This goes to the point of
a thread in the Suggestions forum about canned searches. For you it was two minutes, but for us NewBees who really don't know the jargon nor necessarily the key authors on which to search it would be entirely trial and error and may result in never finding the answer. Then we post asking what in hindsight was obvious and risk the scorn of the search trolls. ;D
FAQ will address the "canned search" thread as stated in a previous post on that subject.
As with driving, cooking, playing a musical instrument, and other learned skills there is a need to practice those skills that is incumbent upon the one learning that skill. Searching is no different and it is the expectation of the forum management and long time forum contributors that people asking the questions will practice on how to search. This is part of the Terms of use, Acceptable Usage Policy and Got Mead Forum Rules and Guidelines. We will include some basic help in the FAQ on how to search. The searching process is pretty much like Google, so you'll need to get used to playing around with your search terms and keywords to get a feel for the forums and posting styles of the Mead Mentors and active posters.
Vicky has made it clear in no uncertain terms that she expects people to learn how to use the search tool. I expect the same, the mead mentors expect it as well. We've spent hours and hours searching the internet, reading technical briefs, experimenting with recipes, techniques etc. and then spent additional hours in posting what we know in these forums for the benefit of anyone who is interested in what we found. Newbees, patrons, visitors and guests alike are expected to learn how to mine the very considerable mead information that has been collected into this repository with the tools provided within these forums. We are not paid to provide training or mead "technical" support upon request. We are all volunteers here at Got Mead and we do not derive any income whatsoever from this site. In fact we operate in the red. We all have professional, personal, familial and other pressing obligations in our lives just as you all do. We burned a hell of a lot of time learning and posting this information for the benefit of the people who have the desire to mine it and learn from it. It's not unreasonable to expect that you all spend some time learning how to search.
That said, in the short haul, when someone suggests that you do a search, it's generally a good idea to use them as the author and look at what it is you're searching for in "caveman" terms (want food, need to piss, fire hot, etc.). In the case of 1/3 sugar break and how to search for it. If you look at the actual phrase "1/3 sugar break" it becomes clear on first search that there have been a lot of recipes that state "add nutrient....at the 1/3 sugar break" but don't articulate how to actually "calculate" the 1/3 sugar break. So you narrow your search by adding another term. In this case "calculate" was pretty obvious to me because I wasn't looking for general 1/3 sugar break information, I'm actually wanting to know how to calculate the actual sugar break. That tells me that the basic search string is:
calculate sugar break
So I used "sugar-break +calculate" (minus double quotes) as the keywords. The hypen between sugar and break (as with Google) means I want the words sugar and break to appear next to one another, and I want break to follow sugar. Using the +calculate means I want calculate to appear in close proximity to sugar-break (also as with Google). I know that I've posted several times on how to calculate the 1/3 sugar break over the years so I used me as the author. It's usually a safe bet to start with me as an author in your search to help narrow because I've posted about a lot of different things in these forums. I don't think that's much of a surprise to anyone who's done a lot of reading of the forums. Not bragging, just stating the obvious.
I use a refractometer as I only need to thieve a small sample from the 3 gallon glass carboy I am using as my primary fermenter: a few drops for the refractometer and an ounce or two for, umm, quality assurance purposes.
Conservation is especially important when making small batches which us NewBees are want to do until we grow the
cajones to commit to a big batch like the experienced boys and girls. I guess I need to search on hydrometer technique to see if someone has covered an efficient way to use a hydrometer short of leaving it in the primary.
-- Olen
You can use 1 gallon food grade buckets as fermenters as well and you can just float your hydrometer in the bucket and don't have to lose any mead at all for sampling. There are also 6, 8, 10 quart and larger sized food grade plastic buckets that facilitate fermenting testing, stirring, measuring, treating and generally futzing about with your mead without spillage. Once the ferment is done you can rack to a gallon glass carboy and get close to a full gallon of mead, rather than racking out of a carboy and losing a quart or so. I have six meads in buckets right now and I don't pull samples to do the brix/gravity readings. I pull samples so I can taste what's going on in the ferment . . . and catch a buzz.8)
