Some lessons learned

[Synaptoman]

They say that one should learn by ones mistakes. Well, I've made a few in my first mead and I'd like the forums opinion as to how serious they are likely to be.

I started off with the standard Medium Sweet Mead from Ken Schrams book substituting Orange Blossom Honey with local, South Africa "fynbos" honey. I suppose that it is probably closer to wild flower honey.

15lbs Fynbos Honey
4 gals water (3 chilled to refrigerator temp)
2 tsp Yeast Nutrient
2 tsp Yeast Energizer
2 packets (10g) Lalvin 71b-1122

I then followed the instructions, but made the mistake of rehydrating my yeast too early and by the time that 15 minutes had expired my must was still at 34 deg c (93F) instead of the recommended 27 deg C (80F).

I had to make a snap decision so decided to pitch it early rather than spoil the yeast by rehydrating for too long.

Comments on this mistake?

Starting SG = 1116

Then into the plastic fermenter, on with the fermentation lock filled with vodka and then, oops, carried it down to a cool dark cupboard, with the lock sucking and blowing. Should have only put the lock after placing.

Comments on this mistake?

Within an hour it was bubbling away and I counted 19 blurps per minute for the first few days. Temperature here was a pretty constant 20 C (68F).

By exactly 14 days (as recommended) it was down to about 2 blurps per minute and I decided to rack to a glass carboy for secondary fermentation.

I carried it to it's new location (with the lock off this time) but only afterwards discovered that I should have moved it a day or two earlier to settle the lees better.

Comments on this mistake?

I then started the siphon, taking a sample for SG testing with the hydrometer and then horror of horrors discovered that the little tap on the end of the sipon tube would not fit into the neck of the carboy. Left it running anyway happily splashing away. Damn !!!

Comments on this mistake?

I measured the SG and it was 1041.

Another problem that I have is that it doesn't fill the carboy and there is a large surface area exposed.

After putting on the fermentation lock and priming, it slowly started to bubble again. (about 1-2 per minute), which I suppose is good because it means that CO2 is displacing the O2 in the void above the mead.

I tasted the mead used in the hydrometer test tube and even chilled some and tasted again cold and it was pretty good, if not a bit tart.

I calculate the current ABV% at 10.12 %

Any comments or suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated

 

[AToE]

I then followed the instructions, but made the mistake of rehydrating my yeast too early and by the time that 15 minutes had expired my must was still at 34 deg c (93F) instead of the recommended 27 deg C (80F).

I had to make a snap decision so decided to pitch it early rather than spoil the yeast by rehydrating for too long.

Comments on this mistake?

Should be ok, in the future just add small amounts of the must to the rehyrating yeast after 15 minutes if there is a temp difference, then you can step them up/down to whatever temp they're being pitched into.

Starting SG = 1116

Then into the plastic fermenter, on with the fermentation lock filled with vodka and then, oops, carried it down to a cool dark cupboard, with the lock sucking and blowing. Should have only put the lock after placing.

Comments on this mistake?

Doesn't really matter I don't think.

I carried it to it's new location (with the lock off this time) but only afterwards discovered that I should have moved it a day or two earlier to settle the lees better.

Comments on this mistake?

I find a few hours plenty of time for it to settle, but the earlier the better. Not life or death, you'll just have to rack again soon-ish to get it off whatever lees drop now.

I then started the siphon, taking a sample for SG testing with the hydrometer and then horror of horrors discovered that the little tap on the end of the sipon tube would not fit into the neck of the carboy. Left it running anyway happily splashing away. Damn !!!

Comments on this mistake?

Splashing isn't good, but supposedly traditional meads are fairly resistant to oxidizing. Just don't do it again and I'm sure it'll be fine, I've made plenty of meads that I splash racked at one point or another (mostly on purpose for special situations).

Another problem that I have is that it doesn't fill the carboy and there is a large surface area exposed.

This you're going to need to fix, somewhere on this forum is a couple discussions about dealing with headspace, try using the search function for a bit and if you still can't find any solutions to this one then mention it in this thread and I'm sure someone can provide you with a link to the relevant conversations.

After putting on the fermentation lock and priming, it slowly started to bubble again. (about 1-2 per minute), which I suppose is good because it means that CO2 is displacing the O2 in the void above the mead.

Priming? What do you mean, you added more honey/sugar?


Your fermentation probably still has a ways to go, 71B can easily get to 14% ABV and often further, so you probably racked a bit early. In this case, that might be a good thing, because it will fill that headspace with CO2 for now and give you time to figure out a solution for when you rack it again.

For future reference don't try to use time to decide when to rack/bottle etc - use SG measurements. Time is wildly variable.

Sounds like you're off to a pretty good start though!

 

[wayneb]

FIRST Comment: Pitching while your must is still relatively warm puts your yeast through some thermal shock (it is rehydrated while warm, then cools over that 15 minute interval, then gets rapidly heated again as it gets pitched into the hot must), which can if severe enough, kill off the yeast before it begins to ferment. That clearly did not happen in your case. Still, you will have had some time while the yeast were working in warmer than ideal conditions, which means that they probably produced some fusels, which are best avoided in the future.

You can take alternate steps to prevent this in subsequent batches. Obviously letting the must cool a bit before rehydrating the yeast is the first idea. But in the future if this happens to you again, simply add a bit of the warm must (say a volume equal to that of your rehydrated yeast) to give the yeast something to chew on for an additional 30 minutes or so. Be prepared for the yeast to throw off lots of CO2, so ensure that the container is big enough to allow some bubbling without overflow. In that 30 minutes the yeast will be happy while your must has additional time to cool. If it still hasn't cooled enough, add an additional bit of must and wait another 30 minutes.

SECOND Comment: Probably no harm in this, unless you happen to be in a severely microbe infested environment. Percolating some air though the lock exposes much of it to the alcohol in the vodka, which will scrub a lot of the nasties out of that air. FWIW, I don't even airlock my musts during the first part of primary fermentation. I just cover them with a sanitised cloth, held in place by a bungee. The yeast are so active during the first part of fermentation that there is no danger of over-exposure to oxygen until you've gone past the first third sugar break or so, and very few spoilage organisms will have any success competing against your yeast.

THIRD Comment: Never hurts to rack again! For the most part, a little extra lees in a traditional mead won't hurt in the short term, but for extended secondary aging (say longer than a month or so), 71B lees should be eliminated to the best of your ability - that strain does not taste good once it begins to autolyse (chemically break down).

FOURTH Comment: You've obviously increased the odds of eventual oxidation, but traditional meads are much less affected by O2 than are wines or beers, so you may still get a very drinkable product. It may not have the keeping power of meads handled with less splashing, but it could be worse.

FIFTH Comment: Given the circumstances that spawned my last comment, you will want to rack this into a container that has minimal headspace, or alternately consider filling the carboy that it is in with enough inert material (glass marbles, etc.) to take up that headspace. At this time in its life, no oxygen is good oxygen in your mead.

SO, all in all, not too bad for your first meadmaking experience! Welcome to "Gotmead?", by the way!!


SIXTH Comment: AToE types faster than I do!!

 

[Synaptoman]

Priming? What do you mean, you added more honey/sugar?

Sorry, Newbie terminology. No, I just mean that I added Vodka up to the marks on the fermentation lock. Also, another point. The neck of the carboy is so narrow that I couldn't find a rubber stopper small enough and used a champagne cork which fits very tightly. I drilled a small hole through and inserted the lock. It fitted really tight. Will this seal tight enough?

The head space is really going to worry me, but as mentioned, it is presumably filled with CO2 by now.

Would you have racked at 1041 or waited longer?

 

[AToE]

Sorry, Newbie terminology. No, I just mean that I added Vodka up to the marks on the fermentation lock. Also, another point. The neck of the carboy is so narrow that I couldn't find a rubber stopper small enough and used a champagne cork which fits very tightly. I drilled a small hole through and inserted the lock. It fitted really tight. Will this seal tight enough?

The head space is really going to worry me, but as mentioned, it is presumably filled with CO2 by now.

Would you have racked at 1041 or waited longer?

I would have racked somewhere around 1.010, which would be around 14% and the yeast should be quitting. It's not an exact science though, I wouldn't sweat it. Sometimes I don't rack until a month after primary started, sometimes I've racked 2 or 3 times during primary (to get rid of plant material usually).

 

[Smarrikåka]

You said your airlock bubbled, which means it was tight enough.

 

[dr9]

I saw in a wine-making video there is a compressed nitrogen can like keyboard-dusters that you can spray into your headspace to displace air, then cap or cork. I don't know if that would be easier/cheaper than glass marbles "Aesop's Fables" style (the Crow and the pitcher).

 

[Synaptoman]

you will want to rack this into a container that has minimal headspace, or alternately consider filling the carboy that it is in with enough inert material (glass marbles, etc.) to take up that headspace.

The only other carboy I have is even bigger !! Here's a Newbie suggestion. Just shoot me down if you think that it's dumb.

I am still getting some blurps through the lock even after racking. Does this mean that "primary" fermentation is actually still taking place?

I have about a quart and a half of prickly pear pulp that I froze for my next mead. I need about a gallon of liquid to fill up the head space in the carboy. What if I got something like white grape juice, added the defrosted prickly pear pulp to it and then racked the mead over it to make up the head space?


Questions:
Is there any merit in this idea or should I just leave alone?
Would I need to boil the PP pulp? (I don't have peptic enzyme)
Is there any other juice that would work better than grape?
Would there be enough active yeast still in the mead to get to work?
I only have D47 and EC-1118 yeasts if I need to add more?
Would I ned to add any sugar?

Yes, yes, I know I'm going to end up with a bit of a "mongrel" but I really don't want to have to worry about oxidizing.

 

[wayneb]

Some of my best meads have been of the "everything, including the kitchen sink" variety! ;D

I don't see anything wrong with your plan to top up with juice(s). I do that all the time. If you are worried about potential contamination from spoilage organisms, then I'd treat the juice first with some potassium metabisulphite (Campden), getting the level up above 50 ppm and let that set for about 24 hours before you rack over your must. The K-meta treatment will keep you from needing to pasteurize your juice, which will both preserve more fresh fruit flavor and keep the level of set pectins at a minimum. However, if you use commercially prepared juices, many of them are pasteurized before sale, so you may still need pectic enzymes to prevent haze.

One other thought - although grape juices are fine for topping up, most commercial grape juices made for drinking in North America are pressed from concord (red) or niagara (white) grapes. These are vitis labrusca grapes (rather than the traditional vitis vinifera wine grapes) and they often add a not so pleasing "foxy" aroma to the result. Some folks don't mind it, many others do. The choice is yours. ;D I don't know the grape varieties that would be in commercial juices available to you down there.

Oh, and you'll actually be diluting the ethanol content a bit when you add the juice, so it is very likely that your yeast will wake back up and ferment out the sugars in that juice. Your overall ethanol concentration will drop a bit, but unless you're adding a large volume of juice, that won't be too significant.

If you want the ethanol content to be exactly what you have now, then add enough honey (Not sugar - it is a mead, after all!) to bring the specific gravity of the juice mixture up to where you started with your original must.

Finally, bubbling in the airlock can be a sign that fermentation is still going on, but it could also be just that the must is releasing some of its dissolved CO2. This "de-gassing" can continue at a slow rate for several weeks after fermentation is finished.

 

[Synaptoman]

don't see anything wrong with your plan to top up with juice(s). I do that all the time. If you are worried about potential contamination from spoilage organisms, then I'd treat the juice first with some potassium metabisulphite (Campden), getting the level up above 50 ppm and let that set for about 24 hours before you rack over your must

I have Campden tablets. How many would you use for a gallon of grape juice?

Should I boil the Prickly Pear pulp that I'd also like to add?

Another interesting pont. The yeast appears to have been aroused from it's slumber by the unintentional splashing and I am now getting a steady 6 blurps per minute through the lock. This is good news, or not?

Will it be sufficient to ferment the extra sugar in the grape juice/prickly pear pulp or should I add more yeast (say EC-1118)

Thank you so much for your help so far.

 

[AToE]

Definitely don't boil the pears, they make cloudy fluid as it is (needs pectic enzyme added to clear up the pectin problem) boiling them will set the pectin and make that even worse and harder to correct.

 

[wayneb]

I have Campden tablets. How many would you use for a gallon of grape juice?

Should I boil the Prickly Pear pulp that I'd also like to add?

Another interesting pont. The yeast appears to have been aroused from it's slumber by the unintentional splashing and I am now getting a steady 6 blurps per minute through the lock. This is good news, or not?

Will it be sufficient to ferment the extra sugar in the grape juice/prickly pear pulp or should I add more yeast (say EC-1118)

Thank you so much for your help so far.

One crushed Campden tab will be more than enough for your juice, even with the prickly pear pulp added. You'll likely end up with about 120 ppm of free SO2 or so (depending on the pH of the mix), even assuming 50 to 60 ppm gets chemically "bound" to other substances in there. I'd add the crushed tab to your juice/pulp slurry, stir it in, then wait 48 hrs before racking over the rest of your must. That extra time will allow some of the SO2 to dissipate, and will present a perfectly fermentable mix to the yeast cells remaining in your racked-over must. You should not need to add any additional yeast for fermentation to re-start on the sugars in that juice. As was mentioned, don't boil the prickly pear pulp; simply mix it in with the juice and the Campden.

The renewed gas release may be restarted fermentation, or it might just be additional outgassing caused by a little sloshing. Either way, it is not a bad thing.

 

[Synaptoman]

OK, here's what I've done. I have decided on 1 x Gallon of pure 100% Mango Juice. No preservatives or additives as bought. I've added my Prickly Pear pulp, filtering 2/3 and adding the remaining 1/3 with pips. For something different, I've soaked about about 30g of fresh mint leaves in a little Vodka for a few hours and then added it as well. Then a crushed Campden tablet. All the above has been mixed up in a clean 5 gal food grade plastic bucket and I will leave for 48 hours in a cool place, before racking onto my mead. I probably won't need all of the above mix, but who knows?

I will check SG before and after this addition. The lock is still happily bubbling at 5-6 blurps per minute so I'm hoping that the yeast will still be around in 48hrs when I add my fruit mix. If not, what do I do? Is aeration still bad? After the last bit of acccidental "splashing" the yeast seemed to have woken up somewhat.

Just a point. I have had to put the sealing lid onto the plastic bucket with the fruit mix to keep ants and other insects out. Will this affect the dissapation of the SO2?

 

[wayneb]

The SO2 comes out of solution quite readily and it would take a lot of gas to saturate the air in the vicinity of your must (far more than you've added via the Campden tab), so as long as there is any appreciable airspace in your bucket, the rate of SO2 dissipation won't change significantly whether the bucket is tightly sealed or not.

Also, I suspect that there will still be lots of viable yeast in the must when you make this fruit juice addition, so I would expect fermentation to pick back up without any problems. I would not aerate this late in fermentation - the yeast have used up about as much O2 as they can at this point, so any incidental oxygen getting into the must would accelerate oxidation. One reason why splashing could have gotten the yeast fired up again, is that by splashing you drive off some of the dissolved CO2. Dissolved CO2 both lowers the pH of the must and hinders their ability to metabolize sugars, so removing some of that could certainly have made the must a more yeast hospitable environment.

 

[Synaptoman]

OK, here's where I am getting a little lost. I've racked the fruit mix mentioned above over my mead, after leaving it standing for 48 hrs It didn't quite fill the headspace but it's a lot smaller and I am not going to worry about it just yet. I measured the SG of the mead before the fruit mix and it was 1025. From a starting SG of 1116, I make the current ABV% at 12.09%. Is this correct?

But here's what I find complicated. I measured the SG of the fruit mix (before adding to the mead) and it was a massive 1057. How do I estimate the ABV% now as the added fruit mix was more than my starting gravity??

The bubbles in the fermentation lock started again immediately, albeit a bit slower. How will I know if my remaining yeast is coping with the massive injection of new sugar?

 

[wayneb]

There's a simple formula for calculating the specific gravity of a mixture of constituents, where each has a different initial gravity.

Although I've posted it before and you might be able to find it with a search (hint! ), I'll repeat it here for convenience:

S1*V1 + S2*V2 = St*Vt

You're solving for the specific gravity of the mixture, so

St = (S1*V1 + S2*V2)/Vt, or St = (S1*V1 + S2*V2)/(V1 +V2)
since Vt = V1 +V2


Where S1 is the specific gravity of the first constituent, V1 is its volume, S2 is of the second, etc., and St and Vt are the specific gravities and volumes of the total.

Since you are after an "equivalent starting gravity" for the purpose of estimating final ABV, use the initial SG (before yeast pitch) along with the initial volume of your must for S1 and V1. Although suspended fruit solids can artificially heighten the measured gravity of a fruit slurry, 1.057 doesn't sound too unusual for the mix that you made up. The only remaining question is, did you measure the volume of the fruit slurry before adding the must to it?

You'll know that the yeast are continuing to ferment, if you observe a further drop in SG over the next few days. Did you measure the SG immediately after you mixed in the fruit?

 

[Synaptoman]

Wayne, you're a star. Thank you so much for your help so far.

Since you are after an "equivalent starting gravity" for the purpose of estimating final ABV, use the initial SG (before yeast pitch) along with the initial volume of your must for S1 and V1. Although suspended fruit solids can artificially heighten the measured gravity of a fruit slurry, 1.057 doesn't sound too unusual for the mix that you made up. The only remaining question is, did you measure the volume of the fruit slurry before adding the must to it?

The fruit slurry was 1.057, the must was 1.025. I then added them together and no, I didn't take an SG reading of the mix afterwards.

Interestingly (and I suppose probably, obviously), the mix has stratified into two distinct sections with the higher SG (heavier) fruit mix sinking to the bottom and the lower SG (lighter) partly fermented must rising to the top.

There are still 2-3 bubbles per minute coming out of the lock.

As far as the racking, I racked the must first because a layer of lees had developed at the bottom of the carboy. I then strained my fruit mix very thoroughly through muslin cloth. I then racked the must back into the cleaned carboy and then racked the fruit mix over. Is this all OK?

I also tasted the must before mix from my hydrometer test (after chilling). It tasted completely different from Wednesdays tasting. It seemed thicker and smoother with less of a bite at the side of my tongue. Wierd, after only a move from 1.041 to 1.025 !!

 

[wayneb]

Again, in order to estimate the final ABV, you need to take the initial (i.e. "starting") gravity of your must, which was around 1.116 if I remember correctly, and use that as the S1 in the equation. Keep in mind as you estimate the net amount of sugar in the combined volume that can be used to make alcohol, that you've in effect diluted your original must with a less-sugar rich liquid.

All of what you've done so far is fine -- but did you measure the volume of the fruit juice that was added (or can you estimate it from the current total volume)? You will need that in order to solve the equation.

And if you think that it has smoothed out already, just wait until it has had a few months' aging time!

 

[Synaptoman]

did you measure the volume of the fruit slurry before adding the must to it?

Sorry, misread this one. The volume of the fruit slurry I added was 5.5L (1.45 gal) I'd estimate that the must was 18L (4.75 gal)

In the calculation, would I use the opening gravity (1.116) or the current gravity (1.025) of the must? If I use the opening then I get an adjusted OG of 1.102. If I eventually got the mead to 1.000 then my ABV% would end up on 13.42 % Does this sound correct?

 

[wayneb]

You use the opening gravity, and the rest of your calculations appear to be correct; you can expect about 13.4% ABV in the final result, if it ferments to dryness (SG = slightly lower than 1.000). ;D