Hey everyone,
As suggested to me in response to another post I've made, I'm listening to the GotMead Live radio show and specifically the episodes from September 2017 where Ryan goes over modern mead making techniques. I highly recommend listening to these, the information is plentiful and absolutely great. I got through 1.5 episodes when I realized, I should be taking notes. So I went back to the important parts that I was interested in and started writing things down. I plan to start a batch next month using what I've learned from this podcast(I'll of course post my recipe and planned methodology in detail at that point for feedback before I start). It's a much more hands on approach than I thought mead making was. I'm guessing for most new people here, they would prefer that. I know when I get into something new, I go all in and want to do a lot with it, so making a few batches and then waiting a month to do anything with them is not as interesting to me right now. I do believe good meads can still be made that way. I've had some and down the road as I get busy with other things, I might balance what I've learned about modern mead making with the hands off approach and experiment to find the balance that works for me. Anyway, my questions, which hopefully should be simple.
Ryan talks about aeration using pure O2 before pitching the yeast. That makes sense to me and I like that idea. I was a little confused later in the show when talking about adding nutrients, degassing, and oxygenating. It sounds like when oxygenating at 12-15 hours and again at 24-26 hours, he is doing so with just the lees stirrer. Is that the case or is he using pure O2 at those points as well?
Second, what's the best way to degas and keep the lees in suspension in a 1 gallon jug? I know that buckets were recommended, and I may use one, but incase I don't, I'd like to get an opinion on this. Most of the lees stirrers I've seen online say that they do not fit in a 1 gallon jug. My guess would be slowly rocking the jug in a circular motion to start degassing and then a harder stir/shake could be used without risk of MEA.
Finally, I'll admit I haven't done any searching on this yet, but if anyone has experience with keeping the mead on the lees with D21 yeast and keeping it stirred up after fermentation as Ryan describes. I've read in some places that some yeast are better for lees aging than others. Now this may not be considered lees aging, so it may be irrelevant to other things I've read, but in the show, it sounded like any yeast could be used with the method he described, keeping in mind of course whether there were off smells or not in the fermentation.
As suggested to me in response to another post I've made, I'm listening to the GotMead Live radio show and specifically the episodes from September 2017 where Ryan goes over modern mead making techniques. I highly recommend listening to these, the information is plentiful and absolutely great. I got through 1.5 episodes when I realized, I should be taking notes. So I went back to the important parts that I was interested in and started writing things down. I plan to start a batch next month using what I've learned from this podcast(I'll of course post my recipe and planned methodology in detail at that point for feedback before I start). It's a much more hands on approach than I thought mead making was. I'm guessing for most new people here, they would prefer that. I know when I get into something new, I go all in and want to do a lot with it, so making a few batches and then waiting a month to do anything with them is not as interesting to me right now. I do believe good meads can still be made that way. I've had some and down the road as I get busy with other things, I might balance what I've learned about modern mead making with the hands off approach and experiment to find the balance that works for me. Anyway, my questions, which hopefully should be simple.
Ryan talks about aeration using pure O2 before pitching the yeast. That makes sense to me and I like that idea. I was a little confused later in the show when talking about adding nutrients, degassing, and oxygenating. It sounds like when oxygenating at 12-15 hours and again at 24-26 hours, he is doing so with just the lees stirrer. Is that the case or is he using pure O2 at those points as well?
Second, what's the best way to degas and keep the lees in suspension in a 1 gallon jug? I know that buckets were recommended, and I may use one, but incase I don't, I'd like to get an opinion on this. Most of the lees stirrers I've seen online say that they do not fit in a 1 gallon jug. My guess would be slowly rocking the jug in a circular motion to start degassing and then a harder stir/shake could be used without risk of MEA.
Finally, I'll admit I haven't done any searching on this yet, but if anyone has experience with keeping the mead on the lees with D21 yeast and keeping it stirred up after fermentation as Ryan describes. I've read in some places that some yeast are better for lees aging than others. Now this may not be considered lees aging, so it may be irrelevant to other things I've read, but in the show, it sounded like any yeast could be used with the method he described, keeping in mind of course whether there were off smells or not in the fermentation.
