Thinking ahead (or not)

I'm not looking for help (but maybe I should be), I am just sharing an amusing story about how stupid I can be.

So my strawberry rhubarb mead, what I am calling my summer pie mead, is coming along great. Yesterday I racked off the lees, remove the rhubarb that has fallen, then I planned to rerack ontop of some more strawberries. I syphoned into my primary with some campden tablet to prevent oxydation, then removed the rhubarb and cleaned my carboy. However I couldn't find my grain bag. So I decided to imprivise.

I got a peice of cheese cloth and I dumped the strawberries in. I tied everything up quite nicely and I even took a moment to be impressed with how great my improvised grain bag looked.

I was ready to put everything into my carboy when I saw a potential setback. I now had a grain bag of strawberries a little smaller then a soccer ball, and an opening smaller then a golfball...

Well thankfully with a little more looking I got a grain bag and problem solved. But I thought you could all do with a laugh, so I am sharing!

Have a good night everyone!

Yep, this is why I wont do a melomel out of a glass carboy. I go with a brew bucket so that I can handel this. Ofcourse, I puree my strawberries with a bit of pectin enzyme and then put in a mesh bag. But I find that the extra space in a brew bucket is needed.

Matrix

Matrix,

But this means you miss out on all the potentially hilarious situations like mine... Where is the fun in that? ;-)

The real fun part is taking the strawberries back out... It took me an hour or so to remove the rhubarb! Lmao

I might try sticking to a brew bucket next time!

By the way, I added the vanilla like you suggested. Oh wow, it really makes a difference! It adds some awesome flavours, I'm really glad I listened to you on that!

Devo9 said:

Matrix,

But this means you miss out on all the potentially hilarious situations like mine... Where is the fun in that? ;-)

The real fun part is taking the strawberries back out... It took me an hour or so to remove the rhubarb! Lmao

I might try sticking to a brew bucket next time!

By the way, I added the vanilla like you suggested. Oh wow, it really makes a difference! It adds some awesome flavours, I'm really glad I listened to you on that!

Click to expand...

Glad to hear it turned out well. How much rhubarb did you use for how much volume. I have a Strawberry Rhubarb coming up in the spring. I usually do a 5-6 gal batch.

What batch did you use vanilla in. Sorry don't remember where I suggested that, on what thread.

Matrix

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/sweet-strawberry-mead-283342/

12 lbs. Clover honey
½ cup of raisins
~4 Gallons water (fill to 5 gallon level)
1 pack of D47, 71B, or Montratchet wine yeast (still deciding)

Secondary Ingredients
12 lbs. of frozen strawberries (Juiced, if possible)
3 lbs. of rhubarb
2 Vanilla Beans
Zest from one lemon
1 teaspoon of Thyme

I have been adding a bit of fruit at a time in the secondary. 12 lbs of strawberries plus 3 lbs of rhubarb take up a lot of space and I don't want to lose too much mead. I have added 8 lbs of strawberries and 3 lbs of rhubarb so far. I still want to add the other 4 lbs of strawberries.