DaveVanO

Recipes 

Does every mead need to oxygenate? Ive been making mine, id use water right from faucet, mix all into carboy. leave some headspace, cap it up and shake like hell to mix the honey with the water/juice i chose. Then id uncap and airlock it...every day or so, i give it a swirl with the airlock on..should i open them up to give a little bit of oxygen? or whats the deal

Proboscidea

Recipes 

Take it from me, after 2/3 sugar depletion you should add marbles or whatever to decrease the headspace in that carboy as much as possible. I ruined a batch of Caramel Apple Mead by letting it sit in a carboy with lots o' headspace for about 6 months. All that waiting, for a wasted batch of crap. Unwanted overpowering sherry overtones in an otherwise magnificent apple-y caramel-y vanilla-y concoction. Hey, speaking of that, Caramel Apple Mead sounds like it would be delicious (if done right)!

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"Honey, if you keep doing that, the fire is going to climb right back up to that can in your hand and explode and give you horrible injuries, and it will just ruin my entire weekend."

Fermenting:
Ginger mead (3gal)
EdWort's Apfelwein (3gal) + EdWort's Apfelwein (1gal) with .5lb Crystal 40, hoping for caramel notes
Skeeter Pee (3gal)

DashCooper

Recipes 

I'll do what I can to reduce the headspace.. though I'm not sure what yet.. marbles just seems to be asking for trouble though..

any other ideas? I guess I could buy a smaller carboy..

Devo9

Recipes 

Marbles work fine as long as you sanitize them first. You could also add more juice. This will cause fermentation to pick up again, but at least you aren't at as big of a risk of ruining your brew

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Signature Rock Meadery

DaveVanO

Recipes 

to top up, either add more juice (which will continue fermenting), add a wine that is close in flavor so it doesnt alter the brew too much.

DashCooper

Recipes 

I mixed up some must with the same honey:H2O mix as the original and brought the level to about 4 inches below the airlock.
I checked gravity.. almost the exact same as it was 2 days ago when I checked it, which means that yeast is still working hard.
the taste is A-FRIGGIN-MAZING!

I can't wait to try this a month or two (or even a year) after its been bottled. I'm shooting for 12% alchohol. it's at 10% now. sooooo good.