First Mead Batch - 5 Gallon JAOM made in India

[Bitsurfer88]

Hello everyone,

First of all I'd like to say how excited I am to join this forum and to get into mead making! I've been reading around to get the basic knowledge to get a first few batches going, and I have to say this community is really amazing. Being that I live in New-Delhi, India, I suppose I'll be faced with certain challenges mainly on temperature front (this place gets to 115 degrees pretty consistently in summer), and on the sanitization/contamination front (this place is very dusty due to dry winds that come in from the desert). I do have a basement where the temperature is significantly lower than on the outside, so I plan to conduct my experiments down there. Currently the temperature does not exceed 75 degrees down there (I know, still very high!). I know I will not be able to ferment during the 3 months where it gets too hot (june/july/august), which is why I'm excited to get my first batches going right now while temperatures are still "manageable".

I mixed my first mead batch 10 days ago (20L=5 Gallons roughly), I did the JAOM recipe using bread yeast, raisins and oranges. This seemed like an easy recipe to get started while I waited for the D-47 yeast I ordered from Denmark off of amazon (procurement of some of wine/beer/mead equipment and ingredients (mainly yeast and energizers and nutrients) is really hard in India!! We have to get it shipped from overseas and it literally doubles the price. Or we have to be creative I guess.

This was my recipe:
-4.2 Gallons of water
-8.8 Pounds of commercial honey (did not want to go too expensive for my first batch)
-1 cup of chopped raisins
-1 X 7 gram pack of Tesco fast action baker's dry yeast (I know that is too little.. read on)
-2 X very fragrant and sweet oranges (I only used the pulp and the zest, left out the white part of the rind as I read it brings astringency)

As a fermenter, I used a 20L plastic carboy made for those water dispensers that you see in offices or waiting rooms. I figured it's a quick and dirty way to get an inexpensive fermenter that is easily sealed and already sanitized with drinking water in it. I tossed away 1 gallon of water, then dissolved all the honey with some of the remaining water, and finally added all of it back to the carboy. Added raisins, oranges, activated dry yeast (only 1 pack rehydrated in lukewarm water for 15 mins). Sealed it shut with a balloon (still waiting for my airlocks...). I saw activity start after 24 hours with a few tiny bubble coming up, then after 48 hours it was slightly more pronounced but still not very vigorous. I figured with a temp of around 70 degrees the yeast should have been more active so I started thinking I had under-pitched my yeast. Waited another day and still no pickup, so I activated 2 more 7 gram packs and added them on day 3. From then onwards the bubbles were plentiful (albeit tiny) and I've been having such activity up till now, with a nice fine, short foam that has formed on top. There is however no Krausen! Now I have reached day 12 and the activity has slowed, though it is still ongoing.

I did not take OG since I did not have a hydrometer. I received one today but it was broken in the box Gonna have to order another one and wait a few days for it.

My questions are as follows:
-Will the amount of raisins I put in really provide enough nutrients?
-Did I put too little honey in my recipe? Or can it turn out as a light mead? (I realize I'll never know the actual ABV since no OG reading taken...)
-If I let it age long enough (keep in mind delhi gets super hot so yeasts won't go dormant), will the yeasts be done with the sugar and die out and allow backsweetening without prior addition of sorbates and sulfites (again, difficult to procure here + rather go natural)?
-Is lack of krausen a bad thing?
-Should I add more raisins in now at day 12?

Again, looking forward to interacting with all of you!

Kind Regards

 

[Squatchy]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

Seems as though you did do a bit of homework. Raisins are really not a source of nutrients. This is a very unique recipe where every thing works in a concert fashion and does not represent a real case fermentation. Never the less you can make something that is fairly descent. But most people make one and move on to something more mead like.

I would suggest to take the same yeast you pitched with. Boil a cup of water and then add a pack or two of the yeast to the boiling water. Wit till it cools off and add it to the must. This will provide some real nutrition for your biomass.

Even with your high heat I would not expect for the yeast to die so that you could safely add the back sweetening without restarting your fermentation. The amount of sugar up front should end you at a semi descent balance between all the other ingredients. My hunch would be that your yeast will not take it AS DRY AS YOU EXPECT YOU MIGHT NOT NEED TO BACK SWEETEN IT. Sorry caps.

Also. If you did use D47 it would have been a disaster. That strain especially does not do well in temps above 66. Higher than that will stress the hell out of that strain and it will make a ton of off flavors. The JOAM recipe requires strict adherence in order for it to turn out. Although I do think the dead yeast added will help to make the yeast go a little further and perhaps not create as much fusels.

If you search for Gotmeadlive podcast and start on 9/5/17 I did a series of podcast starting from the begging and walk you through the entire process of making good award winning mead using modern science. I walk you through the same process I use and I win awards in comps every time I enter. So I can assure you it works. I understand the difficulty you have to get the right ingredients. But I would be at a loss on how to help you other wise. Some strains of yeast are what I call "warm blooded yeast" and you might need to consider those unless you can devise a means of temp control.

Here is the bible. In it you will learn tons of things. If you start on page 7 you can look at the charts and see the warm blooded yeast.

Before you make your next batch. Run your protocol past us so we can make sure your heading down the correct path.

 

[Devin Petry-Johnson]

Hello and welcome. I agree you might have some trouble with D-47 yeast based on the heat. Would it be possible for you to chill the must even more for the first week or two of fermentation? If you can put it in an ice bath or something maybe you can keep the temp down low enough to get through the stage of fermentation that would cause those off-flavors.

Let me try to answer your specific questions:
-Will the amount of raisins I put in really provide enough nutrients? Not really. Do what Squatchy said if you can. Boil some yeast to kill them, then let that cool and add it to the must. The dead yeast will act as nutrient for the yeast in your must.
-Did I put too little honey in my recipe? Or can it turn out as a light mead? (I realize I'll never know the actual ABV since no OG reading taken...) The amount is fine. It's all about what you are trying to make. Use the Mead Calculator here to figure out what your potential alcohol will be based on the volume of water and amount of honey added. If all the honey is turned into alcohol, you'll get close to that expected result. And it should eat all the honey based on the amount you added.
-If I let it age long enough (keep in mind delhi gets super hot so yeasts won't go dormant), will the yeasts be done with the sugar and die out and allow backsweetening without prior addition of sorbates and sulfites (again, difficult to procure here + rather go natural)? There's no way to be sure. Yeast can go dormant and then start back up if the conditions improve (for example there is more sugar to eat). If you can't stabilize, you can backsweeten after a long time and if it's clear, but you are risking it!
-Is lack of krausen a bad thing? I don't think so. I've made mead just fine without getting a krausen.
-Should I add more raisins in now at day 12? It won't hurt, but it isn't really nutrient. It would be for flavor and/or mouthfeel.

Here is the bible. In it you will learn tons of things. If you start on page 7 you can look at the charts and see the warm blooded yeast..

I believe Squatchy was linking you to the Scotts Labs Handbook, see here.

 

[Squatchy]

I have heard of mead restarting as much as 3 years post pitch. I would never backsweeten with out stabilizing. The reason you are told to use a certain amount if honey from Joe is because he knew how many points bread yeast could chew through. And adjusted the honey amount to have the right amount to get the correct balance with the bittercfrom the orange pith.

 

[caduseus]

I agree. You may not need to backsweeten even.

 

[Bitsurfer88]

Dear All,

Thank you so much for your detailed responses, could not hope for more for my first post and a sincere thanks for making a newcomer feel so welcome here.

@Squatchy

I followed your advice concerning the boiled yeast and added it to the carboy of JAOM (this was day 12). It seems like activity picked up a bit and is now slowing back down on day 16. I will leave it another week and then rack in a new carboy for bulk-ageing.

@Devin Petry-Johnson

For now I plan to carry out the experiments in the ambient temperature of my basement, to understand how this affects my batches. I will try as much as possible to safeguard quantities of each batch through a few years of ageing, so I can draw comparisons. Even if my first few batches get a "cooked" fermentation, it will be for science. In the next few months, I will probably try and devise a cooling system, perhaps a "son of a chiller" system.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

About the D-47 yeast, I received it last week and made 2 more batches already :-[ So far no off smells, but I'm a bit worried after reading what you guys said about it not liking these higher temps. I had however read somewhere that D-47 was a quite tolerant of temperatures going up to 80 degrees (http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php/8633-Lalvin-ICV-D-47-yeast). I guess these two batches will be for science!! Let's see how D-47 deals with 75+ degrees. The recipes for those two batches were as follows:

Batch 2
-4.2 Gallons of water
-8.8 Pounds of Himalayan Honey
-4 cups of chopped raisins
-1 X 7 gram pack of D-47 yeast
-2 X boiled and cooled baker's yeast packs

Batch 3
-4.2 Gallons of water
-8.8 Pounds of Wild Forest Honey
-4 cups of chopped raisins
-2 X 7 gram pack of D-47 yeast
-1 X boiled and cooled baker's yeast pack

For Batch 2, activity started in 24 hours, has been slow (tiny sparse bubbles) and steady up till now (day 5). One thing though: NO foam, NO krausen!

For Batch 3, activity started in 24 hours quite vigorously, producing a caky foam along with krausen in 24 hours. After that, activity slowed down and has been slow but steady just like batch 2 (this is day 4 of that batch).

I now have received some Red Star champagne yeast and my hydrometer . So looking forward to use them now. I will first pass the recipes I plan to do on this forum to get some wisdom and maximize my chances of success. It's great that I can refer to your podcast to learn more about "warm blooded" yeasts, which will probably be my go-to yeasts if I want to pursue this in India. Plan on listening to it tonight!

Thanks a lot for your detailed responses and hope to learn more from all of you.

Regards,

Bitsurfer88

 

[Bitsurfer88]

-If I let it age long enough (keep in mind delhi gets super hot so yeasts won't go dormant), will the yeasts be done with the sugar and die out and allow backsweetening without prior addition of sorbates and sulfites (again, difficult to procure here + rather go natural)? There's no way to be sure. Yeast can go dormant and then start back up if the conditions improve (for example there is more sugar to eat). If you can't stabilize, you can backsweeten after a long time and if it's clear, but you are risking it!



I believe Squatchy was linking you to the Scotts Labs Handbook, see here.

Understood, will make sure I purchase some campden tablets/ potassium sorbate before bottling, but that may be a long while from now.

I'm getting a 404 page on your link, do you by any chance have another way to point me to the handbook? Really want to know about the "warm blooded" yeasts squatchy was talking about! :toothy5:

 

[Bitsurfer88]

Dear All,

Thank you so much for your detailed responses, could not hope for more for my first post and a sincere thanks for making a newcomer feel so welcome here.

@Squatchy

I followed your advice concerning the boiled yeast and added it to the carboy of JAOM (this was day 12). It seems like activity picked up a bit and is now slowing back down on day 16. I will leave it another week and then rack in a new carboy for bulk-ageing.

@Devin Petry-Johnson

For now I plan to carry out the experiments in the ambient temperature of my basement, to understand how this affects my batches. I will try as much as possible to safeguard quantities of each batch through a few years of ageing, so I can draw comparisons. Even if my first few batches get a "cooked" fermentation, it will be for science. In the next few months, I will probably try and devise a cooling system, perhaps a "son of a chiller" system.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

About the D-47 yeast, I received it last week and made 2 more batches already :-[ So far no off smells, but I'm a bit worried after reading what you guys said about it not liking these higher temps. I had however read somewhere that D-47 was a quite tolerant of temperatures going up to 80 degrees (http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php/8633-Lalvin-ICV-D-47-yeast). I guess these two batches will be for science!! Let's see how D-47 deals with 75+ degrees. The recipes for those two batches were as follows:

Batch 2
-4.2 Gallons of water
-8.8 Pounds of Himalayan Honey
-4 cups of chopped raisins
-1 X 7 gram pack of D-47 yeast
-2 X boiled and cooled baker's yeast packs

Batch 3
-4.2 Gallons of water
-8.8 Pounds of Wild Forest Honey
-4 cups of chopped raisins
-2 X 7 gram pack of D-47 yeast
-1 X boiled and cooled baker's yeast pack

For Batch 2, activity started in 24 hours, has been slow (tiny sparse bubbles) and steady up till now (day 5). One thing though: NO foam, NO krausen!

For Batch 3, activity started in 24 hours quite vigorously, producing a caky foam along with krausen in 24 hours. After that, activity slowed down and has been slow but steady just like batch 2 (this is day 4 of that batch).

I now have received some Red Star champagne yeast and my hydrometer . So looking forward to use them now. I will first pass the recipes I plan to do on this forum to get some wisdom and maximize my chances of success. It's great that I can refer to your podcast to learn more about "warm blooded" yeasts, which will probably be my go-to yeasts if I want to pursue this in India. Plan on listening to it tonight!

Thanks a lot for your detailed responses and hope to learn more from all of you.

Regards,

Bitsurfer88

 

[Squatchy]

Understood, will make sure I purchase some campden tablets/ potassium sorbate before bottling, but that may be a long while from now.

I'm getting a 404 page on your link, do you by any chance have another way to point me to the handbook? Really want to know about the "warm blooded" yeasts squatchy was talking about! :toothy5:

Here ya go. http://www.scottlab.com/pdf/ScottlabsHandbook2016.pdf

 

[caduseus]

Understood, will make sure I purchase some campden tablets/ potassium sorbate before bottling, but that may be a long while from now.

I'm getting a 404 page on your link, do you by any chance have another way to point me to the handbook? Really want to know about the "warm blooded" yeasts squatchy was talking about! :toothy5:

Please get Camden tablets and sorbate ASAP

 

[Squatchy]

I actually like just pure potassium bisulfite. It dissolves really easy. Camden tabs are sometimes made with sodium meta rather than potassium bisulfite. And If I remember they are only 60 some percent meta and the rest is filler? And they are a pain in the butt to break up and dissolve. And cost much more per application.

 

[Bitsurfer88]

Dear All,

Thank you so much for your detailed responses, could not hope for more for my first post and a sincere thanks for making a newcomer feel so welcome here.

@Squatchy

I followed your advice concerning the boiled yeast and added it to the carboy of JAOM (this was day 12). It seems like activity picked up a bit and is now slowing back down on day 16. I will leave it another week and then rack in a new carboy for bulk-ageing.

@Devin Petry-Johnson

For now I plan to carry out the experiments in the ambient temperature of my basement, to understand how this affects my batches. I will try as much as possible to safeguard quantities of each batch through a few years of ageing, so I can draw comparisons. Even if my first few batches get a "cooked" fermentation, it will be for science. In the next few months, I will probably try and devise a cooling system, perhaps a "son of a chiller" system.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

About the D-47 yeast, I received it last week and made 2 more batches already :-[ So far no off smells, but I'm a bit worried after reading what you guys said about it not liking these higher temps. I had however read somewhere that D-47 was a quite tolerant of temperatures going up to 80 degrees (http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php/8633-Lalvin-ICV-D-47-yeast). I guess these two batches will be for science!! Let's see how D-47 deals with 75+ degrees. The recipes for those two batches were as follows:

Batch 2
-4.2 Gallons of water
-8.8 Pounds of Himalayan Honey
-4 cups of chopped raisins
-1 X 7 gram pack of D-47 yeast
-2 X boiled and cooled baker's yeast packs

Batch 3
-4.2 Gallons of water
-8.8 Pounds of Wild Forest Honey
-4 cups of chopped raisins
-2 X 7 gram pack of D-47 yeast
-1 X boiled and cooled baker's yeast pack

For Batch 2, activity started in 24 hours, has been slow (tiny sparse bubbles) and steady up till now (day 5). One thing though: NO foam, NO krausen!

For Batch 3, activity started in 24 hours quite vigorously, producing a caky foam along with krausen in 24 hours. After that, activity slowed down and has been slow but steady just like batch 2 (this is day 4 of that batch).

I now have received some Red Star champagne yeast and my hydrometer . So looking forward to use them now. I will first pass the recipes I plan to do on this forum to get some wisdom and maximize my chances of success. It's great that I can refer to your podcast to learn more about "warm blooded" yeasts, which will probably be my go-to yeasts if I want to pursue this in India. Plan on listening to it tonight!

Thanks a lot for your detailed responses and hope to learn more from all of you.

Regards,

Bitsurfer88

 

[Bitsurfer88]

Dear All,

Thank you so much for your responses and welcoming attitude.

I have posted a lengthy response to your comments posted here, however the moderator is still approving it. Please bear with me as it gets approved.

Thank you again so much for your inputs!

Regards,

Bitsurfer88

 

[Toxxyc]

Hi Bitsurfer, that's a bug that's causing them to get "stuck" like that. I'll report it for you!

 

[thebeesmead]

First Mead, other than several JAOM's. I'm think I'm having problems, Mead smells skunky, tastes sour. Currently degassing, before adding superkleer.
Recipe and notes:

Traditional Mead
13.9 lbs. local black locust honey
4.25 gal warm water (distilled)
1-1.5 tsp. wine tannin
2 tsp Diammonium Phosphate
1 tsp Fermaid K yeast nutrient
2 T. Go-Ferm
2 pkg Lalvin D-47

Process:
2/10/18
sanitized airlock,fermentation bucket, lid, stock pot, spoon, spatula.
dissolved honey in 1gal. warm water then added to the fermentation bucket. added cool water up to 5.25 gal. SG was 1.090
Rehydrated yeast as per instructions on go-ferm/yeast packets. Pitched yeast at 11:32am @ 72 degrees. Affixed airlock.
2/10/18 6-6:15 fermentation begins. 11:30 pm added 3/4 tsp stock blend (1 tsp ferm K and 2 tsp Diammonium Phosphate mixed) stirred vigorously
2/11/18 stirred vig. @ 10 am added 2nd addition of stock blend, stirred vig.
2/12/18 7:30 am stirred vig. 6:55 pm 3rd addition of stock blend, stirred vig.
2/13/18 6am stirred must vig. 5:40 pm gravity @1.062 stirred vig.
2/14/18 6:10am stirred vig. 6:18pm stirred vig. 9:04 pm stirred vig. with drill mnt. mix stir. ( all other vig. stirs with plastic spoon)
2/15/18 6:12 am aerated w mix stir 3 min. 3:59 pm aerated w/mix stir
2/16/18 6:09 am aerated w/ mix stir. 5:35 pm, gravity @ 1.060, *stirred vig before gravity reading and after nutrient addition
2/17/18 10:45 am aerated w mix stir, 4:25 pm aerated w/ mix stir
2/18/18 11:18 am aerated w mix stir, ph @ 2.61 at 2:13 pm. 9:28 pm aerated w/ mix stir
2/19/18 4:10 pm aerated w mix stir, 9:44 pm aerated w/mix stir
2/20/18 6:13 am aerated w/ mix stir, 5:20 pm aerate w/mix stir, 9:25 aerate w/ mix stir
2/21/18 6:11 am aerate w/ mix stir, 4:57 pm aerate w/ mix stir, 8:30 pm aerate w/ mix stir
2/22/18 5pm aerate w/ mix stir, 9:21 pm aerate w/ mix stir
2/23/18 6:18 pm aerate w/mix stir
2/24/18 11:58 am aerate w/mix stir, 8:59 pm aerate w/ mix stir
2/25/18 8:26 am aerate w/mix stir, 2:43 pm aerate w/mix stir, 9:30 pm aerate w/mix stir
2/26/18 7:15 pm gravity @ 1.030, 7:20pm aerate w/ mix stir
2/27/18 7:30 pm racked Mead into sanitized carboy, affixed airlock
3/12/18 5:10 pm gravity @1.020 ph at 2.7, calibrated ph meter new reading 2.93
3/17/18 10:13 am gravity @1.014 re-racked into sanitized carboy added 3 crushed campden tabs and 1 tsp ascorbic acid. when mixing campden and ascorbic acid, Mead foamed over and I lost about 3 inches of headspace, worried I lost acid and campden tabs. degassed w/mix stir replaced airlock. 8:56 pm degassed w/mix stir 4 min.
3/18/18 9:16 am degassed w/mix stir 3.5 min 5:47 pm degassed w/mix stir 3 min.
3/19/18 3:26 pm degas wmix stir 3.5 min
3/20/18 4:55 pm degas 2.5 min 10 pm degas w/mix stir 3 min.
3/21/18 5:57 am degas 2 min w/mix stir. 5:30 pm degassed every 8 min until 8:15 pm.
3/22/18 degassed 5:57 pm every 8 min until 8:08 pm.
3/25/18 12 pm degassed every 8 min until 12:30. gravity @ 1.014
3/26/18 4:20 pm degassed every 8 min until 5:20 pm
3/27/18 4:39 pm degassed every 7 min until 6:54 pm
3/28/18 4:14 pm degassed every 7 min until 7:23 pm
3/30/18 5:16 pm degassed every 8 min until 7:13 pm
3/31/18 3:53 pm degassed every 8 min until 5:56 pm
4/2/18 7:49 degassed every 8 min until 8:49 pm. 9 pm started post to find out all the things I may have done wrong in this recipe.

I am degassing w/mix stir every 7 or 8 min because this is how long it takes for the bubbles to dissipate.
I did not add the tannin, since I don't necessarily care for it. This may have been a tactical error?
I'm afraid that it is not fixable.

Before/after using the mix stir, I wash with dawn soap and warm water, sanitize in sulphite solution,rinse and let dry, before using I rinse with sanitizer, rinse with water, attach to drill, sanitized w/ clorox wipes, my hands are sanitized with hand gel through the entire process, many times.

Please advise,
Eric

 

[Toxxyc]

What's the chances that you worked a ton of oxygen into your mead with your degassing? It might be a lot of stressed yeast from using distilled water as well. Distilled water is technically a bit toxic, since it contains no minerals or nutrients for yeast (or people, for that matter)

 

[darigoni]

The beesmead,

FYI. It's not proper protocol or etiquette to post your issue in someone elses original post. You should have created your own post, where members could then concentrate or your issues.

Why did you rack on 2/27? It appears that your mead was still fermenting.

Why did you "re-rack" on 3/17, add Campden tablets and ascorbic acid?

Then, after the re-racking, you continue to degass and aerate.

Did you do any kind of temperature control? D47 likes to stay between 59 & 68 degrees, and preferably on the lower side of that.

When did you notice that you didn't like the smell or taste?

I've looked through a few of your other posts and you seem to repeatedly be making the same mistakes and asking the same questions. I think you need to take a step back, do some reading (NewBee guide), watch the Meadology series on youtube and DEFINITELY listen to the gotmead podcasts, on Modern Mead Making, starting on September 5th, 2017.

 

[thebeesmead]

The beesmead,

FYI. It's not proper protocol or etiquette to post your issue in someone elses original post. You should have created your own post, where members could then concentrate or your issues.

Why did you rack on 2/27? It appears that your mead was still fermenting.

Why did you "re-rack" on 3/17, add Campden tablets and ascorbic acid?

Then, after the re-racking, you continue to degass and aerate.

Did you do any kind of temperature control? D47 likes to stay between 59 & 68 degrees, and preferably on the lower side of that.

When did you notice that you didn't like the smell or taste?

I've looked through a few of your other posts and you seem to repeatedly be making the same mistakes and asking the same questions. I think you need to take a step back, do some reading (NewBee guide), watch the Meadology series on youtube and DEFINITELY listen to the gotmead podcasts, on Modern Mead Making, starting on September 5th, 2017.

Sorry. I misunderstood, rules and protocol. I meant no disrespect. It will only happen once more with this response.

I was following a recipe from my home brew shop. May have confused myself from all of the reading, and advice from my home brew shop. The basement is between 66- 69 degrees. I noticed the smell and taste around 3/12. I have an insulated wine room that I can make work for fermentation purposes. Blinded by meadfever I guess. I'll set the carboy in there, and start-over from square one. I appreciate the coaching.

Cheers