Pyment Questions

Farmboyc · May 17, 2016

I am planning a pyment as my next mead. Due to the ack of availability of grapes my plan was to use a wine kit and make the leftover grape juice into a wine.

1- We like a red Zinfandel wine. I was thinking about using 8L or about 30% grape with the balance being a clover/alfalfa honey must with a ABV potential of around 14%. Will this be a reasonable amount of juice? Too much? Too little?

2- Yeast? I was leaning towards KV 1116

3- Any other ingredient suggestions?

4- Was thinking a target YAN of 200 as I expect the grape juice will contribute significantly.

Standard GoFerm protocol and SNA.

Thoughts and/or critiques welcome.

Squatchy · May 17, 2016

Are you wanting a fruit bomb or do you want a light table wine? I'm not sure what your 30% pertains to. Is the 30% gravity points ? 30% total volume ? As you probably know that yeast is a monster. It will go way beyond 14%. Did you want a bone dry at 14%? Your YAN is probably fine. You are correct in that the grape must help significantly.

I can help just not sure about the above q's.

Farmboyc · May 17, 2016

Squatchy said:
Are you wanting a fruit bomb or do you want a light table wine? I'm not sure what your 30% pertains to. Is the 30% gravity points ? 30% total volume ? As you probably know that yeast is a monster. It will go way beyond 14%. Did you want a bone dry at 14%? Your YAN is probably fine. You are correct in that the grape must help significantly.

I can help just not sure about the above q's.

30% by volume grape juice. I was hoping to not completely overwhelm my elativeky mild honey with the grape.

I was looking for a balance between grape and honey with some spiciness. I prefer a dry finish and was looking to end up somewhere between 0.995 and 1.0 if possible. A medium to heavy body would be nice.

pokerfacepablo · May 20, 2016

I've used clover honey with zinfandel concentrate and the honey notes were still prevalent. I would just use one 46oz can if you want the ABV 14%. I have a port recipe that requires 2 cans but also requires a lot of honey.

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Squatchy · May 20, 2016

If you want a spicy finish you may want to use a different yeast as K1-V is very neutral. RC212 and Bm4X4 would be a good choice. I have used both of these in pyments

Farmboyc · May 20, 2016

pokerfacepablo said:
I've used clover honey with zinfandel concentrate and the honey notes were still prevalent. I would just use one 46oz can if you want the ABV 14%. I have a port recipe that requires 2 cans but also requires a lot of honey.

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My local Home Brew store dosen't have the concentrate just the 23L or 6 gal ready to ferment kits.
1 can of concentrate would be roughly equivalent to how much fresh juice??

Farmboyc · May 20, 2016

Squatchy said:
If you want a spicy finish you may want to use a different yeast as K1-V is very neutral. RC212 and Bm4X4 would be a good choice. I have used both of these in pyments

Thanks RC212 is easy to get my hands on.
Would my 200 ppm YAN still be sufficient for this yeast?

pokerfacepablo · May 20, 2016

2 cans is equal to 5 gallons. They together make 10% ABV. You just add the water to fill. So using one can in 5 gallons is 5% ABV.

Might be a little difficult adding honey to the 6 gallons of juice to get an ABV of 14% and also still being dry. Plus your honey must be 51% of the fermentables in order to be classified a mead. Kind of tough when ABV of the juice is already 10%

It's doable but you're going to have a strong wine. Alexander's concentrate can be bought through multiple sources on Amazon with cheap shipping. Look around and you don't always have to settle with the brew store. Join a local brew club. They can tell you where to get cheap stuff locally.

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Squatchy · May 20, 2016

Farmboyc said:
Thanks RC212 is easy to get my hands on.
Would my 200 ppm YAN still be sufficient for this yeast?

That depends somewhat on what your target gravity? What are your plans?

Farmboyc · May 20, 2016

pokerfacepablo said:
2 cans is equal to 5 gallons. They together make 10% ABV. You just add the water to fill. So using one can in 5 gallons is 5% ABV.

Might be a little difficult adding honey to the 6 gallons of juice to get an ABV of 14% and also still being dry. Plus your honey must be 51% of the fermentables in order to be classified a mead. Kind of tough when ABV of the juice is already 10%

It's doable but you're going to have a strong wine. Alexander's concentrate can be bought through multiple sources on Amazon with cheap shipping. Look around and you don't always have to settle with the brew store. Join a local brew club. They can tell you where to get cheap stuff locally.

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Yeah i was actually planning on only using a portion of the juice from the kit approx 8 - 10 l and then making the remaining up as a straight up zinfandel.

I appreciate that I can order off of Amazon but I strongly prefer to support local and I am willing to pay the premium for doing so. As far as local brew clubs they don't exist in my area. Local grape products in Norther Alberta Canada are also non-existant.

I will aim for a 5% abv contribution from the grape juice and the other 9-10% from the honey. Just didn't know a proper ratio for an end flavour balance.

pokerfacepablo said:
2 cans is equal to 5 gallons. They together make 10% ABV. You just add the water to fill. So using one can in 5 gallons is 5% ABV.

Might be a little difficult adding honey to the 6 gallons of juice to get an ABV of 14% and also still being dry. Plus your honey must be 51% of the fermentables in order to be classified a mead. Kind of tough when ABV of the juice is already 10%

It's doable but you're going to have a strong wine. Alexander's concentrate can be bought through multiple sources on Amazon with cheap shipping. Look around and you don't always have to settle with the brew store. Join a local brew club. They can tell you where to get cheap stuff locally.

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pokerfacepablo · May 20, 2016

Are you going to water down the juice to get it 5%?

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Farmboyc · May 20, 2016

pokerfacepablo said:
Are you going to water down the juice to get it 5%?

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I plan on mixing 8-10l of juice with an appropriate amount of honey must to end up with a SG of approx 1.10. Basically add honey and water till my hydrometer reads 1.10 shooting for a volume of 25L in the primary.

I will do the math when I get ahold of my juice and get it's gravity.

Farmboyc · May 20, 2016

Squatchy said:
That depends somewhat on what your target gravity? What are your plans?

My target gravity will be 1.10.

pokerfacepablo · May 24, 2016

You probably already figured this out but just as a reminder... mix the grape and water first so that you know the SG is less than 1.05 for it to be a pyment. That is if you're still going with OG of 1.10. Then add your honey to your OG.

If you want, you could always do each one separate and blend the two. Might be easier since you're doing both batches anyway. There's a blending calculator on gotmead. There's no right or wrong way of doing it.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing your progress in the meadlogs. Hope I'm not coming off as a nuisance.

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Farmboyc · May 24, 2016

pokerfacepablo said:
You probably already figured this out but just as a reminder... mix the grape and water first so that you know the SG is less than 1.05 for it to be a pyment. That is if you're still going with OG of 1.10. Then add your honey to your OG.

If you want, you could always do each one separate and blend the two. Might be easier since you're doing both batches anyway. There's a blending calculator on gotmead. There's no right or wrong way of doing it.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing your progress in the meadlogs. Hope I'm not coming off as a nuisance.

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Just for clarification here. Are you saying the grape portion has to be 1.05 so that 50% of the fermentables are from grape? Is this the criteria for it to be a pyment?

pokerfacepablo · May 24, 2016

Farmboyc said:
Just for clarification here. Are you saying the grape portion has to be 1.05 so that 50% of the fermentables are from grape? Is this the criteria for it to be a pyment?

No, I'm saying it has to be less than 1.05 from the grape juice if you want an OG of 1.10 (making it less than 50%). Sometimes you can have ferments go below 1.00 but I wouldn't count on that. But yes in order for it be labeled a mead at all, 51% of the fermentables have to be honey. Otherwise you have a country wine.

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Farmboyc · May 24, 2016

Gotcha. It will definitely be a mead.

Farmboyc · Jan 1, 2017

Ok so I just started this Pyment 3 days ago.

Used 30% of a Wine Experts Zinfandel/Syrah wine kit and RC 212 yeast as suggested by Sasquatch. Topped off to 24L with 4.6kg of alfalfa honey.

SG 1.084 with a potential ABV of 11.6ish%

Hydrated with GoFerm. Stuff took off like a rocket and is fermenting vigorously.

Question is what is a level to expect RC 212 to ferment to? The stated alcohol tolerance is 12% but with the ferment I have going I would expect I can easily push it higher.

Any experience with this yeasts real life performance would be appreciated.

Squatchy · Jan 1, 2017

If you take good care of your yeast you should easily hit the listed ABV listed in the manual. If you were to use goferm, O2, temp control and staggered nutrient additions you can plane on going past it a good bit of the time

Farmboyc · Jan 1, 2017

Using all thoes tools except for O2 Squatchy.
Was just curious about perhaps step feeding some honey as it seems to be less stressfull on yeast to do so early into the ferment. Am pretty stuck.on having a dryish finished product though.

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