Help Gonzo

[Oskaar]

Also ROPAK (Company was owned by a former girlfriend's father, but recently sold to LINPAC) are good food grade bucket. I have used them for fermentation and they work fine. I also have two of theirs that I use as bottling buckets.

Cheers,

Oskaar

 

[Gonzo]

Well, I got 3 2gal buckets from Albertson's that had frosting in them, and 3 4gal buckets from a pizza joint that had mayo in them. All the lids have a rubber seal in the seam. They look good.

I also got my leeners order today....pa and I are planning on doing a small batch of the Joe's ancient orange.

gonz

 

[Gonzo]

Couple questions:

Do we have to boil the water first? It's coming right out of the tap, well water.

Joe's Ancient Orange:
I'm using one of those 2gal buckets, do i need to cut a hole in the lid for the stopper with an airlock?

 

[Tsuchi]

I would boil the water, and yes a hole drilled for your airlock would be a good thing. Check and see if you have any spade bits that match the dia midway up your stopper... All else failing go smaller and file neatly to fit. Have fun and enjoy the heavenly smell of the ancient orange.

 

[Gonzo]

Because I am trying to solve the bookless problem I am missing some details as you can see.

I'm now wondering with the airlock, how do I set it up? Submerge the tip of it in the mixture and do I fill the airlock with water or something?


thanks people!

gonz

P.S. Any suggestions on methods to remove bottle lables?

 

[jab]

The operation of the airlock is easily found on the net with a google search. In a nutshell you put water (some people use neutral spirits like vodka) in the air lock and put it in the hole. No it shouldn't be in the must.

I don't have the answer for the labels. Not to be a pain in the ass but there is a search function on this board. I searched for 'label' and one of the top few results was:

http://www.gotmead.com/smf/index.php/topic,43.0.html

Which is the discussion of how to remove labels.

 

[Gonzo]

We'll it has been done.

We made 3 gallons of Joe's Orange yesterday.
She smells good already, I used the white bucket method. So I can't see any
cauldron brewing. I'm wondering if when I will begin to see my air lock a bubble.

gonzo

 

[jab]

How big of a bucket? Are you making 3 gallons in a 5 gallon bucket? I do that currently and depending on the yeast, temp, etc. I have see bubbles in as little as 3 hours but more often not until 6-8 hours. I have had some go longer than that even. If you only have 3 gallons in a 5 gallon pail there is a lot of head space to fill up.

 

[Gonzo]

3 gallons in a 4 gallon bucket. :-\

I made a call today up at my Dad's, that's where we did it. He's got all the tools and quite some knowledge of cookary.

He said there is pressure building, if you press on the lid of the pail a bubble will exit from under the hood in the airlock.

I guess I'm getting impatient already, like I told him, it's going to be a long 2 months.

What do you guys pay for vanilla bean? My small town sells them 2 in a bottle for 17.99!
Insane!

gonzo

P.S.- Thanks everyone for your particpation and encouragement. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Tsuchi]

Well then you should be seeing bubbles sooner rather than later.. in the next few hours i'd think.... Joes recipie gets going quickly!

 

[Oskaar]

As noted above Gonzo, spend some time using the search tool and explore the previous posts, you'll find a wealth of knowledge there.

Also, save up your dukkets for Ken's Book and make use of the links and knowledge base in the rest of the Gotmead.com website and the Mead Lover's Digest.

Cheers,

Oskaar

 

[jab]

Right, there is mention on these forums of a wonderful supplier of vanilla beans. About $1 a bean for some of the best beans I have ever used. Search is your friend!

 

[JoeM]

You can buy beans on ebay for about $1 a piece but you usually have to buy them in lots of 10-20.

 

[Pewter_of_Deodar]

I just received a shipment of beans from the place everyone is talking about. It is called Vanilla Cafe. Rich Diaz, the owner is friendly and responded to my emails and even threw an extra sample of some bourbon vanilla beans into my shipment.

Contact info is -
Richard Diaz
2630 N. Francisco Ave.
Chicago, IL 60647

rsjdiaz@yahoo.com
ebay store: vanillacafe

He will accept personal checks so you can avoid Ebay, especially if you are like me and do not have Paypal. The price is generally $9.99 for 12 beans of one type. He has Tahitian, Madagascaran, and Ugandan(bourbon) vanilla. He charges $3.99 for shipping and handling.

The house smelled wonderfully like vanilla last night...

Mention that Greg Hopper sent you and he might make you a special deal as well...

 

[Aggie4You]

What do you guys pay for vanilla bean? My small town sells them 2 in a bottle for 17.99!
Insane!

Nowhere near that much.

Check this out: http://stores.ebay.com/Vanilla-Cafe_W0QQsspagenameZl2QQtZkm. The beans have a very nice flavor (I got ugandan beans), but I haven't tried them in any of my recipes yet so I can't comment on their flavor. IIRC, I learned of him through someone else on this board and they said that the second time they ordered, the seller included some free beans.

 

[Gonzo]

Hi,

New agenda, My folks found 3 qt's of frozen chopped strawberrys that were supposed to be used for jam. I've looked into some recipes and have learned that you can rack ontop the fruit in a secondary. What will this do for me? I have one recipe that calls for black English tea to take the place of tannin I'm guessing. Will the tea dominate the flavor in the batch?

We've spoke of using a bigger primary than the must batch. ie, 2gal batch in a 4gal bucket. Is that much head space a bad thing?

One of the simpler recipes i found was this:
5gal batch
2 gal strawberries
1gal honey
4 gal water
1pkg premier cuvee yeast

I'm going to cut it down to make a smaller batch of course, but Im wondering if I can replace the yeast with Lalvin 71b 1122. I did get the Schramm bible, he states 71b is a good yeast for melomels. I guess I'm just double checking...

gonz

 

[Norskersword]

Hi,

New agenda, My folks found 3 qt's of frozen chopped strawberrys that were supposed to be used for jam. I've looked into some recipes and have learned that you can rack ontop the fruit in a secondary. What will this do for me? I have one recipe that calls for black English tea to take the place of tannin I'm guessing. Will the tea dominate the flavor in the batch?

We've spoke of using a bigger primary than the must batch. ie, 2gal batch in a 4gal bucket. Is that much head space a bad thing?

One of the simpler recipes i found was this:
5gal batch
2 gal strawberries
1gal honey
4 gal water
1pkg premier cuvee yeast

I'm going to cut it down to make a smaller batch of course, but Im wondering if I can replace the yeast with Lalvin 71b 1122. I did get the Schramm bible, he states 71b is a good yeast for melomels. I guess I'm just double checking...

gonz

Hey Gonzo,

Yep, secondary is the best time to add fruit. More of the fruit character will be noticable in the end product that way than if you added the fruit in primary. Shramm recommends this too.

Headspace is not an issue in primary, only after primary. The CO2 produced by the fermentation will blanket your mead and protect it from oxydization.

I havn't used that yeast, but alot of people use it frequently.

 

[jab]

Also note that straberries are incredibly delicate. Though I have never used them myself is has been stated that the flavor is usually not very pronounced and often does not hold up to extended aging.

I'm not saying don't use them, I'm just saying be prepared to not be blown away by an abundance of strawberry flavor.

 

[Oskaar]

I second what Jab said.

I've even done the unthinkable and simmered strawberries down a few times to concentrate the flavor before racking onto them. It worked pretty good, but the strawberry flavor just takes some time and a lot of futzing around with to bring to the fore of the flavor curve.

Cheers,

Oskaar

 

[JamesP]

At the strawberry farm where I do a "pickyour own", there are different varieties, some better for jam and some better for eating.

The Jam varieties are probably better for mead, but YMMV.