Feeding the Must

[exmoor_cat]

I'm quite happily playing around with some 1gal batches, and was wondering about this part of the technique.

What are your tips on this?

Can I simply feed in honey until the yeast tops out? What effects would this have in terms of the time needed to age?

My Ec1118 batch is gonig great guns and I'm pondering feeding it another 1lb of honey.

 

[CosmicCharlie]

I'll add a question too, if you dont mind. I left a lot of head space when I added friut to the secondary, but fermentation didnt take off like I expected. So, I topped it off at a later date. I boiled water to get the O2 out, let it cool, then mixed in some honey. I added this mixture to the must. Is this a good method?

 

[David Baldwin]

When making my own version of Joe's Ancient Orange, I had a bit of leftover honey/water mixture that wouldn't fit into the carboy. (I mixed it all together in a kettle rather than trying to shake a 3 gal carboy.)

The water had been filtered and boiled before the honey was added.

The leftover I added to my first batch of mead which needed some extra volume to minimize headspace. (Fermentation had been stopped for about 3 weeks and it was clearing.) Much to my surprise, the fermentation took off again. It's been chugging along very slowly for almost 3 weeks now. I'll be very curious to see what the final alcohol content is going to be.

 

[Jmattioli]

I'll add a question too, if you dont mind. I left a lot of head space when I added friut to the secondary, but fermentation didnt take off like I expected. So, I topped it off at a later date. I boiled water to get the O2 out, let it cool, then mixed in some honey. I added this mixture to the must. Is this a good method?

Good method Charlie. You got the bases covered. Only thing one has to watch for is on occasions when adding it too fast, its possible to create a foam volcano.
Joe

 

[jab]

I'll be very curious to see what the final alcohol content is going to be.

Unfortunately you will probably never actually know what the final ABV is (unless you have access to the right equipment or the money to have someone else do it) because you changed the gravity midway through. The only way to truly find the ABV at this point is the take a sample and actually test the alc. content. Simple ABV instruments like hydrometers are useless at this point.

Does anyone know if there is a mathematical way to figure this out? I am guessing there may be but I have never heard of it. I would think though that if you knew the OG, the SG at time of the feeding, the OG of the addition, the volumetric ratio of the addition vs. the original volume, the FG, and arghhhh. Who cares? Does it taste good?