Home brew Mead with a ThinkGeek kit?

Hello everyone

I did the classic thing of reading and researching almost nothing before jumping into a project and then reading about it later. I wanted to show everyone what I currently have brewing and see what you think. First I got a "Spike your Juice" kit from thinkgeek & it seems to be a super simple kit. It came with one air lock & 5 packets of yeast with a piece of paper with the following instructions:

1) Pick your Juice: Minimum sugar content of 20g/serving & maximum of a 64oz bottle. No artificial sweeteners.

2) Spike your Juice: Pour packet into juice, no stirring, throw cap away, attach label.

3) Add air lock and fill air lock with water as shown

4) wait 48 hours and enjoy! Wait longer for dryer taste and increased alcohol content.

Tada! that’s all there is lol. I made one batch that was pomegranate cranberry raspberry. It was good and I waited 4 days before tasting. I did filter it because I wanted sediments out of it.

I have another batch in the fridge that is blueberry raspberry cranberry. That one waited 3.5 days before filter and into the fridge. Have not tasted that yet.

Here is where I jumped into things headlong and want your opinions.

I thought, how cool would it be to make traditional mead? So I set to trying that. I gathered a 64oz juice bottle, one bottle of honey that was "raw pure honey" from wallmart, & I wanted to add some tea so I purchased "Celestial Seasonings Honey Vanilla Chamomile herbal tea". The yeast in the thinkgeek kit is not labeled well as to what it really is but here are the ingredients on the package:

Yeast, Organic evaporated cane juice, emulsifier.

So thinking this is as simple as the above instructions are I just put 8 bags of tea in the juice bottle, added almost all of the honey to the bottle, added water, shake it up. Added package of yeast. Finally I wanted to add airlock but the one with the kit was being used so I took a balloon and punctured 3 really small needle holes and added that for an air lock. I am on day 4 of the brew now and the bubbles are still going strong. I will attach some picks of day 3 so check it out and let me know what you think. Oh and be brutally honest about anything. I just want to learn now while I am only into this by a few dollars lol.

Is all that stuff in the pics yeast sediment or what???? I never got stuff like that in my mead..... On a different note, I reckon you put about double the amount of honey than needed, in putting a whole container of honey in an under two litre of water. So the OG was probably around 1.170. So this will probably come out cloying sweet unless that no name geekthink yeast is high tolerance champagne yeast, which I doubt, but really have no idea.

That stuff is the tea. I just threw it all together and now I am reading that there are better ways to do this. Your probably right on the honey to water ratio too. I guess that's what I get for jumping head long befor actually learning how to do this. Hopefully I can salvage this. Any ideas on that anyone? Or does anyone think it will be fine?

Oh, the tea. Anyways, if you just wait for this yeast to die out, and repitch with a high tolerance yeast such as Lalvin EC-1118 or Red Star Premier Curvée (http://www.winemakermag.com/guide/yeast) than yeah it could be salvaged. It will be okay either way if you wouldn't mind it really sweet. Since it's a "Spike your Juice" kit they probably were aiming for speed of fermentation with a real fast ale yeast tolerance 8%-9% pushing it, but it's possible it's a wine yeast with a higher tolerance.

Ok cool. If the yeast is how you say then about how long you think it will take? I know I can wait for the bubbles to stop but just courious. Also when I put in the new yeast would it be good to strain the tea off and pit in some new vanilla honey chamomile tea suspended in a cloth bag of sorts?

There is likely to be nothing wrong with it at all. Honey is very anti-bacterial and anti-fungal, naturally. So there's no question of "salvaging it".

Your only problem is, that there are far too many variables. If you dig around the mead forum, or even over at Gotmead, you'll see that to get some sort of predictable results, you need to manage everything to the "Nth degree" i.e. a known quantity of honey to water, gravity measurements, the yeast type required for a certain result, nutrient for the yeast (honey being naturally very high in sugars but very low in nutrients), the fermentation temperatures, times, etc etc etc.

So if it does actually turn out as drinkable, then that'd be great, but it's entirely possible that it will be horrible tasting - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because lots of meads are actually bloody horrible tasting when young and freshly off the yeast. Hence if you're just gonna let it finish and then take rack/syphon it off the sediment (and yes you may need to run it through some muslin/cheese cloth to remove the organic debris from the herbs etc).

I'd just let it finish, rack it off the sediment and stuff, then put it into another bottle and top it up with water to reduce the head space, oh and if you can, add a half a crushed campden tablet to it. Let it clear, then rack it off the sediment again but into glass (wine bottles or beer bottles, whichever you can get stoppers/caps/corks for etc) and then just put it in a cool place somewhere and forget about it for 6 to 12 months.

p.s. Oh and while it might seem like a neat idea, these kits are obviously just designed for kids to play/meddle some so they get something that still tastes a little like the original juice, but leaves them a little tipsy, gobby and a PITA, and the kit producers a little better off having extracted some $$$'s from you..... They're definitely not aimed at making a quality product, just what's basically "prison hooch"......

Yea I know that the small kit is not really designed to make a quality product. But it has been fun to use so I can get my feet wet. I'll let this ferment another week or so. Just whenever the bubbles stop. Strain it through a cheesecloth of sorts. And just go the racking method until clear and then store for a while. I will let you all know how it goes. It will probably be like gasoline or super sweet because of an overage of honey but regardless I am happy with the experience and when I get my shop outside built I may get into making a more controlled fine product. Ether 1 or 5 gallon batches & prolly thinking a minimum 12 month aging time on those. It might be best to first try the "JOAM" that I have read about in the newby section. That should be fun.

Arpolis said:

Yea I know that the small kit is not really designed to make a quality product. But it has been fun to use so I can get my feet wet. I'll let this ferment another week or so. Just whenever the bubbles stop. Strain it through a cheesecloth of sorts. And just go the racking method until clear and then store for a while. I will let you all know how it goes. It will probably be like gasoline or super sweet because of an overage of honey but regardless I am happy with the experience and when I get my shop outside built I may get into making a more controlled fine product. Ether 1 or 5 gallon batches & prolly thinking a minimum 12 month aging time on those. It might be best to first try the "JOAM" that I have read about in the newby section. That should be fun.

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That sounds like a good idea. Once you've got this small batch cleared, I really would urge you just to get it into glass and let it age. People are often surprise how hideous newly finished meads can be, yet they're equally amazed when they've aged it for 6 months to a year (minimum). A lot of over your side of the pond will automatically make a 5 gallon batch as you're gonna end up with at least 2 cases worth, yet I find I enjoy making 1 gallon batches as it keeps the costs down, and I can make a couple of gallons of different recipes a month.

If you do make some JAOM, then I suggest that you make it as closely to the original recipe as you can, that way you have a "benchmark batch" to work from. IMO, it doesn't make a good dry recipe, yet I've tried many of the variations you'll probably read about, the only one that came even close to the original was using lemon instead of orange (the orange was better). Even though the same applies i.e. make it, ferment and finish it, let it clear and then rack it off (carefully as bread yeast doesn't flocculate very well and is easily brought back into suspension, requiring more time to let it all settle again), then either bottle or bulk age it.

Good luck with your efforts, just don't expect it to taste like grape wines....

fatbloke said:

Good luck with your efforts, just don't expect it to taste like grape wines....

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Funny thing, I keep trying grape wines "Usually low budget $20.00 buck or less" & I have not found one I like. Guess making it another reason to try to make my own and hopefully stumble on what I like.

+1 on making JAOM exactly the way the recipe says. Comes out a tried and true decent product that way. Experimentation is always fun, but good to get the basics down first.

The above metheglin seems to be trucking along smoothly. The fermentation is a bit less than it was but it keeps about a 1/2 in. of co2 bubbles at the top all the time. A lot of the tea floats to the top so I also have to gently swish it around about 3 to 4 times a day to keep the tea from drying and possibly rotting. I know meads take a long while to ferment but with the mystery yeast & lack of additional nutrients, how long you think the little buddies will go?

Well, if it's ale yeast, will probably go for 15-20 days. If it's any other yeast, could go 30 days or more. After fermentation has stopped and it's cleared, rack, age for at least six months, and then bottle.

Ok I have not been updating this first attempt mead bit now is a good rime to talk about it. About 2.5 months into the mead it cleared and I bottled it into a wine bottle. It was pretty dry so I added about 1/4# of clover honey to it and locked it down. Again being my first mead I made plenty of mistakes and I think this was another one. A nice fine sediment formed on the bottom of the bottle bit it did carbonate well. Today my wife gave birth to a healthy baby girl at 6#8oz and 19.5in. long. So to celibrate I passed out cigars and cracked this bad boy out. IT'S NOT BAD! Has a definate sweetness to it, real smooth and not harsh on the alcohol at all. There is a small sour not on the back end. The carbonation was slight but definatley there. I think I can make this again but with a proper yeast, nutrients, known honey amount and gravity readings to keep track and really make a great mead.

Arpolis said:

Today my wife gave birth to a healthy baby girl at 6#8oz and 19.5in. long.

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CONGRATULATIONS!