Recent content by Redhawke

Stout Man, with the mead stopping at 16.8% and the selected yeast having an 18% tolerance the introduction of the fruit (more sugars) coupled with the introduction of oxygen probably caused it to begin fermenting again. If you havent read any of the threads about staggered nutrient addition you...

Fatbloke, After going back over Papazian's recipe for Barshack Ginger Mead in his book I think I see what has happened to your mead. You have, if I am reading you correctly, added the bottling sugar to the mead in the primary ferment. The sugar addition was intended to be added after the mead...

Fatbloke, Corn sugar is also known as Dextrose at most HBS, although according to Papazian's book The CJOHB it is actually Glucose. I hope that helps:mug:

Cheesefood, You may want to concider a recipe we made as a group brew earlier in the year. It finished at 1.012 is a lightly sweet traditional mead. Brewing a medium sweet traditional was the goal of this mead for me, the yeast selection and honey were both aimed at hitting this target. There...

Check out this link http://home.comcast.net/~mzapx1/FAQ/PotCarbonate.pdf it may help you with this high gravity mead. I suspect the initial high gravity (25LBS honey) and the use of acid blend lowered your PH too low. Check this link out and the other link on the same site about stuck...

DesertBrew, LOL, HightTest is the leader of our traditional group brew and if you go back to his page you can see the tab, "Traditional 4-21-07". Click on that link and you can see for yourself a spreadsheet of how all the different yeast did using 20# of honey. The results were a bit varied...

Its a little late as it seems you have already got things set to go but I thought since you were questioning using 20# of honey in this recipe I would give you a little information that I learned during a group brew. We made a traditional mead with 20# of honey, I used 71-B yeast, followed...

Knipknuck, The best book I've read has been,"The Complete Mead Maker" by Ken Schramm. The book is very detailed and gives you an overview of the mead making process and all the different types you can make. The other book we have is,"The Complete Joy of Home Brewing 3rd edition by Charlie...

The recipe is in the recipe database and what follows are our notes and impressions of this mead. The recipe was a generous gift to us from our friend and tutor here on the brew board Nurse Nan. The gravities are a bit skewed because I messed up on water additions at the beginning but with...

This is a recipe passed on to us by our friend and tutor here on the brew board Nurse Nan. This was her generous gift to us and is shared here with her permission. 15 Lbs. Fireweed Honey 6 Vanilla beans, split 6 bags Earl Grey Tea Lavlin EC-1118 yeast Nutrient & Energizer 8OZ bottle Pure...

Keep in mind that you will be raising the PH by adding pottasium carbonate or bicarbonate so only add about 5 grams and see what happens. Be sure to mix it in well, really stir it in, this should help resuspend the yeast throughout your must.

Mgayer, I know where two orchards are located, one is near my home town of Diboll, Tx the other is down in Livingston Tx. about 40 miles south of me. I will be glad to get their contact info for you if you would PM with what you need. I have to say at this point I am in no way shape or form...

I think it would be a good idea, I strongly suspect that your PH is out of the sweet spot for mead. From what I've read and learned from others is that healthy must range from 3.2 - 4.0 on the PH scale if thats any help to you. Good luck and let us know how it turns out. Another thing, make sure...

Kidmode, We finally made it back home, hey I wanted to stay but the wife had other plans. I will try to keep this short. The trip to Colorado Bend State Park was great other than the river being to high to wade fish it. The wildlife was amazing, the deer cover the park in the mornings and...

You may want to check your PH if it doenst restart. You can add 5 grams of pottasium carbonate or bicarbonate if the PH is out of range and it may start back up. I have read that PH is a major factor in stuck fermentations and have learned through group brews that it will resurrect many stuck...