Hello,
4,5 weeks ago I started with my first batch of what is supposed to become 10 liters of mead.
The ingredients I used (its in SI metrics, hopefully thats not a problem...):
- 3kg of honey (linden)
- 5L water
- 8 tsp citric acid
- 4 tsp tartaric acid
- 2/3 tsp tannin
- 4 1/2 tsp yeast energizer
- 1 package of Wyeast sweet mead
I stirred the honey in the cold water and heated it a little (still below 50 degrees Celsius, to make it easier for the tannin to dissolve) and added all the additives.
I let it cool down for one night till it was at room temperature, then I racked it into a 10L bottle. I poured the liquid yeast into the must after the yeast energizer and before the package (smackpack) swelled up. From then on I put a clean towel on top of the bottle and shaked it a couple of times a day to aerate it. After 4 days bubbles became visible and I kept (I know, my mistake) shaking for 1 day.
From then on I put an airlock on the bottle and it kept bubbling.
In the meantime I racked a couple of times and added a mix of calcium carbonate, potassium bicarbonate and potassium tartrate a couple of times (to increase the pH from 2.7 to 3.5, because I added too much acid in the beginning). I also topped the mead up with water to approximately 10L.
The SG half a week ago was 1.012 (which seems like a good SG for sweet mead), so I racked it again. After this the mead kept fermenting and dropped another layer of sediment.
But now the weird stuff: Yesterday evening I discovered weird, circular patterns floating on top of the mead. It is not very clearly visible, only when I have light from underneath the botle. It has a milky-like structure. I fear it is some kind of fungi, but I am a newbie so I don't know if that's possible...
It also seems like the mead is only bubbling within these circles and outide these circular lines I don't see any bubbles come to the surface.
Can someone explain to me what this is? And whether my mead is infected or not..?
Thanks in advance.
Jasper
4,5 weeks ago I started with my first batch of what is supposed to become 10 liters of mead.
The ingredients I used (its in SI metrics, hopefully thats not a problem...):
- 3kg of honey (linden)
- 5L water
- 8 tsp citric acid
- 4 tsp tartaric acid
- 2/3 tsp tannin
- 4 1/2 tsp yeast energizer
- 1 package of Wyeast sweet mead
I stirred the honey in the cold water and heated it a little (still below 50 degrees Celsius, to make it easier for the tannin to dissolve) and added all the additives.
I let it cool down for one night till it was at room temperature, then I racked it into a 10L bottle. I poured the liquid yeast into the must after the yeast energizer and before the package (smackpack) swelled up. From then on I put a clean towel on top of the bottle and shaked it a couple of times a day to aerate it. After 4 days bubbles became visible and I kept (I know, my mistake) shaking for 1 day.
From then on I put an airlock on the bottle and it kept bubbling.
In the meantime I racked a couple of times and added a mix of calcium carbonate, potassium bicarbonate and potassium tartrate a couple of times (to increase the pH from 2.7 to 3.5, because I added too much acid in the beginning). I also topped the mead up with water to approximately 10L.
The SG half a week ago was 1.012 (which seems like a good SG for sweet mead), so I racked it again. After this the mead kept fermenting and dropped another layer of sediment.
But now the weird stuff: Yesterday evening I discovered weird, circular patterns floating on top of the mead. It is not very clearly visible, only when I have light from underneath the botle. It has a milky-like structure. I fear it is some kind of fungi, but I am a newbie so I don't know if that's possible...
It also seems like the mead is only bubbling within these circles and outide these circular lines I don't see any bubbles come to the surface.
Can someone explain to me what this is? And whether my mead is infected or not..?
Thanks in advance.
Jasper