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Orange Blossom Traditional questions

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Joshnir

Joshnir

NewBee
Registered Member
Oct 5, 2009
31
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0
La Plata, MD
Hey guys, Just joined up to the forums but I've been on gotmead plenty of times researching stuff. I think I'm going to try the orange blossom traditional in the patrons section for my first 5 gallon batch but I had some questions. First one is step 1 c. says to add the yeast/go-ferm mixture to 200ml 30 brix must. I'm not too familiar with brix but I looked it up and I'm guesing I just mix the honey into 200ml of water until my hydrometer reads 30 brix? My other question is about the 33% sugar break, how do I know when that is? I'm guessing it has something to do with measuring the SG but I wasn't sure. I was actually going to go with my own recipe of 15lb orange blossom honey, wyeast sweet mead yeast, and some nutrient but the home brew shop was out of the sweet mead yeast plus it would be nice to have my first big batch be something that has a good chance of turning out well. I also ordered Ken Schramm's book so hopefully that should help me out a little. Oh and does anyone know how long it will take for this to age nicely? It doesn't say but I assume it's around 6-9 months. Thanks.
 
First off, Welcome to GotMead!

I'm not to sure about some of the questions that you asked as I'm also new to hobby of homebrewing/meadmaking, but I can tell you that 6-9 months is a good age. You can drink it right away after 8-10 weeks, but to really appreciate the flavor of your mead you should wait to drink it.

Since I'm new myself what I have been doing is saving one bottle that I don't touch to compare and see how it tastes. Sorry I couldn't be better help.

-Shawn
 
Thanks a lot. I think I figured out the sugar break question after a bunch more searching. Oskaar explained it in a post and also said to use brix instead of SG to calculate the sugar break so that kind of answers both of my questions. I'm getting now that brix is kind of the same as SG. I think I'll defintely wait longer than the 8-10 weeks for this one. The first batch I ever made was 1 gallon of JAO about 3 months ago and although it's not bad I don't think I'll be drinking it yet, it has a bit of alcohol burn/acidity to it that I didn't expect and it still tastes a bit yeasty.
 
Well, technically Brix is a measure of the dissolved sugar in your must, and specific gravity is a measure of its density, but they're very closely related. The only difference comes when fermentation is underway and the must begins to become an alcohol-water solution. It is lower density than plain water, so a measure of Brix using a refractometer in an underway fermentation will not tell you directly how much sugar that you have left, unless you first correct the reading for how much was there to begin with.

And the 1/3 sugar break is the point where 33% of the fermentable sugars have been converted to ETOH (ethanol) and CO2.
 
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