Mead Blog

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It’s been a while since I posted anything…Sorry!   I’ve been busy starting a meadery! 

One thing that I found is it’s so much easier to take care of a single yeast strain!  I’ve experimented with 9 different types and I have finally standardized on EC-1118 as my go-to yeast.  Its clean, and easy to take care of.  I’ve made many meads with this one and it has never failed me yet.  High ABV, low ABV, bochets, traditionals.  I really like this one.

I’ve also cleaned up the users on here and set it to not be able to register right away… Not much spam but always looking to keep it low.

I bottled the Chocolate and the 30 spice Metheglin on 2-5-11.  I started out with 6 gallons of Chocolate and wound up with 4 due to tasting, filtering, and a cracked carboy.  (Luckily it was a hairline crack and just a bit leaked out.)  The Spiced I only had 3 gallons of to start.  The Chocolate is about 2.5 years old and is pretty darn good.  I used cocoa nibs, and some chocolate milk mix.  It takes a while for the chocolate and alcohol to smooth out  but when it does, its nice!  The 30 spice is almost 2 years old and is good, but will need some more time for all the spices to blend together.

What Im looking for now is a good way to store all these bottles.  I have a bunch of cabinets that are filled with all sorts of bottles and I’m actually having trouble finding bottles now because I might have 15 bottles of one type and 3 of another and they all get mixed together.  If you have a good setup, please let me know.

When I did the yeast test I left one open to the air to try to get a wild fermentation going, and it worked!  It started at about 1.106 and finished at 1.003.   It took about 4 days for this one to get going and another 2 weeks for it to finish though even though it had .  It was much slower than the others.  One interesting thing is that the yeast flocced out very quickly and very compactly after it was done.  It had a citrusy, flowery smell and the taste wasn’t too bad at all.  I am letting this one clear for a few more weeks and will do a more detailed tasting then.

I wanted to do a larger yeast test but I maxed out good controlled fermenting space at 5!  So I made another batch that was mostly the same honey and gravity as the first test.  I used EC-1118, K1V-1116, and D-21 in this round.  I started this batch about 2 weeks ago and it finished up in about 4 days @ 67°.   I have one of those counter-top soda coolers that stands about 3 feet high, and it can fit about 6 1 gallon jugs easily.  I used a brewbelt & a temperature controller I made to keep temps steady.    Each one dropped about 105 points so it looks like the stirring up the yeast does help with finishing the fermentation.  The first yeast test started at  about 1.106 and finished off at .991-.993.  This second test finished off at .999.   I wasn’t going for a maximum ABV batch, so this works fine for me at 14% ABV.  If it had gone to .990/.991 it would have been about 15%.  I want to do another test of the same honey and yeast but different starting gravities, one pushing 16-18% and one at about 10-12% to test fermenting, ageing, and drinkability.

I bought a vacuum pump (brake bleeder from a car parts store) to use as a CO2 remover. Just another toy I suppose! It comes with a 1/4″ connector and a “universal” adapter that I connected to a piece of solid tubing inserted into a rubber stopper. I connected this up (sanitized first, of course) and started pulling a vacuum on a show mead that needed degassed. It started bubbling like crazy at about 20 PSIG.  (I dont want to go too far past this though.  I figure the stopper would start to get pulled in some if it was too high.)  I did this a few times and each time it bubbled lots. I left a vacuum on the mead overnight and will check it again tonight. I’d like to test this vs. degassing with a mix-stir that adds additional oxygen. I don’t think it will cause much harm unless its going to be aged for a long time. (And even then, I don’t think it will “ruin” anything.)  But then again I don’t usually let a mead get too old before drinking it! I do try to save a few bottles from each batch, so hopefully I’ll have a few saved for a long time to try.

I like using a refractometer more than a hydrometer. Its easier, quicker and uses less must.   But I was getting frustrated with the refractometer during the reads at the end of fermentation.  I wrote a calculation spreadsheet that gives me the correct specific gravity with ethanol inclusion and it works great when you can read the line at 15 Brix or 13.25 Brix, but sometimes I had a fuzzy line that could either be 15 or it might be 13.25.  It’s not a huge problem if you’re the type of person that makes a mead and lets it go until its done.  I like to take daily or ever other day gravity reads, smells, and visual observations during fermentation.  I would get these fuzzy lines that could be 15, 14, maybe even 13 but it was hard to tell.  Ive been playing with the reads and found that if you open the lense a few times and let it smack the sample you will get a much clearer line.  It knocks the co2 out of the sample allowing for a clear refractometer reading.  I wish I had discovered this a while ago, but hopefully this will help you out, too.

Recently I decided to do a yeast test and bought 8 different white wine yeasts from More Wine!  I didn’t do all 8 at once, but I am doing 5 plus a “control” batch that I want to do a wild yeast on.  In this test I selected: QA23, DV10, 58W3, R2, W15, and the wild yeast.  I made a batch from 3 different honey sources – the bulk was a generic Sue Bee Orange Blossom honey, a few pounds of a local wildflower honey, and a few pounds of a local alfalfa-clover honey. The wildflower tasted and smelled awesome, the alfalfa-clover was very dark and tasted great – I want to do a traditional with this one soon!

This was started on Halloween – the OG was about 1.111.  Rehydrated the 5 types with Go-Ferm and pitched at 3PM.  By 10 PM they had all started foaming, except the wild yeast.  At that point I added 1g per batch of Fermaid and aerated.  The W15 had the most foam while the 58W3 had the least.   Room temp has been constant at 66.  As of today (11-4) they had all dropped to 1.039-1.046 except the wild is only at 1.098.  (I will probably take this one outside for a few hours today to attempt to get this one moving – maybe there is no good indoor yeast in Greensburg!)
All were aerated daily for first 2 days.

I am going to post more detailed results of the gravities, taste, aroma, etc. very soon.

As of 11-9-2010 the QA23 has finished, as well as the DV10 and R2.  The W15 is almost finished, the 58W3 still has a way to go.  The wild yeast batch is probbaly the one I’m most excited about though. It finally started after 3 days.  I took it outside for a few hours and kept aerating it.  Its only at 1.046 now, but thats about half way so its good to go.  I am hoping that this is actually a wild yeast because it smells slightly of vanilla and not something funky.  The DV10 is already starting to clear and the blips from the airlock are 12-14 seconds apart vs. 6-8 seconds for the others.

These finished up at about .991-.993.  I filtered them with a #2 filter.  I will provide tasting notes when they are sampled.

All sorts of stuff has been going on! I bottled quite a few different batches – dry spiced, pear, oaked, pyment.  Also made a Cabernet Sauvignon that I’m not so excited about.  I let the juice sit at 40 and it started to ferment on its own.  I went into the basement and heard a hissing – it was the still sealed juice bucket.  Guess the sulfiting was kept to a minimum!  Quickly rehydrated and pitched some EC-1118 in an attempt to control it, but in tasting it now I can taste the wild yeast that started it off.  Just oaked it a few weeks ago and will let that sit for a few weeks and probably filter and bottle then. I’m sure it will be drinkable!

One of the interesting ones is a 20(+) spice metheglin.  I put a gallon batch to the side last April and let it sit.  The original batch I thought was too dry so added a gallon of sweet mead to it and it took it to a perfect level.  I added a few more spices to that batch over the last few months and now its this combo of flavors and aromas that are overwhelming.  I read about a 60 year old batch of metheglin Charlie P tasted, and I can see what he means.  I have 58.5 more years to go on this one but the aroma is amazing by itself, I cant wait to see how it ages out.  The dry batch was bottled and sealed away in the mead vault. Maybe to make an appearance in 5-10 years.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – make more than 1 gallon batches!  You never know when one of them is going to be amazing and it will be gone before you know it!

Finally bottled the Blackberry mead after 2.5 years. Its just OK. It looks great and tastes OK, but there is something else, too. Oxidized maybe? I had some initial problems with this one – it stuck at 1.040 so I tried adding additional yeast to get it to go more, which it did. Got down to 1.025 where its currently sitting.