First batch: No raisins or airlock, added more yeast. Oh boy.

[GntlKnigt1]

Yeah...i prefer my own stuff even over commercial wines, which most americans would envy at the range of varieties available at these low prices. With the exception of the wine selections at Trader Joes (a division of Aldi), it is hard to find quality wines for less than $10 per bottle.

Sent from Arthur Dent's towel smothering a volume of Vogon poetry, some of which just leaked out.

 

[Kiba]

Just letting you guys know that I ended up making a full gallon of JOA anyway, due to mistaking a full gallon jug for a half-gallon. Still, I'm going to make an entirely new half-gallon batch by tomorrow.

 

[EJM3]

Cold/Freeze Crashing...

Just to plan ahead: If the mead clears ahead of time and I think it tastes good, would I be able to stick it in the fridge/freezer for a while to kill the yeast off?

You can cold crash in the refrigerator, but that takes a couple weeks, and is not a guarantee that you got enough of the yeasties out to stop a refermentation. Unless you go completely dry, and even then I have been reading stories of sparkling mead, when it was originally bottled still. So if there are any amounts of sugars left over you could end up with sparkling mead or Bottle Bombs.

Sticking it in the freezer may clear it faster, but from my own personal (ongoing!) experiments it increases the yeasty, toasted bread like flavors, increases the buttery/creamy mouthfeel, and lots of other characteristics I can't put into words are changed drastically. I started a thread on Freeze Crashing, but I am out of experiments for now...

Just from my understanding of how things work that is! I am FAR from an expert on these things. Someone correct me if I am wrong....

 

[MJ7]

You can cold crash in the refrigerator, but that takes a couple weeks, and is not a guarantee that you got enough of them out to stop a refermentation. Unless you go completely dry, and even then I have been reading stories of sparkling mead, when it was originally bottled still. So if there are any amounts of sugars left over you could end up with sparkling mead or Bottle Bombs.

Sticking it in the freezer may clear it faster, but from my own personal (ongoing!) experiments it increases the yeasty, toasted bread like flavors, increases the buttery/creamy mouthfeel, and lots of other characteristics I can't put into words are changed drastically. I started a thread on Freeze Crashing, but I am out of experiments for now...

Just from my understanding of how things work that is! I am FAR from an expert on these things. Someone correct me if I am wrong....

There's really only one way to kill off the yeast, heat them up...but doing that is a no no because it will alter the must and final product too much. Cold crashing around 40 degrees F will suffice. Stick it in your refrigerator for a week. This will not kill the yeast, it will make them drop. After a week rack it, then if still cloudy cold crash it again, this could take several crashes. Continue until clear. Once that is complete you will want to stabilize the yeast with sorbate. Add potassium sorbate to your mead 48 hours before bottling, this will inhibit the yeast from reproducing and should prevent bottle bombs.

 

[mannye]

I remember (relative term) the first time a bunch of co-workers and I got rip roaring drunk on a keg of homebrew. We were all pleasantly surprised at how light the hangover was considering how totally wrecked we were. This was before the internet was real so the guy at the LHBS said it was because yeast trub has b vitamins and helped the liver metabolize the alcohol. I still haven't gotten totally f-ed up on mead YET so I don't know if that's true with mead as well.

 

[EJM3]

I remember (relative term) the first time a bunch of co-workers and I got rip roaring drunk on a keg of homebrew. We were all pleasantly surprised at how light the hangover was considering how totally wrecked we were. This was before the internet was real so the guy at the LHBS said it was because yeast trub has b vitamins and helped the liver metabolize the alcohol. I still haven't gotten totally f-ed up on mead YET so I don't know if that's true with mead as well.

I am not sure about the B-Vitamin connection with low to no hangovers (I'd be buying them in bulk if that were so!!!) But my experiences with alcohols of MANY types over many years (I am a former bar owner, restaurateur, comp tech, amatuer chef, and a few other well worn work hats and collars as well), is that with or without added B-Vitamins, amino acids, etc, of all types, I have never seen a "scientific study" done.

I have never heard of using them in alcoholic ferments, until now and on this site... so I have started researching this and other sites for their chemistry/biology/molecular chem/etc. So far the data is sparse to nil. But that all of my ferments have so far not had any real problems is pretty good I think.. but then again I am not [paid to think! In fact I am not paid at all...

YOUR tolerances for the aldehydes, esters, phenols, etc that are produced (flavors & aromatic compounds) and not mine or anyone elses, will lead you to YOUR preferences... Plus a ton of other variables, volatiles, fermentable, non-fermentables, etc.. that contribute to the complexity in ways that it will take me years, IF EVER, to BEGIN to understand!!!! The complexities of what is going on here with ferments of ALL types is so complex it is almost (ALMOST!!!) unpredictable. Mead, cyser, cider, melomel, etc are all VERY different, and just need individual TLC...

With any mead, melomel, etc... Mine, yours & others, JAOM, BOMM, Tupilo honey, OB honey, whatever! We all need to kibitz here and elsewhere so that we can create something that is at least in OUR (mine and my partners anyway) minds mouth, something that can be put into our mouths to affect out minds!!!

(Sorry, babbling again..)

 

[Kiba]

Thanks for the advice about the cold-crashing. My room is already rather cool most of the time, so clearing shouldn't be a problem and if not, I'll stick it in the fridge for the last week.

One more question: For the short-mead batch, when should I taste-check it? One or two weeks? I know that longer meads or even the full gallon of Joe's Ancient Orange should be tasted after the first month, but I'm not sure I've read about people taste-checking short meads; the creator of the short-mead recipe I'm using seems to have just left it for the full three weeks.

 

[GntlKnigt1]

You haven't tasted it already? Hmm.... Many folks quit making 1 gallon batches due to excessive tasting loss.....

Sent from the Nexus of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which has been infected with Vogon poetry, some of which leaked out here.

 

[Honeyhog]

You haven't tasted it already? Hmm.... Many folks quit making 1 gallon batches due to excessive tasting loss....

This is where my 2/3 gallon or 2.78? liter apple juice jugs come in handy, hahahahahaha.

 

[mannye]

Yeah...i prefer my own stuff even over commercial wines, which most americans would envy at the range of varieties available at these low prices. With the exception of the wine selections at Trader Joes (a division of Aldi), it is hard to find quality wines for less than $10 per bottle.

Sent from Arthur Dent's towel smothering a volume of Vogon poetry, some of which just leaked out.

Is Trader Joes where one can find the famous Two Buck Chuck? I've always wanted to try it since Captain Slow and that other guy did the wine show. They interviewed the famous "Chuck" and the wine snob dude said the wine was perfectly OK.

 

[GntlKnigt1]

Is Trader Joes where one can find the famous Two Buck Chuck? I've always wanted to try it since Captain Slow and that other guy did the wine show. They interviewed the famous "Chuck" and the wine snob dude said the wine was perfectly OK.

Yes.... the home of 2 buck Chuck (Charles Shaw wines), only it was $3 in Illinois... only in CA was it $2. But Trader Joe's seems to do a great job of finding good wines by other people for less than $10. They don't have Trader Joe's over here but sometimes the Aldi has products with the Trader Joe's labels. Perhaps the 'child' company has gotten bigger than the 'parent' !

 

[Kiba]

You haven't tasted it already? Hmm.... Many folks quit making 1 gallon batches due to excessive tasting loss.....

It's only been a few days for both batches, but I suppose I can put the taste-checking intervals to a weekly schedule. Maybe I'll start after two weeks for the JOA and one week for the three-week batch, so I could start tasting them on the 19th or 20th to see if they're doing all right.

Would a clean syringe or straw be okay as a low-budget wine thief, at least until I find a proper one?

 

[mannye]

It's only been a few days for both batches, but I suppose I can put the taste-checking intervals to a weekly schedule. Maybe I'll start after two weeks for the JOA and one week for the three-week batch, so I could start tasting them on the 19th or 20th to see if they're doing all right.

Would a clean syringe or straw be okay as a low-budget wine thief, at least until I find a proper one?

Anything works as long as you sterilize it first. Many folks use a turkey baster. Amazon has a cheap mini-thief that's perfect for one gallon jugs.

http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Wine-Th...TF8&qid=1392335083&sr=8-1&keywords=wine+thief

 

[Kiba]

Huh, I didn't know wine thieves were that cheap. I knew they wouldn't cost too much, but still--five to ten dollars is pretty awesome.

But for now I'll go with a syringe or a baster, since I can just drop by the store for either one.

 

[GntlKnigt1]

Yeah....right. turkey basters are impossible to find in Netherlands

Sent from Arthur Dent's towel smothering a volume of Vogon poetry, some of which just leaked out.

 

[mannye]

Really? Why on earth would a country not have a use for a baster? How much easier would it be to baste bitterballen if you had one? Well, if you had basters, I bet bitterballen would be basted!!! How many bitterballen would you baste if you had a bitterballen baster? Ha! Say that 10 times fast.

But back to the thread. If you do use a turkey baster or other implement such as a straw, use a brand new one that won't have any residual oils from food.

From my beer days, anything that touched the wort was bought only for beer.


Sent from my galafreyan transdimensional communicator 100 years from now. G

 

[Kiba]

I'm in America, the land of meat-eaters, so basters are a dime a dozen here.

I mix my own shampoo/soap already and use various non-food oils, so separating specialized utensils and containers isn't new information for me. Thanks for the reminder, though!

 

[Chevette Girl]

Then due to the conflicting messages I found on Google, I thought that I needed to add more yeast to compensate for the lack of whatever help the raisins provided. Turns out I was wrong, and I could have just kept it to a teaspoon of yeast like the original recipe.

You're not entirely wrong, actually, for two reasons -
1) the yeast needs extra nutrients to replicate, they don't really need much once they've reached their critical mass and turn their attention to processing sugar into ethanol, so in theory if you add enough yeast, they don't need to replicate so they don't need the nutrients. In theory. But you don't want overcrowding either, which I think is why we just add one packet and let them do their thing until they think they've reached their population maximum.
2) yeast contains a lot of the things yeast needs, which sounds kind of redundant, but many of us have used yeast to feed yeast (the little cannibals!) but typically in order for your growing yeast colony to have access to any nutrients contained by other yeast, the "other" yeast needs to be lysed (popped to spill their guts) which can be done by boiling or microwaving it in water.

I hear mead gives horrific hangovers, but my first taste of it was Chaucer's and I had about half the bottle with an average hangover.

Just to plan ahead: If the mead clears ahead of time and I think it tastes good, would I be able to stick it in the fridge/freezer for a while to kill the yeast off?

Also, how long should I wait before checking the taste? The intended aging time is three weeks, so should I taste-check in two weeks?

Hangovers are kind of a personal thing, I get a worse hangover from unstabilized wines than I do from wines that have been treated with sulphites and my alcohol tolerance exceeded my hangover tolerance some time ago, which means I have been hungover without being drunk. So I have to drink a little more carefully. There are also factors others have alluded to (like red wine tannins) that can affect the severity of your hangover, but to find out what's best and worst for you will require extensive experimentation ;D

As others have said, freezing won't kill yeast and if you're concerned about bottling too early and making bottle bombs, you'll want to take one of the following approaches for safety -
1) stabilize with chemicals before bottling
2) check with a hydrometer to make sure fermentation has actually stopped
3) bottle in screw-top or flip-top bottles and check them every few days, if you get a hiss of carbonation, let them bleed off any pressure buildup, keeping the bottles refrigerated will slow any CO2 production right down too.

When to taste? Any time you like, but just be aware that your mead will go through some stages that may taste pretty awful one week and great the next, depending on things like bitterness extraction, residual sugars, carbonation and suspended yeast. I generally always taste mine before I pitch the yeast and then after fermentation has ceased and I rack it to another vessel, but for some batches where I'm in there every day anyway either aerating or stirring, I'll catch some drips off the implements and see how things are going.

But back to the thread. If you do use a turkey baster or other implement such as a straw, use a brand new one that won't have any residual oils from food.

Having tried using a turkey baster early on in my winemaking, I heartily suggest a syringe or wine thief, basters are messy and must is thin enough that it dribbles back out the rather large hole as you're taking it from the mouth of the fermentation vessel and whatever you're transferring it to unless you upend it into the ball, and who knows how clean you can get the inside of the baster?

And with respect to separate tools for must/non-food/etc, I don't apply that rule to stainless steel because it can be both cleaned and sanitized pretty thoroughly, but I definitely have separate sets of plastic items for homemade vinegar, jams and jellies and must... and the greasy car stuff stays in the garage!!

 

[MJ7]

You're not entirely wrong, actually, for two reasons - 1) the yeast needs extra nutrients to replicate, they don't really need much once they've reached their critical mass and turn their attention to processing sugar into ethanol, so in theory if you add enough yeast, they don't need to replicate so they don't need the nutrients. In theory.

Highly debatable, depends on the yeast. Some yeast are so aggressive if there isn't enough food/nutes to go around they will try to feed on themselves, and this of course will add for unwanted off flavors.

 

[mannye]

And with respect to separate tools for must/non-food/etc, I don't apply that rule to stainless steel because it can be both cleaned and sanitized pretty thoroughly, but I definitely have separate sets of plastic items for homemade vinegar, jams and jellies and must... and the greasy car stuff stays in the garage!!

I agree about the stainless but I'm still beer paranoid and even keep stainless exclusive for brewing. Its overkill but I can't not do it!