New to meads

So I would like to try starting a mead, and was looking around at recipes, but most seem to be for people that have done it before. I found one:

3.5 lbs honey
water to 1 gallon
Lavlin D47 yeast
1 tsp. yeast energizer
1 tsp. yeast nutrient

that was very basic. This seems a little too basic for me, so I thought about adding fruit to give another flavor. If I took a bag of frozen raspberries and added it in, would I need to change anything else, or should I look in a completely different direction? Thanks for any thoughts on this new endeavor.

I have all of the equipment tat I should need already, from beer brewing, so that part isn't an issue. Just the actual concept of actually creating the mead. Thanks.

depending on how sweet you want your finished product to be, you could lower the amount of honey to 3lbs.

raspberries and mead make a great combination!

For that size of a batch, would just a single bag of frozen berries be enough, or too much? And should I just toss them in frozen, or let them thaw and blend them up a bit first?

Why not try making a 1 gallon batch of each? 1 with fruit & 1 without. If you add rasberries, I'd go with 2-4lbs per gallon. I'd also freeze/thaw, freeze/thaw the berries & let them come up to room temp before adding them to the must. You'll want to use some pectic enzyme too. It won't hurt to run 'em through the blender, but I don't see any real need to do so. Regards, GF.

With this size of batch, how long am I looking at finishing once I bottle it up? I figured about 1 to 1 1/2 month to ferment, then move to a secondary for a month, then bottle. Are we talking 3-4 months, or are we in the 6-10 month range? Depending on my patience...

B192734 said:

With this size of batch, how long am I looking at finishing once I bottle it up? I figured about 1 to 1 1/2 month to ferment, then move to a secondary for a month, then bottle. Are we talking 3-4 months, or are we in the 6-10 month range? Depending on my patience...

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It can take a while, as honey is pretty slow to ferment sometimes. Probably a month or so in primary, then in secondary for a while. I'd leave it in secondary at least a couple of months, in case it throws some "lees" (sediment). I'd rather have the sediment in the secondary than in my bottles. It's best to bottle later, rather than sooner, in the case of mead. You won't want to bottle it until it's crystal clear, and that may take a few months.

Makes sense. Is there a specific temp range that you're looking for while fermenting and then sitting? Does it need to stay cool, or is room temp fine?

B192734 said:

Makes sense. Is there a specific temp range that you're looking for while fermenting and then sitting? Does it need to stay cool, or is room temp fine?

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Room temperature is fine. I only keep mine cool if I'm cold stabilizing, or trying to get it to clear.

With D47 you are better off keeping it below 70F. Fermenting at 74F or higher with this yeast produces loads of fusel alcohols and can result in a "paint thinner" mead that will take years to mellow. I live in a tropical swamp and had to make this mistake more than once before learning.

By keeping it below 70F, that will essentially stop the Fusel alchohols? Or are there other ways to deal with them as well? No point in making something that will taste off if I can help it right off the bat.

Just keep it at 70F or slightly below. Fusels tend to only appear due to too warm a fermentation.

If you use the staggered nutrient addition method, you can ferment completely in 1 month or less. However, the fermented honey flavors will be quite sharp initially and definitely improve as you age it. 4months is perfect IMO.

Hightest's Honey spreadsheet for staggered nutrient additions:
http://home.comcast.net/~mzapx1/FAQ/Honey.xls

For Example:

The spreadsheet tells us that 3.5lb of honey added to enough water to make 1gal = starting gravity of approx. 1.124
The SNA section tells us that you should add .9g of Fermaid-K (or an equivalent nutrient) and .9g DAP right away before pitching the yeast. You should then add .6g of Fermaid-K (or an equivalent nutrient) and .6g DAP after approx 2 days when the gravity reaches 1.114. Then, add a final .4g of Fermaid-K (or an equivalent nutrient) and .4g DAP when the gravity reaches 1.062. Before each of these additions, you should stir briskly to degass and re-oxygenate the must. I also recommend dissolving the nutrients in a small amount of warm, sanitary water before adding it. If you add the nutrient powders without dissolving, the must will degass and you'll end up with a volcano of foam all over the floor (this from experience).

pH is also very important. Honey fermentations create a low pH environment very quickly. Monitor it, or just add 1g of potassium carbonate at the beginning. You want to stay between 3.7-4.6

So I messed around with that spreadsheet a bit, but I can not get it to match the numbers that you were quoting at all. I am suspecting user error...It's early right now...But i will keep going and try one out here in the next few days. Just need to get a small enough carboy or something. What do most people use for the smaller batch? I was thinking of doubling it and just using one of my 5g carboys, but if I wanted to actually run 2 separate batches, I would want something smaller. And while it's fermenting, willo there be a lot of activity or blow off like you get with beer?

gratus fermentatio said:

Why not try making a 1 gallon batch of each? 1 with fruit & 1 without. If you add rasberries, I'd go with 2-4lbs per gallon. I'd also freeze/thaw, freeze/thaw the berries & let them come up to room temp before adding them to the must. You'll want to use some pectic enzyme too. It won't hurt to run 'em through the blender, but I don't see any real need to do so. Regards, GF.

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If I do use some Pectic Enzyme, how much would I use? Also, will I need to worry about the PH at this point? Is it going to drop low enough that I will need to add the K-carbonate? Putting it into 1g jugs, will I see much blowover, or is it a softer ferment? I think I will head to the store tomorrow and grab ingredients and then put it all together on Saturday or Sunday. Figure I want to try to get it in and fermenting asap so that I avoid the higher temps as we come into summer. Thanks for all the info so far.

B192734 said:

So I messed around with that spreadsheet a bit, but I can not get it to match the numbers that you were quoting at all. I am suspecting user error...It's early right now...But i will keep going and try one out here in the next few days. Just need to get a small enough carboy or something. What do most people use for the smaller batch? I was thinking of doubling it and just using one of my 5g carboys, but if I wanted to actually run 2 separate batches, I would want something smaller. And while it's fermenting, willo there be a lot of activity or blow off like you get with beer?

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Yeah, that spreadsheet is a bit hard to use unless you've played with it a bit to understand what it's doing.

So, in the center section labeled "Concentration", you can enter numbers into all the pink-colored boxes. The default weight of honey when you open the sheet originally is "15.00" and the specific gravity for the honey used is set to "1.4171". You want to change the honey weight from 15.00, to 3.50 and leave the specific gravity as 1.4171. Unless you know your honey's specific gravity, 1.4171 is a good generic value. Notice that the honey takes up .296 gal of space.

Next, you want to change the amount of water added. The default value is given as "64.0" cups (4.000gal). You're making a 1gal batch, so you need to add 1gal - 0.296gal (honey displacement) = 0.703gal = 11.3cups. Notice that the "Vt" (total volume) gallons total now says 1.00, and the "OG" is listed as 1.124.

Now that you've entered in the honey values and figured out your potential starting gravity, the "1.124" value should have populated over into the right side "Staggered NAS" section. That section tells you how much of each nutrient to add, and when to add them (based on gravity).

B192734 said:

If I do use some Pectic Enzyme, how much would I use? Also, will I need to worry about the PH at this point? Is it going to drop low enough that I will need to add the K-carbonate? Putting it into 1g jugs, will I see much blowover, or is it a softer ferment? I think I will head to the store tomorrow and grab ingredients and then put it all together on Saturday or Sunday. Figure I want to try to get it in and fermenting asap so that I avoid the higher temps as we come into summer. Thanks for all the info so far.

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pH is definitely important. After the first 48hrs of fermentation, my mead musts have been dipping as low as 2.8 which basically stops fermentation. You should add potassium carbonate to prevent that. However, the 5g I told you before is way too much (that's what I use for 5gal batches); instead use 1g. Here's more info: http://home.comcast.net/~mzapx1/FAQ/HoneyFerm.pdf

I don't find blowoff to be an issue at all. If I get any foam with traditional meads, it's very slight. Adding fruit will make for a a foamy fermentation though, so it's a good idea to use a blowoff hose.

D47 is a yeast that is quite tolerant of low pH in my experience. I've had it ferment completely and quickly even at a pH 2.9 (in a grapefruit mel). Depending on your honey, you might not need the carbonates.

Traditional meads usually aren't especially foamy, but there are some exceptions such as heather honey; some the foamiest stuff I have ever seen. Using antifoam drops makes Mead Eruption Accidents (MEAs) much less likely.

Medsen

The potassium carbonate serves double-duty. Honey is usually quite low in potassium, which is an essential mineral for yeast health.

Edit: Sorry Medsen, I didn't recognize your nick right away. Of course you know that.

If you are only doing a 1 gallon batch, I'd suggest using a larger vessel for primary (bucket is my preferred primary) especially if adding fruit to primary. If you jam everything into a 1 gallon jug you will get a big messy explosion. Also, what type of mead are you wanting? Dry, sweet, somewhere in between? This yeast, combined with fruit, in my experience, will usually overshoot it's tolerance, and I've had a few traditional meads go drier than expected when using D-47.

Running the raspberries through a blender may break up the seeds which have bitter tannins which you might not like. Mashing up the frozen and thawed berries to get as much juice as possible is a great approach.

Reserve some honey/must to top off once you rack to secondary, and even tertiary aging if you add fruit to secondary. The fruit will take up volume that you will lose when you rack off of it, as well as absorb some of the must.

As a few others said, don't rush it. Your patience will be rewarded. Age it in secondary until clear, then rack to a third container and let it bulk age for awhile. I try to bulk age at least until the anniversary of pitching the yeast, but now I'm exercising more patience. In the meantime, just make more beer or mead to keep you busy and not itching to bottle something before it's ready.

Is sur-lee aging discussed here (Medsen??) or not really? I would think it would really contribute nicely to a drier raspberry mead.

So if there is the possibility of overshooting the target FG and creating a really dry mead, what do you do to try to alleviate that? Add some form of sweetener to the secondary or add more honey to the original? I would kind of like a nice median. Not too sweet (like a dessert wine), but not too dry either.

Just had one more thought here. Should I add the fruit right away when everything goes into the carboy, or should I wait until after the initial big ferment is over? Or does it make a real difference?

It's all up to you. Some people prefer fruit in primary. Others fruit in secondary. Still others do a combo.

There are different flavor results between the two. You would get more of the raspberry flavor from adding fruit to primary, but in the primary it will add nutrients for the yeast, and contribute to mouthfeel(?) and also a more complex flavor.

Lately I've been adding fruit to both primary and secondary. If you do add to primary, again, I stress that you use a larger vessel. Also, you'll want to break up the fruit cap at least once a day, which can be done as you aerate. If you let the cap sit unbroken, the CO2 has a harder time escaping, which isn't good.

So I'm thinking that I will just double the recipe and play with a couple of gallons and just use one of my beer carboys. That should cover it. When you break up the fruit cap and aerate it, do you actually stir it or can you just swirl the carboy enough to do it?

I have a lees stirrer now, but before that I would swirl it if in a carboy, and just use a big spoon to fold it over if in a bucket

So, if I add fruit to both the primary and then again in the secondary, I would imagine that it would just up the ABV slightly, and give a stronger fruit flavor? Would I then leave the fruit in the secondary the entire time that it is sitting and aging itself? If I let it sit for say 3-4 months in secondary with fruit, then bottled, is that proper? Or should I give it a month or so with fruit in the secondary then rack to a tertiary and give a few more months before bottling?

B192734 said:

So, if I add fruit to both the primary and then again in the secondary, I would imagine that it would just up the ABV slightly, and give a stronger fruit flavor? Would I then leave the fruit in the secondary the entire time that it is sitting and aging itself?

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Increase the fruit flavor, yes.
Increase the alcohol, no. When adding the fruit, unless it is dried fruit, you are also adding a lot of liquid. Basically you are adding juice from the fruit and unless the gravity of that juice is as high as your original starting gravity, the net effect will be to dilute your ABV just a tiny bit. There are very few fruits that have a juice gravity as high as a typical mead starting gravity 1.090+ - ripe grapes are about the only thing.

I would leave the fruit in there long enough to extract the color and flavor; usually a couple of weeks max. When the color looks bleached out and spent, I get rid of it. Some folks leave things in there longer, but I have had some off flavors develop when doing so.

If you are just starting, you might want to try a good traditional mead first. Get the mechanics down and learn to manage the fermentation well. After you know what a good traditional mead is like, you can branch out making other additions to see how they compare. Don't underestimate the complexity of a good traditional mead.

Medsen

Good advice. I tend to someone that makes something overly complex right off the bat. I really like the raspberry flavors is mead, so I may throw together a flavored one, but also just a standard so that I see both. We'll see how they come along. I am going to start on Saturday.

Thanks for all the help with my plethora of questions. This was a great thread to start out for a total beginner with no knowledge of the subject. I now feel that I can confidently start a couple of batches and not totally screw them up due to a lack of starting knowledge. Thanks!