I'm sure some of them are better served by people who've brewed a few batches already, however a very large portion of hightest's material is invaluable for new meadmakers and are often referred to when answering questions from newbies.
Thanks for the documents, but i am still confused on a few things. Are these documents designed for people who already brew? or for people who are just starting off?
The answer is both. I tried to organize the FAQs into meaningful groups: Basics, Tools, Advanced concepts, etc; and, placed the Basics first in the FAq order.
Start with the basics, and go on from there. A very good supplemental reference is Ken Schramm's book, the compleate Meadmaker (I have a link for ordering on my website)...
what a resource! Thanks. and i thought i was the only one who forgot to get the SG.....my solution was to wait 12 months take two drinks and call it in the morning.
The nutrient portion was very helpful. thats where some variables occur. PROSTED!
Prosted - I keep coming back to this sticky all the time.
Question if I may. You have some great charts on group brews and somehow I always compare my meads to them and always fall in the long tail of the data sets.
With that in mind, I would really love to have a spread sheet of the data sets, maybe one sheet per graph/group brew.
That way I can make my own charts and see where I'm at in the art.
Otherwise, once again hightest I would like to thank you for sharing all of this information. Great job, and if I can learn something then anyone can.
__________________
---
In Primary: Belgium Chimay clones.
In Secondary: Braggot, pale ale, end of the world white.
Conditioning: Mead, Cider, braggot, Belgium Wheat.
On Tap: Clones, Chimay Blue, Red, Porter, malted cider.
Bottles: Far, far, too many to list.
A new raw chart data link has now been added to the FAQs. Unfortunately I was unable to locate the data for the 2006 ABC group brew, but it will be added when I find it...
You rock!
I also like the updated honey.xls sheet!
The more data, the more I have to learn from, thanks again.
__________________
---
In Primary: Belgium Chimay clones.
In Secondary: Braggot, pale ale, end of the world white.
Conditioning: Mead, Cider, braggot, Belgium Wheat.
On Tap: Clones, Chimay Blue, Red, Porter, malted cider.
Bottles: Far, far, too many to list.
Last edited by Kauai_Kahuna; 12-04-2009 at 05:03 AM.
Perhaps you missed this note in my first post in this topic, "If you have any questions, please start a new topic concerning your question in the mead forum so that others may also learn from the resulting discussion. I only ask that you be patient for my reply as I'm finding that I'm not able to spend as much time online as in the past." I did this for a specific reason...
As such, would you please cut & paste this question to a new mead forum topic, and then delete the original post (if possible). If not possible edit out the post text.
Would be neat to include ingredient ratios in here as well. Like lbs of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries/gal. Or lbs honey/gal for sweet, semisweet, dry mead. Would also be neat to see different commonly found yeasts to use for meads and their effect on the brew (as I have very limited access to brewing supplies). Maybe something like this already exists somewhere and somebody could throw me a link.
This is a very helpful topic for me, since the NewBee guide on Gotmead has a broken link under "Nutrients". Your pdf's are exactly what I was looking for... a concise all-in-one basic breakdown of what the nutrients are, when to use them, and WHY.
Here are some things it took me 6 months to learn, hopefully it will help other noobs like myself.
1: Adding fruit doesn't make it tastier, easier, or quicker. It makes it more complicated with more chances of failure and off-flavors.
2: Honey is naturally antiseptic. Don't boil it.
3: "Quick-Mead" recipes are fantasy. It will take a very long time to finish. Buy another carboy for mead, because "I need the carboy for another project" isn't a legitimate excuse for trying to rush your mead.
4: Because of the higher Starting Gravity, it won't be done in a week or two, or six or eight. You really must use a hydrometer to see when it's done, often the yeast will slow down to where you can't tell there's active fermentation, but will still make bottles explode. The only time you don't need a hydrometer is if you plan on aging it in a carboy with an airlock for a year.
5: Cold-Crashing doesn't always work. Even Freezing it, then thawing it out, doesn't always work. Yeast have been around for a billion years, a little chill isn't necessarily enough to stop it.
6: Stabilizers don't always work.
7: Nutrients exist for a reason. If you don't use them, you'll have problems. Sure, ancient people didn't use them, but they also ate rancid meat for dinner and life expectancy was in the mid-30's.
8: Fleischmann's does not make your mead taste like bread. It's actually a pretty neutral-flavored yeast.
9: Grolsch-Bottles work fine.
10: Good aeration to start fermentation and during the first few days is absolutely critical or the yeast will poop out early and leave undesirable flavors.
11: Yes, you can scale down a recipe from 5 gallons to one gallon, and use the same amount of yeast.
Linear Mode
