Newbee's first batch

[shmoab]

After four years of talking about it, and drinking other's mead, I finally did it.
I started a batch last night. A friend of mine turned me on to this so I followed a little of his instructions and some of the newbee guide.

I sterilized completely. Did the boil method with 12lbs of honey, added the nutrients and acid blend during the boil. Everything went fine. My first mistake was not letting the wort cool down enough before adding the yeast. I thought I might have killed it but hoped for the best. This evening after I got home I noticed this

The yeast is alive but my second mistake is clearly visible. I filled it too high. Any advice to solve this problem?

Thanks!

 

[buzzerj]

Welcome to Gotmead shmoab! Please read the Newbee guide if you haven't. First thing I'd do is clean up the mess you made. That's just downright untidy. Changes I would have made to your scheme is not to boil the honey, as you lose much of the goodness the honey brings. Also I wouldn't boil nutrients as that denatures their proteins and cripples their activity. Third I would refrain in using acid blend until the end of the fermentation, just before bottling. Use acid blend to taste if it's needed at all. Sometimes a big hurdle for a good fermentation is too acidic an environment for the yeast and adding acid blend only promotes a too acidic environment when the yeast needs to do the most work. Irrespective of your heating the yeast, they appear to have survived. The nutrients left still did a job. Yes you did fill the carboy up a bit much. Clean up the mess and carry on. Look at it this way, you're learning more this way. Share with us more about all your ingredients and your process and you'll learn even more. I think with 12 lbs of honey and depending on the yeast you are using, you'll end up with a dry mead result. Is that what you wished for? BTW Welcome again!

Buzzer

 

[shmoab]

Thanks for the reply.
Made sure and cleaned right away lest I start an ant colony.
Good pointers. I'll surely use them on my next batch. Especially the no boil method. It didn't feel right when I plopped all that honey into boiling water.
I had no real plan with this initial batch other than I wanted to make some mead. Though, had I know a little more, I'd of made it sweeter. Funny, I thought I added too much honey. haha
Should I just leave it alone, only changing the water in the breather, for now or drain some out?

 

[Medsen Fey]

That's a classic example of a Mead Eruption Accident!

You could have it recur when you swirl or stir it if you don't take some out. I'd rack out 1-2 liters and put it in another container to ferment. If you don't have any other container you can use a 2 liter soda bottle that has been sanitized. Obviously that works best if you have a stopper and airlock that will fit, but even if you don't, you can release the pressure 2-3 times a day and have it ferment okay in the PET bottle.

You'll want to rack that back into the secondary at the time you rack the main batch so you'll have less topping up to do.

Antifoam drops are a good idea when fermenting in a glass carboy. I'd also consider getting a large bucket.

And Welcome to GotMead!

Medsen

 

[shmoab]

My second batch

Any recipe suggestions for a few 1 gal batches? I figured I'd try some other, smaller, methods. I have 12lbs of Raspberry honey and 12lbs of blackberry honey.


Another noob question. When you use the no boil method is it ok to put the honey in warm/hot water to ease the mixing process?


Thanks!

 

[akueck]

Another noob question. When you use the no boil method is it ok to put the honey in warm/hot water to ease the mixing process?

Yes! This is very commonly done. General consensus seems to say that heating the honey up to about 90-100 F to get it flowing is not particularly harmful. The bees keep it about that temperature so you have to figure it's a safe place to be. Personally I am just too lazy to do even that, for which I am then rewarded by having a sore arm from stirring.

Check out the recipe section on the main site. There are several recipes for "quick meads" that are mostly scaled to one gallon. You can also find a recipe you like and scale it down from 5 (or 10, or X) to 1 gallon. I might recommend trying a cyser (apple mead), they are very tasty and in my experience finish quickly. Popular recipes include the Dangerous Cyser, 4-week Quick Cyser, Cinnful Cyser, and the more complicated Fall's Bounty Cyser from Compleat Meadmaker.

 

[shmoab]

Few more newbee question

Where is your opinion on the importance of the hydrometer? I see a lot of you use it but everybody I know, personally, doesn't.
Who/where is a good source for honey in the Phoenix area? Right now I pay $50 for 12lbs and the only choices are raspberry, starthistle and blueberry.
Does the webmaster of stormthecastle post here? I sure enjoy his clips on youtube.

Take care!

 

[akueck]

Hydrometers are darn useful. You can certainly make mead without one, but you'll make mead much more consistently with one. Troubleshooting is also a lot easier when you can measure the SG.

 

[wildaho]

I'll go a step further and say that a hydrometer is the most useful tool you can buy to help your fermentation adventures.

With a hydrometer, you can gauge so many different factors in your fermenation's health, speed and kinetics. With a hydrometer, you know if you've hit a problem. And you can usually (with the help of the search tool here on the forum) find a way around it.

Yes, you CAN brew without a hydrometer. Don't bother counting bubbles though. A leaky seal will through you off every time. A hydrometer is your BEST insight on what your yeast are doing. It's only $15 bucks or less. It will be your best friend.

 

[AToE]

They also drastically reduce the danger of creating bottle bombs (which is not a figure of speach by the way, bomb means bomb. Thanksfully haven't had the issue myself!).

 

[Medsen Fey]

Fermenting with out a hydrometer is like flying blindfolded. It is easy to do, but may give you some unpleasant outcomes. This thread discusses the subject more.

 

[shmoab]

Does anybody know where I can find the steps for the steps for the "Nectar of the Goddess" Valhalla Vanilla Metheglin? They're not listed in the recipe section nor does it indicate it's for patrons only.

 

[wayneb]

shmoab, since you are new to Gotmead you may not be aware that "cross posting," or asking the same question in two or more threads here, is frowned on. It becomes a problem both for the folks who are answering (we do get tired of repeating ourselves), and for tracking complete answers to questions (it is difficult enough to find stuff in the archives without having to combine the responses provided in two or more threads to get the complete picture). So, in the future, ask your question once and you can be sure that we'll do our best to provide you with as much information as we can in our answers.

That said, I now recommend that you follow Oskaar's suggestion in the other thread where you asked about this recipe.

 

[shmoab]

That's hilarious. Believe me, it wasn't intentional. I thought I posted it in this thread, but for some reason it was deleted.

And, yes, I'm well aware of the annoyance of cross posting.

 

[wayneb]

No worries! Forum gremlins must be at work again! ;D

 

[Oskaar]

That's hilarious. Believe me, it wasn't intentional. I thought I posted it in this thread, but for some reason it was deleted.

And, yes, I'm well aware of the annoyance of cross posting.

Nope, no gremlins just an Oskaar.

I moved your original post off of a thread that had died down and was mostly about tallow honey, although cotton honey was in the OP's message.

cheers,

Oskaar

 

[shmoab]

If a recipe calls for 20g of hops would that also mean 20g of saaz pellet hops?

 

[wayneb]

Pellet hops are closely equivalent to whole dry hops in bittering. You might get more aroma from the whole hops, but in general use the same weight of pellets as you would whole.

 

[shmoab]

How long will yeast keep after it's been re-hydrated? I just made two 1 gallon jugs of must. I used one packet of Lalvin EC1118, added water but didn't add it to the first jug for approximately 25 minutes. On the second jug it was a little longer, since I still had to make the wort, about 45 minutes. Then during clean up I glanced at the packet and read the complete instructions (I stopped the first time after I got the gist of mixing it), how not to keep it in the activation medium too long.

Oh yeah another question. Would two teaspoons of nutrient hurt if it only calls for one? I couldn't remember if I added one to a batch so I added one just in case.

Thanks guys!

 

[Oskaar]

As long as you are under 30-40 min (40 is really pushing it) according to Lalvin/Lallemand you will be OK. Ideally I don't go past 30. Doing so will stress the yeast since by that time they've consumed the rehydration bionutrients that are part of the ADY package.

cheers,

Oskaar