-
Love Gotmead and want to see it grow? Then consider supporting the site and becoming a Patron! If you're logged in, click on your username to the right of the menu to see how as little as $30/year can get you access to the patron areas and the patron Facebook group and to support Gotmead!
-
We now have a Patron-exclusive Facebook group! Patrons my join at The Gotmead Patron Group. You MUST answer the questions, providing your Patron membership, when you request to join so I can verify your Patron membership. If the questions aren't answered, the request will be turned down.
Sterilizing JAOM?
- Thread starter Visionist
- Start date
Spray your equipment in Star-san before using, easy as that. Bottles, carboys, siphons, pots, funnels, hydrometers etc.
Water wont sterilize anything, just wash a fair bit of germs off. You don't need to worry about boiling your must or anything though.
Water wont sterilize anything, just wash a fair bit of germs off. You don't need to worry about boiling your must or anything though.
fermentation is not surgery. You really don't need to sterilize anything. You need to make sure that everything is clean and sanitized but sanitization is very different from sterilization. In short, you do not need to be anxious about being germ free. You just need to be clean. And if you think about it, your mead will typically be at 11 percent alcohol or more and have a pH of around 3.5 - neither of these conditions are very hospitable to bacteria and if you use K-meta to sanitize your buckets and carboys, tubes and spoons, hydrometer and stuff then while your meadery may not be as germ free as an operating room you really have no need to be concerned about contamination
Tap water is fine. Filtered water is better. Spring water is meh...about the same as filtered water. Just don't use distilled or RO water.
You really should use star san, IO star (iodine based) or a solution of sodium metabisulphate to sanitize. It's important to the success of your first batch.
Mead is easier than beer in that you don't have to boil or cool things down but you do have to be clean and sanitary to assure success. I didn't make note if you are in the states or not, but if you are, Amazon has practically everything you need. No need to go out into the scary outside.
It's a pain in the arse but you can use bleach. Make a solution and rinse everything with that but after you must rinse and rinse and rinse and rinse with fresh water until you cannot smell it in the carboys or on the utensils anymore.
This is what I do. I use 1-2 TBS bleach per gallon of water and let it sit for 20 minutes. It isn't that much trouble to rinse off/out glass. Plastic is another matter. Rinse, rinse, rinse.
Joe
It depends on your tap water, I guess. Mine is incredibly hard and laced with chlorine and fluoride, so I use spring water from the grocery store. I have only anecdotal evidence, but it seems that my meads with my tap water don't want to clear. It could be coincidence, or it could be something else entirely, but I no longer use tap water. YMMV
Whereas starsan is expensive........ relatively
So I just crush 5 campden tablets and add to a pint of water with a teaspoon of citric acid.
Keep it in a spray and just give everything a soap and water clean, rinse once, then spray.
5 later give it a shake to remove any excess and bingo. ......rock 'n roll time
So I just crush 5 campden tablets and add to a pint of water with a teaspoon of citric acid.
Keep it in a spray and just give everything a soap and water clean, rinse once, then spray.
5 later give it a shake to remove any excess and bingo. ......rock 'n roll time
It was either here or on the American Mead Maker Association's Fall magazine article where the author said (paraphrasing) if you like your tap water, use it for your mead. I use my tap water with my mead, but I know in other locales that wouldn't work. The tap water in Frisco, TX, for example, smells and tastes like moss. Blech.
I've never tried this with JAOM, but I follow a "very clean" method for my equipment. Meaning I clean it well with very hot, soapy water, then brew. I do use an iodine sanitizer for my bottles (very economical, by the way - one bottle lasts forever), but only because I re-use my bottles to a fair-thee-well and I want to make sure there's nothing nasty lurking in them.
Man, I've been using the same 4oz bottle of StarSan (7.99) for close to two years now. I got an 8oz one last Christmas and haven't even opened it yet, cause I'm still on the 4oz bottle
Just Save your star san in a bucket instead of dumping it down the drain every time.
bleach and corks
Joe, I think you need to be cautious about using bleach near corks. I believe that there can be a chemical reaction between chlorine bleach and corks which can contaminate your meadery. Oxygen based bleaches seem to be safe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cork_taint
and even traces of chlorine that you cannot necessarily detect can contaminate your wine.
http://www.oakstone-winery.com/pto/pto42.pdf
Joe, I think you need to be cautious about using bleach near corks. I believe that there can be a chemical reaction between chlorine bleach and corks which can contaminate your meadery. Oxygen based bleaches seem to be safe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cork_taint
and even traces of chlorine that you cannot necessarily detect can contaminate your wine.
http://www.oakstone-winery.com/pto/pto42.pdf
Last edited:
Agreed. I don't use bleach on the corks. They just get washed well then dipped into a little bit of K-Meta solution. Bottles, carboys and implements of destruction get bleach. The corks I use are the chipped corkboard held together with some sort of binder (epoxy of some sort?) I figure that if the bleach doesn't break down the cork, it'll eat the epoxy, so...
Still not as cheap as 5 campden tabs and a tsp of citric......
Plus star san is made in the US (thats what it says on the label of the bottle I have anyway). It was £9 so about $13 and 100 campden tablets is only £2
For most of my meads and wines, I use potassium metabisulphite, I keep it in a spray bottle and a jar for dipping.
For JAO, I just go with hot soapy water clean, tap water rinse for washing out the carboys/jars I use.
And be careful about boiling plastics, sometimes they get funny. Soaking my racking hoses in pink cleanser (which contains chlorine) has made them go cloudy, so watch long soak times too.
For JAO, I just go with hot soapy water clean, tap water rinse for washing out the carboys/jars I use.
And be careful about boiling plastics, sometimes they get funny. Soaking my racking hoses in pink cleanser (which contains chlorine) has made them go cloudy, so watch long soak times too.
I bought some Potassium metabisuphite, my local brew shop doesn't carry starsan(canada) or iodophor. My question is how exactly do I use it? It is no rinse correct? Do I just spray the inside of the jug with it and spray anything else that will come in contact with the mead and then just pour in the water/yeast and everything with the K-meta still inside the jug?
This is my first time brewing anything so bare with me.
This is my first time brewing anything so bare with me
.
That's pretty much it. There should be directions on how strong to mix it. I spray or dunk everything that will come into contact with my mead or wine, I'm a little more careful after fermentation than before (you can only sanitize fruit and your hands so much), but it is handy when you store it in a jar big enough to get your hand into. It's good for a while if you remember to put the lid back on ...
Last edited:
A plastic bottle, 50 grammes of sulphite powder topped up with water to 500mls gives you a 10% solution which is the usually recommended strength for sanitising. In a tightly capped bottle it should last about 6 months. I just keep mine in a spray.
You can add the citric acid, it just makes the SO2 active quicker.
You then just spray everthing as you're already aware. I then just leave it for a couple of minutes contact time and then shake off/out any excess liquid before adding water, honey etc for the ferment.
If youre not sure, keep you made up sulphite solution in the fridge, that should keep it better than just in a closet......
