it will start to clear soon.

Ginger Beer
This is one of the few things that has turned out nice. I chilled a couple of bottles and took it over to a friends place for some testing last night. It's fairly sweet with a nice ginger taste and nose, And it's not zingy like some of the commercial brands that I've tried, but it's refreshing none the less. I opened one today to get a gravity reading and it fizzed up all over the place. It seems that the yeasties did a good job carbing it. I did notice quite the difference from it being chilled though, it was a lot sweeter (almost cloying) and was really really carbed. As for the gravity it was still at 1.044... which would mean that it didn't fall at all in the bottles. So I have not idea what the abv would be it there is any at all. I suppose that I'll have to try one on an empty stomach to see if there is any alcohol it in or not o_O.

Mead updates and such

I've learned that mead is something you need to be willing to forget about and then come back to in 6 months or so. Over the past few days I've taken gravity tests of both the basic and jalapeno meads, the basic seems to be stuck at 1.030 and the jalapeno was only down to 1.045. If I hadn't messed with the basic by racking it I'm sure that it would have kept going. Next time I'm in the LHBS I'll see about picking up some of the same yeast and re-pitching.

As for the jalapeno, I wrote up some tasting notes. (even though I don't really know what I'm doing with tasting...). It had a mild jalapeno nose with a slight jalapeno taste and a rather sweet and cloying mouth feel. I'm hoping that with age the jalapenoness will recede and lend the mead a hotter mouth feel and taste.

Also, I've resolved not to touch any of the meads (except for adding more yeast to the basic) until they clear. Whenever that may be. 

08/02/10 Racking the Basic Mead

 The first jug that the basic mead was in was an amber one, which meant that I couldn't really tell what was going on with it. How much it was still fermenting or how much lees (sediment) had build up. The latter of the two made me really paranoid. I could sorta see what I had thought was a large build up of lees and after reading in several places that leaving the mead on the lees too long it could ruin it I decided to risk racking it early just to get it out of the amber jug. Then I learned after racking it that some people leave their musts on the lees for extended period of times without any negative effect and that racking tends to be more personal preference/opinion then anything else.

During the first week or so of fermentation the airlock was giving off this sweet delicious scent that I hoped the mead would retain. But I was rather disappointed when I popped off the airlock and smelled a rather brutal medicine like scent. I had head about this before and it should be (I hope) something that can be aged out. I racked it into the jug that was shown last post. And as I got to the bottom there was hardly any lees at all! I guess that I over reacted for nothing and should have stuck with the home brewing expression DWRAHAHB (Don't Worry, Relax and Have a Home Brew).

I took a gravity reading as I racked it and got a 1.030, the yeast I used should bring it all the way down to 1.000. So I'm going to take another reading this weekend to see if it's finished or not. One thing I learned after I racked it was not rack until fermentation had finished completely... because if you rack it too early you end up leaving behind a lot of the healthy yeast that would be fermenting away. I also tossed in some more nutrient in order to help the yeasties out, to only learn today that you shouldn't put any in after the mead has gone more then half way >_<

Oh well, it's the first batch and I can't expect everything to smoothly. I just hope that it doesn't take forever to age the suck out.

Next post will be about the ginger beer plant I made.

7/17/10 Basic Mead recipe

This will be a two parter, I'll deal with the racking in another post.

I don't know what it was about mead that caught my attention. But to me it seemed like it would be something to try, it seemed pretty basic and low cost and I could could get the ingredients pretty easy. (not like partial mash/all grain brewing or wine making)

So I called around town looking for some 4.5L jugs, or demijohn as the book I picked up called them. I would later learn that the book was printed in the UK and demijohns were all over the place there and some what a pain in the ass to find over here. I managed to find some, picked up some champagne yeast, acid blend and some creamed honey from the grocery store.

Here is the basic mead recipe that I was going off of.

5L unchlorinated water
1.5kg honey
1 tsp acid blend
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 packet champagne yeast

For the water I filled the jug up with tap water and then left it out over night for the chlorine to evaporate out of it. A foodie friend vouched for the method and I decided to give it a go. The honey was just a creamed no name brand, it ended up giving me a higher gravity then the clover honey I used for later attempts. Which would mean that it had more sugar in it, whether this is because it was creamed or not I'm not sure. I'll be sticking with the organic stuff from now on. The acid blend, yeast  nutrient and yeast (Lalvin EC-1118) I picked up from a LHBS (local home brew store).

I re-hydrated the yeast by boiling ¼ cup of water, mixing in some honey and then pitching when it was around 35C ish.  I left it for 70 minutes or so before pitching it into the must.

I boiled around 3L of water in a 11L stainless steel pot, it didn't need to be that big of a pot but it didn't hurt having the extra room. And I'm sure that one day down the line I'll end up using it to full capacity. I let the water cool a bit and then started stiring in the honey a little bit at the time. Making sure that if the bottom of the pot was too hot it wouldn't get burned. 

I made the mistake of thinking that the 3L of water and 1.5kg of water would be enough to fill the jug. I had placed aside around 1.2L of water but then poured the rest out in order to empty out the jug for filling with the wort. I also took a gravity reading at this time... which was 1.146. This ended up being a mistake as that the wort was short of the 4.5L I needed to fill the jug, even with the 1.2L I had put aside I'm not sure that I made it to the full 4.5L. The other issue with this is that I didn't realize at first that adding water to the wort would mess up the gravity reading. So I ended up taking another and got 1.118.

The yeast was pitched when the must reached 35C and I gave the jug a good shake in order to make sure that the yeast had enough oxygen to reproduce. I then left the airlock off of it for 26 hours with a piece of cheese cloth on top to keep out bugs and the like while still giving the yeast access to oxygen. I gave it another good shake when I put the air lock on and my notes state that it frothed up a whole hell of a lot and I ended up stopping before the full minute.

By the time I put the airlock on it seemed to be bubbling away happily towards a good fermentation. I'll let you know about the racking next post.