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Kitchen destruction vs mead excellence

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Midnight Sun

Midnight Sun

NewBee
Registered Member
Jul 13, 2010
436
5
0
Anchorage, Alaska
So one of my brothers came over just as I was getting a mead started. He has never brewed before, and it was quite the treat. To make things more interesting, it was also my first >5 gallon batch (never done anything bigger than 2 gallon).

The yeast are pitched, and I am surveying the kitchen. Complete disaster :o

Just curious if there is any relationship between a destroyed kitchen and an excellent mead. If so, then I guess I can expect a mighty fine mead in my future ;D
 
It's tough to say... my kitchen's pretty much always a disaster before I start a batch and worse when I'm done... some of my brews turn out really well, some not so well... so I can't suggest that there's any correlation... :rolleyes:
 
I want SO badly to remodel my kitchen to make some of the space useable... oh well. At least I'm getting most of the winemaking stuff out of it.
 
kudapucat: I always suggest making a mead. At least if there are available carboys.

Chevette Girl: my wife brought home a plastic container one day and tossed a few of my brew items into it. I quickly got the point, so everything except the glass and buckets live in it. It is nice to not have to search for stuff anymore, so I guess that keeps both of us happy.
 
That's not so much the problem... I still have nine 3 and 5 gallon carboys usptairs plus a few 1-gal ones, the winemaking stuff has always been corralled to its corner so I can find it (and so the boys didn't break it on me!), it's just that our kitchen is SO badly designed that it really needs every scrap of space it can get, unless I want to store half our food and cooking equipment in the basement, and having one end out of commission due to winemaking (and jams and jellies and candymaking and anything other equipment that's off limits to the rest of the household) hasn't helped... We've got some small changes planned that should help, once I get all those carboys and their shelf out of there... 10 gal ready for bottling, most of the rest still need aging or some form of fining to clarify them...
 
my wife always complains after i get done making new batches, racking, etc. so yea, i guess mine gets pretty daggum messy.

she's going to hate the pumpkin project i'm about to start come to think of it.
 
I have a 5 gallon batch of JAO that's going to be for Christmas Gifts.

I just backsweetened and clarified (sparkalloid) it. I left it on the kitchen counter so that I can rack it off in a few more days without stirring anything up so I give perfectly shiny bottles of mead as gifts.

The queen is not pleased...
 
personally.. we don't really have that problem. We do all of our initial creation steps in the kitchen. After that.. I get to lug it down stairs into our basement. I manage the day to day stuff there, as well as the re-racks. I bring it back up for bottling day.

Using the kitchen as the beginning & end steps motivate us to really clean up the kitchen before we start. We're kind of paranoid about sanitation.
 
I'm with schlappy...though I will admit, there are some days when I have a 6.5 gallon bucket in my hand with 5 gallons of must in it after spending 2-3 hours cleaning up first, brewing/mixing/and shaking...I really really don't wanna climb those stairs. I actually dropped a carboy almost a foot the other day because I was so tired, good thing it was a Better Bottle! (I was also trying to carry it, two bowls with rehydrated yeast, and an airlock.)
 
I'm sort of at that in-between stage with moving the winery to the basement... anything that's 3 gallons or less I will lug down stairs (I've got two flights between kitchen and basement) but the 5-gal carboys are getting bottled upstairs, I'm not risking myself, my husband, my carpets, my glass carboys or my wine to lug it down two flights of stairs, I'll haul the bottles etc up instead... and I don't have a stove downstairs so if I have to boil anything, I do it upstairs, then lug the bucket downstairs...
 
Generally I mix everything together in the kitchen, then lug downstairs to my storage room or my garage. Racking tends to be done in the kitchen as does bottling. I have a sling-style carrier that fits a 5-gallon carboy, so I don't think that up and down stairs will be an issue. Not tried it yet though.
 
Generally, I try to clean my kitchen prior to making mead as a process of my initial sanitizing and set up. Doesn't always work. No matter the condition, I am required by my wife to sweep and mop the floor afterward due to the fact that it can get a little sticky with incidental drops. To promote house harmony, I do so. I end up lugging my carboys over to the side in our hearthroom which ajoins the kitchen about 10 ft away and a single step down.

Our Hearth room was added on to the house after it's creation, poorly insulated and has a moss stone fireplace. If functions as our living room. When I bottle I take the brew down stairs after bottling to age and in storage so it doesn't get drank right away.

I have found that the Brew Haulers are great. That's the straps that go around my carboy and I can carry it with handles on each side, supported from the bottom. I don't like the one handed caroby haulers that put stress on the neck of the carboy.

Still if I had a stove, sink and counter in the basement, I would do it all there. Hmm, I wonder how much it would be to get a dumbwaiter installed. Prob too much for me but it would be neat.

Matrix
 
Matrix4b said:
I have found that the Brew Haulers are great. That's the straps that go around my carboy and I can carry it with handles on each side, supported from the bottom.

I wonder how much it would be to get a dumbwaiter installed. Prob too much for me but it would be neat.

Matrix
Click to expand...

Never heard of Brew Haulers. Thanks for the tip.
I'd love to have a dumbwaiter in my next home.
 
Yes, that is exactly what I have. Used mine for the first time last night. Even for simple tasks like lifting the carboy from the floor onto a counter, it was very nice. It is now on my list of required brewing items.
 
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