9/9/06 – Today I made JOA following the directions to the letter.  Starting Brix came to 28.5 which, according to promash is ~1.12OG.  I'm not sure if this translates well when dealing with must.  It looked really nice in the gallon jug with the oranges in it.  It is currently sitting in a fermentation fridge set to 70d.  I anticipate the ferment temps to range 74-78 which would be around room temp I assume.  My house is quite warm in the summer (~78-80d) so I opted for the ferment fridge for now.  I will post the progress of that one in this post as well so it's easy for me to find.  

9/12/06 – So I now I'll move onto the JOA.  It's been a couple of days and the airlock is holding steady at 1 bubble every 4 seconds pretty much.  It has been like this from the very start.  At no time was there risk of a blow off.  The ambient temperature in the fermentation fridge is holding steady at 76d.  I will maintain this temp for another week or so before moving it into a spare closet since I'll be needing the fridge for beer.  The JOA will age in the closet (temp ~76-78) for the remaining 2 months.

So just for record keeping, here are the ingredients I used:

3.5# of Sue Bee Clover honey from Costco
1 minneola orange cut into 8ths (these barely fit and this was a medium sized orange)
25 sun-maid raisins
1 ~4" cinnamon stick
1 clove
1tsp Fleischmann's bread yeast

Cleaned/sanitized 1 gallon jug.  Warmed some water and emptied honey into the jug using the water to 'clean' out in the insides of the honey containers (squeeze bottles).  Between each bottle (I used 2.5 bottles) I shook to aerate.  After all the honey was added, I tossed in the cinnamon, clove, and raisins.  Aerated some more.  Topped off to the bottom of the neck with water (3" from top) and shook some more.  Added drilled rubber stopper and airlock and place into fermentation fridge set to 74.  After 24 hours I moved the temp up to 76 and will keep it here.

 

9/15/06 – I know I will have to move this to the BrewBlog section soon but I figured I'd squeeze in on more note before the move.  Airlock activity has dropped to one beat every ~6 seconds but it's still fermenting.  It's looked the exact same since fermentation started on day 1.

Link to pic here. 

I plan on adding a little water after another week.  I never really got major foaming, just a slow steady foam as pictured so I'll wait another week or so to play it safe.

9/21/06 – The airlock is bubbling at about one beat every ~11 seconds.  The oranges look 'logged' and are starting to drop a little it seems but the raisins have formed a little cap at the top.  There is quite a bit of yeast sediment at the bottom now – but it almost looks as if the lees is higher on the sides than it is on the bottom / middle.  I'll take a pic later.  No signs of infection so that's good!

9/26/06 – Needed the fridge for a Belgian Pale I'm making so I moved the mead to the spare room which is a pretty constant 76-78 right now.  This will be it's permanent home until the 2 months is up.  It's still bubbling away!

 10/11/06 – The JAO has dropped brilliantly clear but incredibly, it's still fermenting.  Close inspection reveals small bubbles continuing to rise from the lees and the fruit appears to be stuck at the top of the jug.  As it says in the recipe, I'm just going to leave it alone for another month.

11/02/06 – The JOA is still clear and the oranges, raisins, and cinammon stick and not yet dropped.  I will give it a few more weeks to see if everything drops on it's own.  I really can't wait to try this.