billslaw1024
Active Member
I just threw this together I used three pounds of honey though. How much difference will that make.
Seems like it will just be a little bit drier.
I just threw this together I used three pounds of honey though. How much difference will that make.
I wanted to avoid boiling such a huge amount of honey. I tried shaking it with every gallon of water I added, but the honey and water are still mostly separate. Obviously, some is dissolved in the top water layer, and I assume the yeast will eventually scrounge it all up. I hope, anyway. That carboy is heavy and I don't want to shake it anymore. I think I should get a dry product, and then i'll back sweeten it.
How do I scale this recipe to 5 gallons?
I tried searching this thread and couldn't find a 5 gallon recipe. Forgive me if I missed it.
I bottled a gallon of this recently and it tasted great going into the bottle. I have an old 5 gallon carboy that is going unused right now that I would like to use for more of this.
Thanks in advance for help and suggestions!
Mpjay
Just made a JOAM 10 liter batch 6 hours ago;
6.5 lbs honey
5 tangerines (peeled)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 clove
.5 tsp nutmeg.
big handful of raisins
1 tsp instant dry yeast
nothing is happening - no airlock activity.
My last batch was bubbling like crazy after 6 hours but I did not use any spices that batch.
What is wrong? Any ideas?
I did take out some tangerines thinking they were blocking the CO2 from escaping, but no improvement.
The only things I can think of are:
1. not enough shaking (oxygenation)
or
2. not enough rinsing (iodine solution still lingering on equipment.)
Could either of these be responsible or is there something else?
Should I wait, or throw in some more yeast, or give it another good shake?
Any advice?
I don't think you have to boil the water and honey, I never do. But I do warm all the honey and a couple gallons of water to make it easier to handle once I get it in the carboy. Thinning the honey a bit makes it easier to incorperate all the ingredients evenly. Plus I buy my honey in half gallon jugs, so I use the water to get the last of the honey out of each one. There is about a pound of residual that clings to the sides. Incidentally, this is also true for extracts in beer brewing. Just a suggestion.
Just put together a 6 gal batch of this today, and can't wait to try it for the first time.
Stuck with the main recipe for the most part with the exception of I added 20lbs of honey, used 3 cloves, 3 cinnamon sticks and I had a sweet mead yeast so I used that instead of bread yeast.
Something that would make this recipe even easier is using the wild yeast already available in honey. I have a running yeast starter going for a while now, per Sandor Katz's "The Art of Fermentation" and I've made some good short runs of freshly alcoholic juices and such, as well as ginger beer and root beer type drinks. The starter itself smells good, fizzes up EXPLOSIVELY, seems to 'flocculate' well at the bottom of the container, and the end products taste good - but I haven't tested anything like attenuation or alcohol tolerance. Only been doing this a few months so I haven't aged anything out. But it's nice because it's free, seems to work, and if it ever dies I'm pretty sure I could duplicate it using the same honey.
Has anyone tried this? Any thoughts? I know real homebrewers and most books are very skeptical about wild yeast fermentation but I haven't read many accounts of people actually giving it a shot.
What happens is that raw honey already contains yeast, but they're inhibited by the low water content of honey, like 19% I think? Increase that water content by any amount and they will initiate fermentation.
I imagine you could mix this up without the yeast and within 1-3 days you'd have a vigorous bubbly batch going. If you're really afraid of wild yeast you could mix up a honey and water starter (any proportion, but probably 1 part honey to 3 or 4 parts water) and let that sit for a couple days, and when it's fizzy smell it and see what you think.
Anyhow, I have two batches going, one with my wild yeast and one with bread yeast. They both bubbled vigorously, and now everything except the oranges have settled to the bottom. The bread yeast seems to stir up much easier, but whatever. I don't even really care that much about cloudiness at this point. They both smell the same, very good. I'm curious if there will be a taste difference at the end.
By the way you have to use raw honey, but I'm not sure normal storebought honey is pasteurized or not. The little jars at Target here don't say, and honey preserves itself so well, so I'm curious if all honey is raw or not.
Chris
I did a champagne yeast mead. It finished at 17% abv but was like turpentine for the first two years. It has been around four years now and is reasonably good. I expect in another 5 years, it will be great.
CreamyGoodness said:If it was important to sanitize the oranges and cinnamon sticks I might just be a dead fellow .
CreamyGoodness said:If it was important to sanitize the oranges and cinnamon sticks I might just be a dead fellow .
Let us know how the batches come out. I've read Wild Fermentation and have wanted to try a wild fermented mead since reading it. But I can't get past the thought of wasting precious honey if it comes out bad.
Thought I'd give this a try. Started a one gallon batch last night... Just realized I used 3 lbs of honey, not 3.5. Okay to add the other half pound to my top off water?
Lamminis said:Hey there flb_78, you should be fine. It usually takes 12-48 hours for yeast to multiply and start active signs of fermentation. Relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew!
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