Advice needed on melomel

[ryuhda]

Hi, I got really interested with this whole mead making, and just bought all the related equipment. As I was preparing and searching the information about the brewing process, I found out that you could use 100 percent juice instead of actual fruit.
So I am now wondering if I could replace all the water that goes in to my batch with peach juice, and leave it to ferment. I was also thinking about adding some more peach juice after racking for 2nd fermentation, since I've heard most of the scent and flavor is gone after first fermentation. Lastly, I've heard that Red Star's Champagne yeast... is not the best for the mead, and goes up to 18 ABV, which is way too high and dry for me. Is it recommendable for me to find another yeast, or is there any other way?
Sorry for so many questions, but any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

As for the exact recipe I am using is:
1.5kg of honey
2L of non concentrate, non preservatives peach juice
Red star Premium Blanc Yeast(would have loved to find lalvin one's, but my country doesn't seem to sell them)
Raisins for nutrients

Just in case above description about the intended process is unclear, this is what I intend to do.

1. put 1.5kg of honey+juice in to 1 gallon jug
2. hydrate the yeast, and put it in jug
3. put raisins for nutrients.
4. ferment for a month
5. rack to second jug, and pour more of the same peach juice

PS. what was your best melomel? Just curious

 

[bernardsmith]

hi ryuhda - and welcome. Here are some thoughts. Others may have different opinions.
1. Despite what you may read on the internet, raisins, have no nutritional value for yeast. Best to use materials labs have produced specifically for providing nutrients for the yeast and second best (IMO) is to use bread yeast that you have rehydrated and then boiled. The dead cells contain much of the nutrients (minerals and nitrogen) that the live cells need.
2. You can certainly use fruit juice in place of water but know two things: first, you are increasing the gravity of your must by - what ? about 50 points (more or less) - That is not to say that that is a problem but it is something to be aware of. In other words, it may make good sense (I say, MAY make good sense ) to replace say, 25% of the water with juice rather than 100 % but that depends on the flavor profile you want to obtain - by that I mean the balance between the flavors from the honey and the flavors from the fruit.

Secondly, fruit juice does not typically contain all the flavor notes that the fruit might offer. Skins might have tanins, and often allowing the fruit to simply sit on the skins and pits for a day or three increases the complexity of the flavors that filtered fruit juice does not have or has lost.

Adding fruit (and I would imagine, fruit juice) to the secondary allows the alcohol to help extract flavor from the juice and folk tend to agree that adding fruit later in the process results in a more fresh fruit like flavor that you don't always get when you pitch the yeast on top of the fruit.

Last point. I am unclear , though this may be me and not because of anything you wrote, about the actual volume you intend to ferment. If the total volume is closer to 2 liters rather than 4 then your 1.5 kg of honey can be treated as if it is more like 3 kg in 4 liters and using metrics I am more comfortable with that is about 6.5 lbs of honey in a gallon . If that gallon was water (see my first comments) then given the fact that 1 lb of honey raises the gravity of water by .035 points, then 6.5 lbs would raise the gravity of WATER to 6.5 * .035 = 1.227. But you are not using water, you are using peach juice and peach juice I would guess has by itself a gravity of about .050 so your starting gravity looks to be about 1.277. That, ryuhda, is a lot of sugar. The potential ABV in there is 36.2% . Table wine is usually about 12% so your first mead looks to be about 3 times more alcoholic than a Riesling or a Merlot. First, no yeast can tolerate that amount of alcohol and IMO , no yeast can uptake any sugar in that concentration of sugar. Yeast will suffer from what is called osmotic shock. Now, if your volume was 4 liters then although this solution is still very dense it would be half as dense ((SG would be closer to 1.135). Personally, I think that the heat from this may be a bit like rocket fuel... but if that is what you are looking for then more strength to you. Me? I like my meads anywhere from about 1.050 - 1.100...

 

[darigoni]

It seems like you've got some equipment, some interest and and a lot of enthusiasm. That's great, now take a deep breath and slow down. If you don't you are going to be back here in a week wondering what you should do next, asking how to fix a stalled fermentation or (even more common) "the bubble rate has slowed down, should I rack now?".

There's a lot to learn if you want to make good/drinkable mead. Start off by reading the gotmead NewBee guide (the link can be found at the top of this webpage), then watch the 9 episode Meadology series, on YouTube, by The Canadian Sasquatch. When you have that under your belt, listen to the gotmead podcasts on Modern Mead Making, by Ryan Carlson, starting on September 9th, 2017.

I know this sounds like the slow a boring way, but it's actually much faster, as if you start off without a good knowledge base, you'll be lucky to get something drinkable in 6 to 12 months. But if you take the time to learn the concepts now, you'll be able to make good, drinkable mead in as quickly as a few months. 1 to 3 months or 6 to 12 months. Your decsision.

Meadology: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEUA9sOZJbckxRlIRaAyUw6jg2Zlrgko7

First gotmead podcast: http://gotmead.com/blog/gotmead-live/9-5-17-ryan-carlson-modern-mead-making-yeast/

 

[ryuhda]

Hi,
thank you for the great advice. I intend to get 1 gallon jug for the fermentation, so the final amount being around 3.5L. With the advice given, I rushed to the supermarket to get some real fruit, and is freezing them right now.
I have also got the bread yeast to give as a nutrient for the wine yeast, so I guess this will be ok.
However, I had another thinking coming up. Would it be unwise to add fruit in the first fermentation and add some more after racking for 2nd fermentation? I tried to search on google for any results, but most people
only seemed to put fruit in either first fermentation or the 2nd fermentation.
Also, I currently have the Red star Premier Blancs, which is supposed to give dry mead with its high tolerance and that it is not the best yeast for the mead.(To be honest, most video and tutorial all talks about using Lalvin yeast, which isn't available in this country)
As I was searching, I found out that there was Red Star Cote des Blanc availabe online. Would this be a better choice than the Premier Blancs?
Sorry for the bother!