Recent content by zipmont

I have a fairly large batch of cyser from last fall season that has dropped brilliantly clear in its bulk aging vessels. We bottled some up for early consumption and noticed that after chilling it takes on a slight haze. I'm guessing this is probably a protein stability issue. If so I'm...

"I did a 5 gal batch using costco clover honey then added 5 cans of thawed walmart frozen fruit juice concentrate. Did this as an experiment. It too is tart. Any opinions while this poster brought up the topic." If you're ok with a sweeter wine, you could back sweeten to balance it out. That's...

I used a combination of blackberries, raspberries, marionberries, and loganberries. It has a really nice, strong fruit flavor, but it has no residual sugar so that acidity really stands out. I would put it through MLF to take the edge off, but the wine has been treated with lysozyme to...

I've got a semi-sweet melomel that turned out nice except it's a bit on the tart side. I added some potassium carbonate to remove some acid and the pH went from 3.4 to 3.6. Although the pH changes immediately, the tartness should remain until the bound acids drop out, right?

"I have no idea WTF "sparged headspace" might be.." I'm not sure I do either. A ferment bucket with a snap on lid will keep a co2 blanket in the headspace longer than a fermenter with a loose fitting lid because the only way out is through the bubbler. So with the snap on lid, you're not in...

"I very well could be mistaken but I don't think oxidization happens with brief exposure to oxygen... it should take a while. I say continue to punch down, especially if fermentation is still going on, cause that'll just fill any headspace back up with co2." Exactly what I was hoping. It...

I've been experimenting with the "fruit in secondary" method I found in Ken Schramm's book "The Compleat Meadmaker," where plain mead (still fermenting but at least 10% alcohol ... ) is racked onto fresh berries. So far, so good. The presence of alcohol does seem to get a cleaner flavor...

Thanks for the replies. It sounds like it has to be either a matter of insufficient viable yeast cells, insufficient nutrition, or both. I guess I need to be more religious about checking dates on sachets. And feed orange blossom honey well, especially when paired with D47!

Thanks guys. Any idea why the D47 batch went through week 1 with no change in gravity at all while the Cote Des Blanc went from 13% to 11%? I realize D47 requires lots of nutrition, and the honey in question (orange blossom) is notoriously low in both ash and nitrogen. But I did feed both...

A few weeks ago I started a ten gallon batch of mead with Cote Des Blanc yeast (just purchased) and another five gallon batch with D47 (age unknown, but at least one year old refrigerated, maybe more ...), both well nourished and pH adjusted to around 3.7. The D47 batch never took off while the...

Thanks. That's exactly what I've been thinking too.

I'm not exactly sure myself. I just figure it's probably some organism like brettanomyces that lives on the outside of fruits/berries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brettanomyces I just checked Ken Schramm's book (The Compleat Meadmaker) and he said he not only doesn't boil his musts, but...

I am considering increasing my rate of sulfite from 50 ppm to 75 (or even 100?) to attain more consistency between batches of certain meads that I make. I only use only 50ppm for my cyser, but that has no pulp in the primary, only fresh pressed juice. It creates very clean, consistent results...

My crabapple cysers this year dropped brilliantly clear even at 70 degrees. And they did so relatively quickly, within a week or two of finishing fermenting. However, back sweetening with honey tends to cloud things up again, for me anyway. I have been back sweetening with raw blackberry...

I have a few batches of dry cyser that I suspect would benefit from malolactic fermentation before bulk aging, and I'm wondering about attempting the spontaneous variety. I avoid the use of spontaneous fermentation with yeast, just for consistency's sake. Can the same argument be made for...