Our Chocolate Mead Experiment

brauhausjoe · 12-24-2008, 12:32 AM

On brew day we brought 2 ½ gallons of water to ~185 degrees stir in 15 pounds of honey, 5 tsp Acid blend, and 5 tsp yeast nutrient. We let it cool to room temperature, about 80 degrees using an ice bath, poured the must into a Fermentation bucket and add enough water to give us 5 to 5 ¼ gallons. Pitched in White Labs Sweet Mead yeast , mixed well with all sanitized gear.

Notes: No yeast starter this time, but we aerated VERY well. Took a little longer to cool down. For the powders we added about 1/3 gal to the 1 gal jug, swirled it around till it looked good and dissolved then topped it off and put the airlock on top. The bars were frozen and then beaten to get them in the jugs.

Our Original Gravity was:

1.120

We added flavoring to the 1 gallon jugs as listed:

031 – 24oz Hershey Chocolate syrup

032 – 1, 6.8 oz Plain Hershey Chocolate Bar

033 – 2, 6.8 oz Special Dark Hershey Chocolate Bars

034 – 6oz by weight, Hershey dark coco powder

035 – 6oz by weight Nesquick coco milk mix

036 – 6oz by weight Hershey unsweetened coco powder

Here is a picture of what we have at the end of transfer day:

12/23/08:

looks like 34 ( 6oz by weight, Hershey dark coco powder) trying to escape:

Sanitized a small spatula, cleaned the neck and replaced the airlock:

Here is a family shot:

brauhausjoe · 12-24-2008, 12:35 AM

looks like 34 ( 6oz by weight, Hershey dark coco powder) BLEW OUT, SWIMBO was a little upset...Notice the ceiling and were the airlock is...

Here is another ceiling shot:

Looks like his buddy, (36 6oz by weight Hershey unsweetened coco powder) is trying to follow suit...

Decided to setup the old blow off system to hopefully stop future events.

brauhausjoe · 12-24-2008, 12:37 AM

On a separate note looks like the bars are starting to rise up! Here is 32 (1, 6.8 oz Plain Hershey Chocolate Bar)

And his buddy ,33 ( 2, 6.8 oz Special Dark Hershey Chocolate Bars)

JoeMama · 12-24-2008, 12:48 AM

Thats a mighty fine looking family you have there!

I think I may be a distant cousin... Let me know when you have your 'reunion'

-Me

brauhausjoe · 12-24-2008, 12:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeMama

Thats a mighty fine looking family you have there!

I think I may be a distant cousin... Let me know when you have your 'reunion'

-Me

Thanks, we are thinking 6 months on the primary and then over to the secondary for 6 months. So it might be a 1 year reunion. Of course, there might be samples in between.....

Tusch · 12-24-2008, 01:06 AM

Keep us updated, be interesting to see how this turns out, hope it does

brauhausjoe · 12-24-2008, 01:11 AM

Plan to!

I will update as much as I can during the "heavy" fermentation. Then it might be a while....but we will update.

**ChshreCat** · 12-24-2008, 01:37 AM

That makes me want to lick your ceiling...

Matrix4b · 12-24-2008, 04:55 AM

I woud be interested too. What I read on other chocolate meads it took 2 years aging to become good and loose the bitter taste. Thinking on doing a chocholate mint with a little vannilla as a rounding out. So you can be sure that people are taking notes. Thanks for the great pictures.

brauhausjoe · 12-24-2008, 04:37 PM

The Morning after and we have no blowouts! Here is how it looks:

Here is an action shot of the blow off:
YouTube - meade06 vid01

Here is 32 (1, 6.8 oz Plain Hershey Chocolate Bar) looks like the whole bar has floated to the top and it is actively fermenting.

Here is 33 ( 2, 6.8 oz Special Dark Hershey Chocolate Bars) Not as much of the bar floated to the top but it is actively fermenting