Hello, all! Stumbled upon this site by accident when I was getting ready to put together my first batch of mead, and have been lurking about reading various posts and whatnot, but this is my first official posting here. Following a simple show mead recipe in Ken Schramm's book, my first recipe went as follows:
15lbs locally produced honey
Distilled water to 5 gallons
Lalvin 71b yeast
yeast nutrient and energizer
My O.G. for this was somewhere in the 1.095-1.100 range. It was hard to tell since this was my first time, and I did not have a tube in which to get an exact reading; I was just sanitizing the hydrometer every time I wanted a reading and putting it directly into the must. I'm not super anal about getting an exact number. I figure as long as I have a good idea of how the fermentation is going, I'm doing ok.
Anyway, on to my question. After reading several posts on this forum, and reading a bit more in Ken's book, I discovered that 1.) There is no specific time in which I should rack off lees into secondary, and 2.) it is generally a good idea to wait until the primary fermentation is either complete, or showing signs of slowing down before racking. So that's what I did. My final gravity reading was taken 2 days ago, and was right at or a little less than 1.000. That, to me, was pretty close to complete. So I decided that yesterday would be my racking day. I had also decided that I wanted to add a little fruit and spices to the secondary. Not much, mind. My goal was to have the honey be the main star of the show, with the fruit and spices playing backup. I have several bags of locally grown and picked blueberries laying about in my meat freezer, so I decided to use just one bag, approx. 1 lb thawed. My spices came from another recipe I picked up using a google search with tweaks and additions. It went as follows:
2 whole cinnamon sticks
approx 6-8 cloves (this amount had me worried afterwards, but they are well past their prime, so I'm hoping they have mellowed)
approx 6 allspice
1/2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice (I know this is not nearly enough for a 5 gallon batch..I was distracted at the time..I can always add more)
So I woke up this morning to find that it looks like the fermentation has picked up quite a bit. My airlock is releasing one bubble every 6-8 seconds. All the fruit has floated to the top and there is a nice little bit of foam in the neck of the carboy. It also looks like I may have had some blowout during the night, as there are a couple of pieces of spice clinging to the inside of my airlock.
My question, finally, is have I ruined this mead with my additions? Sure seems like the fermentation has picked up again, which is ok, but I'm worried about a possible contamination issue since the ferment has not yet completed. Hopefully I am just being paranoid and it won't be an issue. I'm sure all of you know that good raw local honey doesn't come cheap, and this thing has quickly become like my little bubbly baby, and I don't want to see my efforts go down the drain because I jumped the gun and got too hasty.
Sorry for the long post. I'll be waiting anxiously for the advice. Thanks in advance!
15lbs locally produced honey
Distilled water to 5 gallons
Lalvin 71b yeast
yeast nutrient and energizer
My O.G. for this was somewhere in the 1.095-1.100 range. It was hard to tell since this was my first time, and I did not have a tube in which to get an exact reading; I was just sanitizing the hydrometer every time I wanted a reading and putting it directly into the must. I'm not super anal about getting an exact number. I figure as long as I have a good idea of how the fermentation is going, I'm doing ok.
Anyway, on to my question. After reading several posts on this forum, and reading a bit more in Ken's book, I discovered that 1.) There is no specific time in which I should rack off lees into secondary, and 2.) it is generally a good idea to wait until the primary fermentation is either complete, or showing signs of slowing down before racking. So that's what I did. My final gravity reading was taken 2 days ago, and was right at or a little less than 1.000. That, to me, was pretty close to complete. So I decided that yesterday would be my racking day. I had also decided that I wanted to add a little fruit and spices to the secondary. Not much, mind. My goal was to have the honey be the main star of the show, with the fruit and spices playing backup. I have several bags of locally grown and picked blueberries laying about in my meat freezer, so I decided to use just one bag, approx. 1 lb thawed. My spices came from another recipe I picked up using a google search with tweaks and additions. It went as follows:
2 whole cinnamon sticks
approx 6-8 cloves (this amount had me worried afterwards, but they are well past their prime, so I'm hoping they have mellowed)
approx 6 allspice
1/2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice (I know this is not nearly enough for a 5 gallon batch..I was distracted at the time..I can always add more)
So I woke up this morning to find that it looks like the fermentation has picked up quite a bit. My airlock is releasing one bubble every 6-8 seconds. All the fruit has floated to the top and there is a nice little bit of foam in the neck of the carboy. It also looks like I may have had some blowout during the night, as there are a couple of pieces of spice clinging to the inside of my airlock.
My question, finally, is have I ruined this mead with my additions? Sure seems like the fermentation has picked up again, which is ok, but I'm worried about a possible contamination issue since the ferment has not yet completed. Hopefully I am just being paranoid and it won't be an issue. I'm sure all of you know that good raw local honey doesn't come cheap, and this thing has quickly become like my little bubbly baby, and I don't want to see my efforts go down the drain because I jumped the gun and got too hasty.
Sorry for the long post. I'll be waiting anxiously for the advice. Thanks in advance!
