Sulfur smell/Flavor!!

[smertz001]

I may give the JOA a try once I get one of these other three I have going currently out of the jugs, since I'm out of ... jugs! (=

I will have to check my notes when I get home. But I did rack on to the two chemicals, and then I did cold crash it. My one glitch was with the chemicals, I didn't grind up the little sprinkle ones, and so they probably took a bit longer to work.

 

[CRaymond36]

Personally though, my go-to mead for quick drinking is the 8 week Joe's Ancient Orange

I completely agree. My first mead was the JAOM, like so many others. I took it with me to two small parties, and it was a complete hit! Everyone loved it, and I enjoy it as well. I'll be dedicating a 1gal carboy just like you.

I was surprised on how strong it got, ABV wise. I didn't check the OG, so I dont know the ABV it reached, and boy I wish I did. Two glasses of that batch and my friend and I were well beyond tipsy.

You said you tried variations to it. I was thinking about experimenting with it myself to figure out what other fruits I can substitute the oranges for and at what amounts. What were your findings?

 

[CRaymond36]

what is your SG at now?

Well, after the issue with the sulfur, I added more nutrients and aerated it for a couple days, which got "most" (not all) of the smell and taste out of it. Then I cold crashed for a week, racked it, bottled it, and threw the bottles into the fridge. They've been sitting there for about 2 weeks now. Before I bottled, it was just a hair below 1.02.

I had 10 1/2 bottles worth, and I added some spices to the half bottle. That masked the sulfur a bit, but it still didn't taste all that great.

 

[Chevette Girl]

I completely agree. My first mead was the JAOM, like so many others. I took it with me to two small parties, and it was a complete hit! Everyone loved it, and I enjoy it as well. I'll be dedicating a 1gal carboy just like you.

I was surprised on how strong it got, ABV wise. I didn't check the OG, so I dont know the ABV it reached, and boy I wish I did. Two glasses of that batch and my friend and I were well beyond tipsy.

You said you tried variations to it. I was thinking about experimenting with it myself to figure out what other fruits I can substitute the oranges for and at what amounts. What were your findings?

Mine usually start around 1.125 and stop around 1.025, give or take, so even if I don't check them, I assume they're somewhere between ten and twelve percent... I've tried substituting different citrus fruits for the orange: lemon and tangelo and blood orange are awesome, grapefruit wasn't as good as I'd hoped, and the one where I used several citrus fruits didn't clear properly... and I don't ever include the pith anymore, gives me heartburn, so I only use the zest and the fruit or juice. I've tried using different things instead of raisins, the lemon-date one was nice although do make sure the zest gets included or it's too sweet, dried cranberries get totally lost in the flavour even if you leave out the cinnamon stick, even a pound of fresh cranberries gets pretty lost with the oranges... I've also tried non-citrus fruits and the short synopsis is, 12 ounces of blackberries = big win, less than 1 lb strawberries = meh and unripe apples = bleah. You can also play with the spicing, lemon is good with or without the cinnamon stick, you can try allspice and nutmeg, vary the amount of clove, I keep forgetting to try adding cardamon but it's on the to-do list... It's sort of a fine dance of making sure you've got a little bit of something bitter and enough acidity to balance out all that residual sweetness, I did not find that dropping 1/4 lb of honey from the JAO recipe was a good idea, nor is using something other than bread yeast. Try a thread search on "JAO variation" or "JAO variant" (do use the quotes or it won't recognize JAO as a word, it doesn't like three-letter words), I know there is one thread dedicated solely to JAO variations somewhere on here and variations are mentioned in a bunch of other threads.

 

[CRaymond36]

Awesome info on the JAOM, thanks! I already have 4 meads planned to start this weekend, and a blueberry/blackberry mead is one of them. So i'll probably try the blueberry JAOM after this round of batches. Sad to hear the strawberry one didn't work out, that is one of my favorite fruits and really want to find a way to turn it into a great mead, but all the research i've done has been a bit negative about strawberries in mead.

 

[Marshmallow Blue]

Awesome info on the JAOM, thanks! I already have 4 meads planned to start this weekend, and a blueberry/blackberry mead is one of them. So i'll probably try the blueberry JAOM after this round of batches. Sad to hear the strawberry one didn't work out, that is one of my favorite fruits and really want to find a way to turn it into a great mead, but all the research i've done has been a bit negative about strawberries in mead.

I've got a few meads planned in the near future. I would think about staggering the start dates (maybe one a month or every other week) so later down the road you can have a steady stream of finished mead going into your mouth or storage area. And if anything goes wrong with a batch, you won't have as great a possibility of having 4 stuck/slow fermentations to deal with all at once.

 

[CRaymond36]

I would think about staggering the start dates

That's the ultimate plan. Since i'm still a bit new to the whole thing, i'm attempting the shotgun method of learning, lol. I'm a weird one where i'll do hours upon hours of research on new things, and this is no exception. So with everything i've learned so far, I am eager to put into practice.

After this batch of 4, my plans are to stagger 3 1 gallon carboys about a month apart, dedicate 1 carboy to nothing but JAOM, and then the 5 gallon will go towards the meads I like best from the 1gal batches.

I also see the strong possibility of expanding even more, maybe picking up 3 more 1 gal carboys to get a total of 7, 1 for JAOM and 6 to stagger every 2 months.

I have been toying with an idea though. My work has a lot of used water dispenser bottles, look like they are well over 5 gallons. If I could find a stopper/airlock to fit, I could have dozens of free 5+ gallon jugs from that, and then the only thing holding me back is the cost of ingredients and storage space, lol.

 

[fatbloke]

As long as the water cooler bottles are made of P.E.T. - polyethyleneterathelate they'll be fine. In fact if they have the industry standard replaceable tear off caps then better bottle air lock stoppers fit them......

 

[CRaymond36]

Indeed they do have the ripoff caps. The receptacle punctures the cap when you install the bottle, and then you rip off the cap like a gallon milk cap when the bottle is empty.

 

[Marshmallow Blue]

As long as the water cooler bottles are made of P.E.T. - polyethyleneterathelate they'll be fine. In fact if they have the industry standard replaceable tear off caps then better bottle air lock stoppers fit them......

I also think that better bottles fit a #10 rubber stopper so maybe your water jugs fit #10s

 

[Chevette Girl]

For blueberry JAO, check out Thawk's brewlogs, it's the one thing I haven't tried in a JAO. Dingurth recently did a successful JAO attempt with strawberries and so did Cal, you just need to use more than 1 lb, which I didn't. Strawberry works quite well in a mead, in the Patron's area is a legendary recipe called Yo's Strawberry Pizzaz... and last year I step-fed some excess strawberry wine with honey and it was pretty good.

Cost of ingredients and storage space... welcome to meadmaking

 

[CRaymond36]

Sorry, I originally meant that I was going to try the blackberries as you suggested.

I'll probably be using the Oregon Fruit Puree, since fresh berries are out of season and that the puree should provide more consistent results. You think 12 ounces of the more dense puree would be too much, or cut back to 10 ounces or so?

 

[Chevette Girl]

...all my blackberries come from Mexico so I've only ever used fresh (or frozen by me when they're on sale and I don't have carboy space), two of the little 6-oz plastic containers is what I use. I don't know if Oregon Fruit concentrates their purée in any way or if it's just crushed fruit, if it is indeed just crushed fruit, then 12 ounces is 12 ounces...

 

[smertz001]

As it seems, I racked it based on days, not on gravity readings...

My complete notes (copied out of excel so please excuse the formatting.)

11/17/12 Start Started the mead today. Followed the directions pretty close. Not sure what the temperature of the must was when I pitched the yeast because the thermometer broke while I was cooling it down to below 90F. But aside from that everything went on as planned in the directions. It's currently in the primary fermentor (2gallon bucket) and will be moved over to the glass carboy next Sunday. Also, not compeltely sure how much water I used since I didn't use the whole gallon, and didn't measure out how much I added after mixing the first quart with the honey. I need to get better at that.

11/17/12 Gravity 1.100

11/18/12 Observation It's in the bucket. And the airlock isn't really moving around at all. I may peak at it tomorrow or Tuesday.

11/19/12 Mix I shook up the bucket today pretty good since I still didn't see any bubbles in the airlock. Shook it so well that mead came out of the air lock and I had to clean it. So will see what happens…

11/19/12 Observation After the shaking it started to bubble pretty good! Very glad to see that!

11/22/12 Mix I shook up the bucket pretty good today, too good, as some of the mead started to come through the air lock. So I took it out, and decided to do a gravity reading and a little taste. It tastes quite good! It has a bit of a yeast flavour, but that's from shaking it up. And the Buckwheat honey is coming through nicely, I do believe I will be racking it on Sunday after we get back from a trip!

11/22/12 Gravity 1.071

11/25/12 Racked I racked the mead into a gallon carboy today. Also took a gravity reading and tasted (and drank it.) The mead is very sweet and tasty right now! I would not mind drinking it as is! But I will hold off and rack it again next week with the yeast killing, and then in another week into bottles I believe. It's pretty much on par with what the original recipe says for gravity and tastings right now. Looking forward to the end product and seeing where it ends up!

11/25/12 Gravity 1.055

12/1/12 Observation Racked the mead into a new carboy with the Potassium Metabisulfite and Potassium Sorbate. Gave the mead a little taste test, a bit dryer than it was last week, but still pretty tasty. Will be bottling the mead soon! I need to get some bottles to do so though!

12/1/12 Gravity 1.034

12/10/12 Move Moved into the spare fridge to try to cold crash it. It wasn't getting any clear and still had tiny bubbles.

12/11/12 Observation Checked in on it, and it's clearing now. It's quite dark still, but you can see through it. Probably another day of this, then I will rack it, and put it back in the fridge and then rack again the day after, ready to bottle.

12/12/12 Bottled Well, it was crystal clear and so it got bottled! I'm thinking it may be best to keep these guys refridgerated just in cases. But they should be good to go! And it tastes yummy!

12/12/12 Gravity 1.026

 

[CRaymond36]

Awesome Smertz, thanks for posting your log. That helps alot.

CG, Oregon Fruit's puree is seeded and pitted, and they dont use any preservatives, chemicals, or other additives, just straight fruit with no seeds, so its supposedly good for brewing.

On the FAQs section of their website, they state:

A: Our puree is 100% fruit. We remove the seeds and pits from the puree and aseptically pack the puree in 42 lb. bag/box. The seeds make up 12% of the whole berry by weight and pits make up 20% of the fruit weight. If you use 100 lbs. of fruit, the equivalent amount of puree is 88 lbs. (100 lbs. less 12 lbs. of seeds equals 88 lbs.)

However, that sounds a bit too generalized for me, but it may just be me and my fanatical engineering mindset when it comes to numbers, heh.

I'll probably just go with the full 12 ounces. With the JAOv, i'm guessing more fruit flavor wouldn't hurt it too much.

 

[Chevette Girl]

CG, Oregon Fruit's puree is seeded and pitted, and they dont use any preservatives, chemicals, or other additives, just straight fruit with no seeds, so its supposedly good for brewing.

I'll probably just go with the full 12 ounces. With the JAOv, i'm guessing more fruit flavor wouldn't hurt it too much.

Seed-free purée will make a difference, but hey, adding an extra mass of fruit equal to the amount of seeds in 12 ounces (by weight) of blackberries probably won't hurt at all. Just a reminder, my 12 ounces is weight, not volume... silly archaic measuring conventions

 

[CRaymond36]

OK,
I just had another sulfur incident when starting the black/blue berry melomel. I did a little research, and also rechecked this string to see if the answer matched up as well, but the question wasn't officially answered in the string.

After the research, multiple sources said that too little, and also too much, DAP/Nitrogen can cause the yeast to produce sulfur, and different yeasts have different sulfur producing attributes as well as Nitrogen requirements.

So, to ask the question/s bluntly. What is the root cause of the sulfur production? Is it definitely tied to the Nitrogen content?

 

[Chevette Girl]

My blatantly unsubstantiated suspicion is that you're never going to peg it definitively to a single variable. I could be wrong but I suspect pH can also be a reason for yeast to make stink, and leaving a must on the gross lees can do it too from whatever compounds are released as the fruit bits break down.

 

[CRaymond36]

Pointed in the right direction by medsen, I hit the interwebs and learned a lot of good info, completely changing my views and techniques on brewing. /Ty medsen.

Learned how to prevent so2 and what to do when it rears it's ugly head.

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