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checked batch 1 again this morning and found that its at 1.020 and the weird smell is gone! the fizzing is settling to barely any and i should think that by tomorrow i will be at around 1.010 - 1.005. Then I will wait a few days, rack and stabilise as you suggested and maybe add a fining chemical to speed up clarification (I want a batch done for xmas to give to my girlfriends mum, as she loves homemade stuff and alcohol!).
the last part of the ferment is the bit that takes the longest. It's usually considered "best" to let the ferment finish by itself - the only way that it seems that you'd halt an active ferment, is to cold crash it for a week or so, then while still cold, rack it off the sediment onto the stabilising chems.
I noticed that you mentioned not heating... I did this as I had read in a few places that if you didnt pasturise, then proteins and residual wax (this honey is straight form the hive and untreated) may cause a haze in the final mead. is this not the case?
No. If you can get hold of raw honey, bits of wax, dead bees, other hive debris either float off so you can scoop them out or they drop down with the rest of the lees. The proteins present will depend entirely on the flowers/plants that the bees visited to collect the nectar in the first place. Though honey hazing is one of the reasons I've got into the habit of letting my batches finish, then rack them off the gross lees, stabilise and then back sweeten - I like my meads at about the 1.010-1.015 area, but even then there's no telling how the ageing is gonna progress i.e. you could use a relatively harsh yeast like EC-1118 and when it's "finished" you might taste it and find it lacking in honey character and sweetness. Then 6 months, maybe a year down the road, you taste it again and it's recovered some of the honey characteristics through ageing and that there's a "perceived" sweetness that suggests you might not want to back sweeten. For the sweetness levels, I just stick to the numbers, then if (well, when really) I back sweeten, if the honey is gonna cause some hazing, it's less of an issue as I won't be bothered as I only have to clear it the once, and not find that after 6 months, it's cleared nicely, but needs back sweetening and have the batch haze up and need clearing again (whether with age or with finings).
Sorry to be a pain but a couple more small questions popped into my mind...
1) do I need to add the stabilising agent if I get to 1.000? I got the impression that unless I was back sweetening (which im not sure I am), if SG was at 1.000 and not budging over a few days then fermentation has most likely stopped... is this correct, or am I misunderstanding?
2) does adding a fining agent decrease the time until its drinkable/ nice? is it the suspended yeast particles which inhibit the full flavour, or is improvement through aging independant of the yeast falling out of solution?
Again, thank you so much for your answers and help! Im glad to have become a member of such a friendly bunch and I hope, in time, to be able to offer advice to newcomers in turn!
using a figure of 1.000 as finished is a little arbitary. 1.000 is the gravity of just plain water, so there is a little bit of residual sugars left in the batch, that's not to say that you can taste it, but it can be measured. With natural clearing, even if the batch seems clear i.e. you can read a newspaper through it, there are still some yeast cells in there - the only way to guarantee, or as close to damn it, make sure that it can't referment, would be to "sterile" filter it. Which means filtration media with a gauge of between 0.45 micron and 0.25 micron, which means spending some £££'s. Not necessarily lots of them, but a mini-jet is gonna rush you about £150 plus, new and the finest pads are about £3 a pop.
Or if you could come up with a vacuum pump, you could just get a tandem filter housing (which are the ones that you can buy to match an enolmatic vacuum bottler). The housing is about a "ton", and the "normal" gauge filter cartridges are about £40, while the 0.25 micron one being about £80 or so.
It doesn't matter how well you've cleared it, and/or filtered it. Most young meads aren't that good. Ageing is the miracle ingredient, and even then, some meads can take years rather than months.
The only way that you're gonna be able to bribe (ok, so persuade/get in her "good books") the GF's mum, is to either try and mask the young taste, which means back sweetening and maybe some acid addition, or just giving her a bottle, that carries a label that says "not to be opened before XX/XX/XXXX"
Oh and...while im here
Batch 2 has high alcohol yeast (up to 21%) in it. As I said before, it started at 1.092 SG and now is at day 5 and about half that. If i wanted to increase alcohol content, am I right in thinking that I would simply need to add more honey at this point in fermentation?
If I do this, would the current (new) SG- SG (before adding honey) + OG = the equivalent OG when working out content?
i.e difference of 0.030 would be equivalent of OG of 1.122?
Thanks again!
Stuff doesn't have to taste like a distilled spirit to have higher than normal alcohol levels. If you want to increase it, then yes, step feed with more honey i.e. add more in increments, just don't try and bang it up out of the atmosphere, that will just stress the yeast and cause osmotic shock and probably kill off the ferment, or at least cause it too stick.
Recently, I've been making some "fresh grape pyments". I won't bore you with the details, but the initial addition of honey was 2kg, which from just the crushed grape, move the gravity from about 1.090 to 1.122, but the addition of an extra 1kg when it had dropped to about 1.060, only pushed it back up to about 1.075 (initial batch size was 25 litres of crushed/pulped grape).
Also, if you checked out a reasonably well worked out table, you'd find that a drop of 100 gravity points equates to about 13.5% ABV, whereas a drop of 133 points equates to a fraction over 18% ABV - equally, the smaller the batch, the smaller the increments of honey to add for the step feed - if you added a further 1lb to a batch that started at, say, 1.090, then a further 1lb would push the numbers up a hell of a long way, potentially giving you either a batch that might stick or even if using "normal" wine yeasts that finish at about the 18% mark, some residual sugars. I like to start a batch so it would achieve 14% easily, but then if I want to increase it, step feed incrementally, so that it will probably poop out (the yeast that is) at about 18% - honey musts have shown the ability to exceed the published figures some, maybe 1% or so, occasionally a little more.
The downside of high alcohol batches is that they either take a long time to age, or you need to back sweeten and maybe add a bit of acid to balance. Both of which help "mask" a young or high alcohol mead a bit.
I find that ageing is the best way.....
Thanks for your reply chevette girl!
Really helpful and informative!
Would you add more honey in the 1st demijohn, or rack to a second before adding honey? Id be worried that the honey would sink down onto the lees otherwise...
I will definitely stabilise, as dont want an explosion!
So, is mead technically drinkable as soon as its stable? Im really aiming to age for only about a month and a half before giving some away as a gift...but dont want to give it away if its not ready to drink :/
I will try to find the calculation, as I'd like it to be around 16-18 % eventually...
Thanks again!
I routinely add honey for step feeds to the original fermenter, but when it's got somewhere near to the 1/2 fermented level. It makes it easier to retain all the yeast, rather than losing some to the racking. Plus you can add the gravity drops together to work out the % ABV i.e. start at 1.100, add honey at 1.050, pushing it back up to say, 1.075. Then if you let it finish and achieved a finished gravity of 1.000, the total drop would be 125 points. The 100 point drop equates to 13.58% ABV, whereas the 125 point drop equates to 16.98% ABV - and yes, that example is a bit extreme IMO, but it illustrates the principle.
Yes, meads are technically drinkable as soon as they've finished fermenting, but they don't taste that good. If there's still sediment, you get a yeasty sort of taste. If you cleared it, then taste it ? well I can't actually think of any analogy to explain the taste, other than unique, but not that good. Whereas, 6 months to a year down the line and you'll find that you have a completely different result.