Hi folks!
So we've mostly mapped out what we want to talk about on Back to Basics for the current 8 week session before we break in summer.
In Week 1, we discussed meadmaking from the perspective of an experienced winemaker or beer brewer and what things differ, what things are the same.
This week (week 2), we will be discussing the expected progression of a fermentation from start to finish, a quick (hah) overview of what to expect from before you pitch until you bottle. The idea is a brief explanation so that an absolute newbee has an idea what to expect out of their first fermentation, and maybe some clarifications if you mostly know your way around a fermentation but aren't quite sure how it all fits together in the grand scheme of things, and maybe some suggestions for refining procedures for the more experienced meadmaker. We're not going in depth on any specific item but we'll go over prepararing your equipment and supplies, preparing your must, preparing your yeast, pitching, lag phase, primary fermentation (we will briefly discuss things like nutrients, aeration and sugar breaks), secondary and subsequent rackings (cold crashing, clarifiers, aging, stabilization, backsweetening), aging, and bottling.
After that, the order of what we do may be jiggled around a bit as we find appropriate people to interview, but the planned topics for the rest of this session in the approximate order in which we plan to present are as follows:
Week 3 - Honeys and our experiences with different varietals
Week 4 - Stabilization - the hows and whys
Weeks 5 and 6 - Melomels and Fruit handling (yeah, we already realized we're not getting through all we have to say on fruit in just one segment, especially if we can get some guests on with more experience than us so we're budgeting for two)
Week 7 - Backsweetening - Sweet finishes are possible in a variety of ways and can be decided upon at different stages in the fermentation so we'll discuss how to plan out a batch to finish sweet and how to bring up the sweetness of something that's fermented out too dry.
Week 8 - The Salvage Operation! What can go wrong with a batch, and why, and when, and how to fix it, when to panic (never), when to ask for help, when to throw it out (almost never). This is one we're going to want some listener and reader input for so keep an eye out for it, I will be starting a thread specific to this topic so we can share our disasters and near misses in the hopes that others may learn from our examples.
So, having seen what we're planning for GotMead Live, if you have any specific items for any of these topics you'd like us to address, please post them here and we'll make sure we cover it when we get there!
So we've mostly mapped out what we want to talk about on Back to Basics for the current 8 week session before we break in summer.
In Week 1, we discussed meadmaking from the perspective of an experienced winemaker or beer brewer and what things differ, what things are the same.
This week (week 2), we will be discussing the expected progression of a fermentation from start to finish, a quick (hah) overview of what to expect from before you pitch until you bottle. The idea is a brief explanation so that an absolute newbee has an idea what to expect out of their first fermentation, and maybe some clarifications if you mostly know your way around a fermentation but aren't quite sure how it all fits together in the grand scheme of things, and maybe some suggestions for refining procedures for the more experienced meadmaker. We're not going in depth on any specific item but we'll go over prepararing your equipment and supplies, preparing your must, preparing your yeast, pitching, lag phase, primary fermentation (we will briefly discuss things like nutrients, aeration and sugar breaks), secondary and subsequent rackings (cold crashing, clarifiers, aging, stabilization, backsweetening), aging, and bottling.
After that, the order of what we do may be jiggled around a bit as we find appropriate people to interview, but the planned topics for the rest of this session in the approximate order in which we plan to present are as follows:
Week 3 - Honeys and our experiences with different varietals
Week 4 - Stabilization - the hows and whys
Weeks 5 and 6 - Melomels and Fruit handling (yeah, we already realized we're not getting through all we have to say on fruit in just one segment, especially if we can get some guests on with more experience than us so we're budgeting for two)
Week 7 - Backsweetening - Sweet finishes are possible in a variety of ways and can be decided upon at different stages in the fermentation so we'll discuss how to plan out a batch to finish sweet and how to bring up the sweetness of something that's fermented out too dry.
Week 8 - The Salvage Operation! What can go wrong with a batch, and why, and when, and how to fix it, when to panic (never), when to ask for help, when to throw it out (almost never). This is one we're going to want some listener and reader input for so keep an eye out for it, I will be starting a thread specific to this topic so we can share our disasters and near misses in the hopes that others may learn from our examples.
So, having seen what we're planning for GotMead Live, if you have any specific items for any of these topics you'd like us to address, please post them here and we'll make sure we cover it when we get there!
