Help needed!!!

Hi guys,

I making some wild honey grape & raisin & cinamon flavoured mead. I basically dissolved the honey in water and put all the flavourings (grapes / raisins / cinnamon) into muslin bag (me thinks it will be easier to remove). so when do i actually remove the bag. i read somewhere that i should remove it the pulp 2days after pitching yeast. is that correct? will i risk spoilling the mead due to decomposition?

Please advice. it's my 3rd day after pitching

Since you already have it in. I would leave it in. You have it in a nice bag so that it will be easier to remove. You can leave it in there for a while. It is recomended to put your flavorings in the secondary not the primary though. Sounds like the yeast has good nutrients. I would leve it in for another couple of weeks and then rack it off of the lees and onto some more flavoring. Leave the flavoring of your fruit/spices on it for about a month. Their wont really be a spoilage issue due to the fact that the alcohol in it wont let it spoil.

Enjoy.

thanks boss, the other article had me going for a while.

I would also suggest looking through the forums. I have had a few bad experiences with leaving herbs in the primary for too long. It turned a whole 5 gallon batch acrid and almost undrinkable. For fruit I find maybe 5-7 days in the secondary is all that is needed. Of course you could push 10+ days but the longer it sits (in primary especially) the greater the chance there could be "off" flavors. (while in secondary the alchol present help prevent spoilage)

Hum? Well apart from the fact that you haven't listed the quantities of the fruit/spices.......

I suspect any flavours from a relatively small quantity of fruit will be pretty much lost and it only giving you some additional body (if anything). The cinnamon will give some flavouring, as you can expect the alcohol, as it develops, to extract some of the flavour.

I'd say between 7 and 21 days.

Taste for the level of cinnamon as that's gonna be the one that's most noticeable (I suspect). Pretty much ignore any yeasty flavour as that will be removed by racking etc.

If you get what you consider an appropriate amount of the cinnamon flavour, then take the bag out.

regards

fatbloke

p.s. and yes, you do, normally, need a lot of grape juice, grape flavour for it to have any real impact on a batch i.e. making a pyment with all grape juice and just using honey to bring up the gravity reading, rather than making a traditional, then adding some grapes (or raisins/sultanas) to actually add flavour instead of just body (and possibly nutrient for the yeast)......