sculpinslayer

Recipes 

This juice is awesome and goes great with the Blackberry honey. I can't wait to drink it.

SG 1.120

Starter
3 cups Blackberry Honey
cups water
White Labs Champagne Yeast
1 tsp DAP
1 tsp nutrient (generic from the brew store)

The Must
14 lbs Blackberry Honey
1.75 Gallon Knudsen Organic Acai Berry.
1/4 tsp pectin enzyme

So I made the starter by pasteurizing the honey with a little water (8 cups) at 160F for about 30 min. Then let it cool and topped it off to about 50 oz in a growler. Threw in the yeast, DAP, and nutrient. Then I waited, and waited. I waited almost four days for the thing to start bubblin.

Then I made up the must. I pasteurized the honey at 170 for 30 minutes periodically skimming off the albumin. After the 30 minutes I put the juice in the primary. The juice was organic and I didn't bother pasteurizing it (maybe a mistake?). I then threw in the honey water, another tsp of DAP and Nutrient, and topped of the fermenter to about 5 gallons. I then hooked up the air (oxygen) stone and pumped in air for about an hour while the must cooled to about 80F. Then I threw in the starter and twelve hours later the things is bubblin every 6 seconds.

I'm thinking that if the yeast hit about 80% attenuation I should end up with a dersert cyser at about 12% alc by vol and a final gravity of about 1.027. I plan to add another tsp of DAP and Nutrient at the 1/3 and 2/3 sugar breaks.

Does anyone have any idea when I should expect to hit the 1/3 and 2/3 sugar breaks? I don't want to be testing the gravity every other week. Anything I could have/ should have done differently

I'll post updates on the progress. I'm pretty sure this one will be a winner.

electric_beer

Recipes 

I LOVE acai! I am interested in how this turns out. You should post picts and tasting notes when you finally complete it!

sculpinslayer

Recipes 

So it appears that fermentation has neared an end SG is 1.002. Now comes the hard part: the wait. My first taste is dominated by a fiery alcoholic spiciness. I'm hoping this will mellow an the fruit flavors will come out. I may need to back sweeten. I was really worried about the attenuation of my yeast. I made the recipe up assuming my WL champagne yeast would have a 80% attenuation. Judging by the gravity now, it has gone was beyond that.

SO this leads me to a question. If I decide to backsweeten when should I do it? Should I let the mead age for a while to decide whether or not to backsweeten? Do I have to add the extra honey now?

Thanks

Shinglejohn

Recipes 

Dont worry about the attenuation, What you are fermenting with honey and fruit juice contains much more fermentable sugar than a typical beer and you are using a very high attenuating yeast that has a dry character.

provided the numbers you gave here, your in the 14-15 percent range, this will definatley cause a alcohol taste while young. Your going to need to let this age. I would let it sit in secondary for 4 months or so, bottle, and give it another year(sampling a bottle here and there, of course). Youll be happy you did.

I wouldnt sweeten, but thats me. I like dry meads. If you want to sweeten, you will have to stabilize it using potassium sorbate or the yeast will eat anything you add to it.