BangladeshBrewer

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I am in Bangladesh, ensuring that the free world is supplied with hand painted toy soldiers. Things are great on the toy soldier front, but very limited in the field of brewing. I hope that you can advise me how to make best use of my brewing resources.

This what I have
- 1KG of dry yeast (bought online from a brewing web site)
- clean 20 liter containers (I get water delivered in sturdy plastic narrow necked water containers). Virtually indestructible.
- Two bubble airlocks

Honey is available (in jars) in shops. I have also seen honey sold fresh from the hive, so perhaps wild fermentation is possible. Fruit isn't really cheap here. Mango is more pleantiful, but it is often ripened by people applying carbide (see under poison) to the fruit. Ditto Banana. Pineapple is available and not too expensive. Lychees are available during certain seasons for about $10 per kilo.

Obviously rice is available (as are potatoes) but that is outside the scope of the Mead board.

Can I do anything with what I have available?

Cheers

Neil

BangladeshBrewer

Recipes 

I forgot to mention that we also have watermellon. It would even be possible to airlock one and brew inside.

Indian_villager

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Check out this recipe.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f80/joes-ancient-orange-mead-49106/

It uses water, honey, cloves, cinnamon, orange, raisins, and simple bread yeast (available in mose grocery stores, even in that part of the world).

It is a simple one and I hear it turns out pretty good, I have a batch fermenting now!

BangladeshBrewer

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Thanks for the link. Unfortunately we don't have good, or cheap, oranges or sultanas in Bangladesh. Most oranges are already dry, and inedible, when they reach stores. Sultanas are really expensive. We are really limited in Bangladesh!

I will be interested to read how your batch turns out.

MedsenFey

Recipes 

What type of yeast is it? Do you know the alcohol tolerance?

A simple traditional mead could be good with the fresh honey. However, you need an aging container. The plastic water containers may not be adequate for aging as they may allow too much oxygen to penetrate. Glass containers are better (as are PET plastic Better Bottles). You can even use 1 gallon glass jugs (from jug wine or apple juice).

Simplest recipe would be:

3.5 pounds of honey
water to one gallon, mix it in well
1 tsp yeast, rehydrated in 104 F water for 15 minutes then pitch
4 tsp yeast boiled in small amount of water to provide nutrient for the active yeast.
1 tsp cream of tartar

Aerate the must daily (gently you don't want a Mead Eruption Accident (MEA)) for 3 days. Then keep it under airlock until it finishes, then rack it to another jug and top up with water and keep airlock on.

Let it sit until clear then bottle. Without knowing the yeast, I can't tell you what kind of alcohol level you'll get, but it will probably be semi-sweet to sweet.

The next thing to have is a hydrometer. That will help you to know how high the alcohol is and to know when things are finished (as opposed to stuck). Then read through the hightest's sticky post at the top of this forum. Then read the compleat mead maker by Ken Schramm. That should get you going.

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BangladeshBrewer

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Hi,

This is the yeast I have.

Description: Youngs Dried Active Yeast 500g

http://www.quaysidehomebrew.co.uk/youngs-dried-active-yeast-500g-310-p.asp

Cheers

Neil

summersolstice

Recipes 

I looked online and though many places sell Young's, very little information is provided about the particulars. I gather it's a neutral yeast suited for beer and lower alcohol wine. I did find one comment - "the word on the street seems to be that its nottingham (or very similar) i have used it and its fine".

That being the case, it may be suitable for making a quick sweet mead. Try using the yeast at the rate of 1 tablespoon per gallon along with a quart of honey and water to one gallon.

MedsenFey

Recipes 

That yeast should be good to about 12% ABV (or a bit more) so lowering the honey down to about 3 pounds per gallon as summersolstice is suggesting should work out great.

__________________
"Our results are merely the result of carefully managing the transformation of bee spit into yeast excrement."
--- Wayneb

david_42

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Young's will work okay in a mead. Start with a simple recipe as MedsenFey suggests. Traditional meads don't require fruit additions. A hydrometer is useful, but meads take months to ferment and age and waiting 6 months to bottle would not be unreasonable.

Your biggest problem will be keeping the fermenter cool this time of year. Try to keep it under 25C, a water bath might help.

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manku007

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I would say that using balloon is not a good idea, I suggest you to use about 1 feet thick plastic tube, not put this tube to your fermentor and then the other end in a box filled with water. The reason is that I have also used the balloon one time and they leave a rubber smell which is not very good.

Go to instructable.com and there type airlock or something like that, here you can learn how to make a cheap airlock.