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A

alanywiseman

NewBee
Registered Member
Aug 3, 2012
18
0
0
Glasgow - Scotland
Hi,

Been lurking a while and have finally put on my first mead. It is a JAOM variant as I live in the UK. I use Allisions bakers yeast and Rowe honey as it is cheap. I know that lower quality honey will lead to a lower quality product but the one and only time I tried mead I hated it. It was way to sweet and syrupy for me to enjoy.

I am excited about the JAOM but have another 3.5lbs of honey. I was thinking of making a melomel with it due to its lower quality. I have read a million posts on when to add the fruit and its affect. I was thinking this:

3.5lbs Honey
Yeast (Gervin G11 or Lavlin K1V 1116)
water to 1 Imperial Gallon
1.5tsp Yeast Nutrient
1.5tsp Tronozymol

Make must, add 1tsp Nutrient/tronozymol mix at start, after lag and 1/3 sugar break. Ferment to completion, stabalise then rack onto mashed fruit to backsweeten and add flavour (probably strawberry or rasberries). Pectin will also be added. Strain after 1-2 weeks. Age till ready to bottle.

So that is the loose plan. Does this seem resonable? I am finding it hard to get my head round the nutrient stuff as I can not get fermaid K and DAP here so trying to use the best substitutes.

All input welcome and thanks for reading.
 
I don't think JAO Calls for nutrient additions so you shouldn't need to worry about them if you're relatively following his recipe. Also make sure to check your gravity with the projected alcohol tolerance of your yeast. You may want to go down to three pounds honey for the gallon if you want something on the dryer side.

Also how much fruit are you planning on using? Do you mean to add Pectin enzyme to clear hazing? Pectin is the haziness you don't want, but you may not have to worry if your racking onto the fruit, but its something you'll need to look out for.
 
I wasn't really aiming for a JAOM variant with the second one. More to brew a traditional mead the rack onto fruit to back sweeten and extract flavour. The hope is the flavour will be more raw tasting rather than fermented. Would probably use 2lbs or there abouts I think. Does that sound reasonable?

And you are right I did mean pectin enzyme.
 
As long as the yeast has hit its tolerance before you add the fruit, otherwise it will continue to ferment the sugars in the fruit and won't back sweeten it. A safe bet, if you want to use fruit as the back sweetening sugars would be to use campden tabs and potassium sorbate (both very inexpensive) to stop the yeast from starting to ferment your fruit. I believe these should be added a few days prior to when you want to add the fruit, but after your fermentation is complete.

2lbs of fruits sounds fine. I used about 2lbs of strawberries and raspberries (1lb each) in my melomel and they work nicely in the mead without dominating.
 
Even if it does ferment the fruit a little, it will be far more gentle about it than putting the fruit in primary. If you don't stabilize it first (as Marshmallow suggests) you do run the risk of your fruit getting at least a little fermented even if you yeast HAS hit its tolerance because the juice the fruit will release will be diluting your must a little bit.

Out of personal experience, fermented raspberries taste very much like raw raspberries and fermented strawberries are significantly different from raw strawberries... and 2 lb should definitely be detectable in taste.
 
Thanks for all the advice.

Had always thought of stabalising the mead before adding the fruit. having used the calculator and check the alcohol tolerence of GV11 it seems it should be almost done.

Gv11 has a 14%abv tolerence so should almost be done when it comes to adding the fruit. Was going to be strawberries but thinking rasberries now so may just rack straight onto fruit and let it ferment out. if it needs further sweetening i will use honey.

Does anyone have any thought/input on the nutrient additions?
 
Might be a bit on the high side, now that I look at it. I typically don't go over 1.5 tsp total per gallon when I combine my nutrients and energizer. What are the product recommendations for your nutrient and tronozymol?
 
Funny you should post CG. I have been reading thread that you and oldbloke ( I think) have been posting on about this subject. I have rethought and am going for 1.5tsp nutrient with a ratio of tronozymol:DAP of 2:1 (oldblokes suggestion) or 1:1 (your suggestion).

The nutrient is 1tsp per gallon and 2tsp for the tronozymol so that is the reason for 1.5tsp total.

It took me a while to find it using the search function. I think I will front load as well with 50% upfront the 25% after lag and 25% at 1/3 sugar break. I think this sounds more reasonable.

Do you think this sounds reasonable?

Thanks for all the help.
 
Ok, if those are the recommended dosages for those products, it doesn't sound too high after all. (I think you mean Fatbloke?)

Your plan sounds fine, it's similar to what I do, I give it 50% of the energizer up front (less DAP) and 50% of the nutrients (mostly DAP) after lag and then mix the rest of everything else together and give it a little shake every time I aerate and try to time the last dose with the 1/3 break.
 
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