another noob to mead :) first batches

bigdan110 · Nov 2, 2012

hello all first post on here so thought id post up my 3 batches

1st batch rasberry melomel?

1kg frozen rasberrys crushed
3lbs lime blossom honey
half a lemon
yeast nutirent
pectinese
lavlin EC-1118
spring water to make it to 1g

2nd batch

1.5lbs fresh strawberys frozen crushed
3lbs orange blossom honey
half a lemon
yeast nutirent
pectinese
lavlin EC-1118
spring water to make it to 1g

3rd batch

1lbs fresh strawberys frozen crushed
2.5 lbs orange blossom honey
half a lemon
yeast nutirent
pectinese
lavlin EC-1118
spring water to make it to 1g

all batches are raw and unpasturised and are bubbling away very well. i plan to add more fruit to the secondary or tawards the end of the primery. i also plan on using vanila and cinnamon in one of the strawberry batches. i also plan to add more honey/water to the must for my 3rd rack to get the volume back up towards 1g. again as i said earlier these are my first attemps so any help/suggestions would be appriecated 8)

kudapucat · Nov 3, 2012

You have a hydrometer I hope?
What were the OGs of each batch.

NB. If you don't have a hydrometer, run out and get one. Then measure the OG.

My feel is EC1118 will take these dry. Is that your intention? You're going to have a dry 12.5% ABV batch.

Talk to us a little about what you want from the brews.

bigdan110 · Nov 3, 2012

i dont have a hydrometer atm but do intend to get 1 on my next run to the homebrew shop need to get anouther 1g jug for when i rack from the primary. ended up with 3 batches i had only planned for 2, didnt compensate for friut/honey taking up so much room. wat i want realy is to get hese meads around 15% sweet(had planned for 2 sack melomels) and would like to have them natrally carbanated if possible. i know ec1118 will go 18%+ and would allow low tempriture brewing aswell as be good for priming for carbination. only had the option of v116? or 1118. still learning so feel free to correct me with anything from what i can find there's a lot less info in the uk for brewing mead.

fatbloke · Nov 3, 2012

Depends on where you are on the coast. I'm lucky to have Paynes 10 miles up the road for honey, but for yeasts, nutrient, etc its either mail order or equivalents.

IMO, K1-V1116 is better than EC-1118, as it doesn't seem to blow the aromatics and more subtle flavours straight out the air lock.......

bigdan110 · Nov 3, 2012

u are lucky cheaper for me to get delivery all the way down in southampton, 40 odd hours in and i can smell the alcahol

musts seem to be keeping between 21-24 degrees and churning away like crazy, u had much luck finding other suitable yeast here or are we stuck with 1118 1116 and ale yeasts ?

kudapucat · Nov 3, 2012

Natural carbonation requires 1 of 2 things.
1. Dry mead in a sealed bottle with priming sugar.
2. Mead with residual sugar for sweetness brewed in a pressure container with a blow off valve. Like a keg.

The second is a PITA, you might as well force carb if you've got a keg.

If you go for residual sweetness and EC1118, you'll get 18% but as I said. You've only enough honey for 12.5% though the fruit will give a little more sugar, and take up some room too. This is why you need a hygrometer, it's simply too hard to guess.

bigdan110 · Nov 4, 2012

well i was only going to do 2 batches with 4.5lbs honey and 1kg fruit each starting off with 3lbs and racking onto anouther 1.5lbs honey and anouther 1kg fruit. if i had correctly estimated how much room the fruit/foam would take up i wouldnt of needed the 3rd batch. only started it because i had everything to hand and had extra fruit/must i couldnt fit into my 2nd batch.

will be getting a hydro today there any way to work out wat the initial starting gravity was from the current gravity ?also wen is it best to rack off the fruit still have very active yeast churning around the primary. would i be right in thinking 3 days from pitching the yeast ?

bigdan110 · Nov 4, 2012

looking at the calculater for my planned first mead it works out at 21.39% for a target volume of 1 us gallon or 18.25% for imperial gallon.knowing my yeast will likely die at 18% when would i have to bottle to make the most out of my yeast for carbination to keep some sweetness ?

dont really want dry rocket fuel would it be worth killing off the ec1118 early 12.5%? and pitching a different yeast for carbination say around 14-15% leaving it sweet ?

bigdan110 · Nov 4, 2012

i now have a hydrometer, when is it best to check the sg ? its almost been 72hours since i pitched the yeast so was wondering if i should rack off the must from the fruit? or should i just take a sg reading and go from there ?

bigdan110 · Nov 4, 2012

OK CG of my batches are as follows

batch 1) 1.009
batch 2 1.012
batch 3 1.016

all are tasting good and fruity and on the dry side.

when i rack i will take gravity again before and after the addition of more honey and friut.

Chevette Girl · Nov 5, 2012

bigdan110 said:
looking at the calculater for my planned first mead it works out at 21.39% for a target volume of 1 us gallon or 18.25% for imperial gallon.knowing my yeast will likely die at 18% when would i have to bottle to make the most out of my yeast for carbination to keep some sweetness ?

dont really want dry rocket fuel would it be worth killing off the ec1118 early 12.5%? and pitching a different yeast for carbination say around 14-15% leaving it sweet ?

Killing off a yeast while it's doing its thing is not always the simple task you'd expect, and I'm not sure you'd be able to get another yeast to take over at that point, and even if you did, there's no guarantee it's going to die off at 14-15% anyway, yeast never quite do what you want them to...

The best way to get a sparkling mead is to plan for it from the beginning. Plan your mead so that it's at least few % short of your yeast's tolerance, ferment it dry and then prime and bottle it.

There are a few tricks to get it sweet and sparkling safely, but none of them are simple. If you're going to drink it quickly, the best way would be to catch it near its tolerance, sweeten it up to where you want it, bottle it in PET pop bottles, let it sit out until they're firm like an unopened bottle of pop, then immediately refrigerate and drink it within a month or two.

If you can stand non-fermentable sweeteners, you can try Splenda, Stevia extract (I recommend the stuff in glycerine rather than the drops in ethanol), glycerine or lactose... Splenda's OK if you don't use too much, the Stevia extract in glycerine is not too chemically tasting like the stuff in the ethanol is, and I haven't used glycerine or lactose myself.

If you're up for some excitement, ferment it dry with at least a few % left before you hit the yeast's tolerance, prime and bottle it in easily-opened bottles (I use screw-top pop bottles) and then let them carb up... when they're all nicely carbonated, put the full bottles in the freezer until they JUST start forming ice crystals in the neck (not longer or you have to thaw them out again), meanwhile you're preparing some sanitized bottles of the same size which will contain a solution of stabilizing chemicals and backsweetening honey and you put those in the freezer too. When your mead is just around the freezing point and your empty bottles are frozen too, you carefully pour the chilled carbonated liquid into the new bottles, leaving most of the yeast behind, and it SHOULD stay relatively carb'd and the chemicals SHOULD do the trick and keep the yeast from eating the new honey.

bigdan110 · Nov 5, 2012

was thinking of doing the frezeing method after i did some digging on here i found a few of your other posts on the subject how long do they stay fizzy for using PET bottles ? also wont the mead need time to age ? ec1118 would leave me with 18% odd of i keep feeding it and from what ive read high % meads need time for the heat to setlle down?

Chevette Girl · Nov 5, 2012

As they stand now your meads are around 12%, you don't HAVE to keep feeding it. There's no rule saying you HAVE to max out your yeast. Just be aware that sparkling AND sweet takes some doing. The last thing I step-fed to over 18% was fine in a year. It'll still age out better as I leave it in the bottle, but they don't take forever... and also the harshness of a high-alcohol batch is somewhat mitigated if it's still sweet.

The advantage of using pop bottles is that if you find they're getting alarmingly hard, you can just crack the cap and let off some pressure.

Some folks say the pop bottles only hold pressure for a few weeks but that's not what I've found with my Brew in a Bottle batches, even with a vent pinhole in the cap, those have stayed carb'd for months for me.

bigdan110 · Nov 5, 2012

looking at it i think i might well get some Pet bottles found some clear 500ml bottles that should do well, at £5 for 20 bottles thats alot cheaper than champagne bottles 8)

bigdan110 · Nov 5, 2012

quick update the first of my batches i believe to have run dry as i have very little activity in the air lock bubbles every 20/30s or so, the other too are close behind would this be a good time to rack ? still have flouting fruit should i wait till the fruit pieces settle first ?

Chevette Girl · Nov 6, 2012

The only way you can be sure it's done fermenting is with hydrometer readings... when they stop changing, it's done.

bigdan110 · Nov 6, 2012

ok so all 3 meads hit 1.000 today so i racked onto another 1lb'ish of honey and 2lb of fruit gravity readings as follows after racking

rasberry 1.040 still honey sitting on the base so guess it is higher?

starwberry 1.035

strawberry+pommagranite 1.025 was the stronger of the 2 strawberry meads initialy so used less honey more fruit to balence them out.

after racking i was left with a pint or so for each mead so i froze them to be used to top up after next racking.

each mead has been treated to a sliced vinnila pod.

would i be right in thinking that this should be a more relaxed fermentation ?
also do i keep them at the same temps for secondary of can i cool them off a bit ?

Chevette Girl · Nov 6, 2012

I'd keep them at the same temperature until the SG stops changing appreciably.

You might want to mix in the honey to get an accurate SG, if it's sitting on the bottom, your SG is going to read low.

bigdan110 · Nov 8, 2012

CG would it be more suitable using 2 litre bottles to do the freeze/carb thing ? (sorry have no idea what else to call it) then carefully decant into 500ml bottles primed with honey+sulphites would be very time consuming doing it with only 500ml bottles.

also using the calculater i should be on track for 17% knowing that ec 1118 can go 18% would 1lb more of honey be overkill for carbination/ back sweetening is for an imperial gallon ? hopeing to hide the high alcohol....

Chevette Girl · Nov 8, 2012

I prefer using matching container sizes but decanting like you suggest will work, I've done both. You just risk kicking up all the sediment when you slosh it back and forth between bottles, but if you don't care about that, what the heck. And it's harder to pinpoint it when a plastic 2L bottle is chilled enough... I ended up overfreezing mine and it takes a LOT longer to thaw it out again than it did with the glass beer-bottle sized screw-cap pop bottles I'd used before.

I can't really answer your second question, 18% is really only their best guess, it might poop out right at 17% or it might keep on trucking till 20%, there's no way to be sure. So you're going to go the route of backsweeten/priming it, putting it in a pop bottle, allowing it to carb up so you can feel the pop bottle is turgid, then almost freezing it and decanting it onto sorbate/sulphites?

another noob to mead :) first batches

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