1st brew, clarification before I begin

Hi all, so I recently got into brewing beer and mead has suddenly caught my interest. I am planing on making Charlie Papazian's Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit Mead. Now I don't wanna invest a year or so in this to not have it turn out well, so I have a few questions.

1. Where is the best place to get 20lbs of honey? I was thinking a restaurant supply store. Is there a difference between what I would get there vs. what I would get from a home brew store?

2. The recipe says to boil the honey and 2gal water for 15 mins first. I have read in the FAQ that this is not ideal. What is the best way to prepare the honey?

3. The recipe says to transfer to a carboy for initial fermentation and does not indicate any further actions until fermentation is almost complete. He also states that the fermentation can take from 3 months to a year. Is a nutrient addition schedule beneficial to this?

4. When fermentation is nearly complete, he indicates to transfer to a secondary carboy and purge the oxygen using co2. Is this necessary?

5. When the mead is transferred to the second carboy, he says that it will clear over time, I read that racking it to different carboys is how to make it clear. Which is correct?

6. What is the best method for bottling?

Thanks for your help!
Keep in mind that this is my first time so I don't know what I don't know. Feel free to add any additional comments!

Welcome to the addiction

I made this exact mead this summer. It was my first one so I'm sure I'm not the best one to get advice from but mine did turn out pretty good. My only issue was that the prickly pears were a little under ripe so I didn't get much flavor from them.

I purchased my honey in 5 gal batches from my local grocery store, it was pretty inexpensive. (Only did this because I was looking for mesquite honey and my lhbs was out at the time)

I did boil the honey in 2 gal of water, no adverse reaction from what I can tell.

Added a nutrient to the mead when I put it all in primary.

Racked to secondary after fermentation was complete. Left it in secondary until it cleared (my case was about a month and a half).

I bottled in 22oz clear swing top bottles.

It's been about 7 months since I bottled and it tastes really good. A bit dry but real smooth.

Hope that helps

So you only added nutrients once? I think that is what the recipe recommends.

How long did it take for fermentation to complete for you?

And how does one know when a prickly pear is ripe? lol

I only added the nutrient once.

It took about three weeks for airlock activity to stop. I didn't take a hydro reading (mine was broken at the time) so I don't know 100% if it was finished but I racked it anyway.

I harvested the prickly pears from neighbors, living in AZ they are all over. I noticed as I cut into them that some were darker red than others. Also some were a bit more firm. Should have waited a few more weeks before harvesting them

tims5377 said:

So you only added nutrients once? I think that is what the recipe recommends.

How long did it take for fermentation to complete for you?

And how does one know when a prickly pear is ripe? lol

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I only added the nutrient once.

Airlock activity stopped after about three weeks. I didn't take a hydro reading since my hydro was broken at the time. I went ahead and racked it when the activity stopped.

I harvested the prickly pear from neighbors, they are all over out here in AZ. I noticed that some of the fruit was lighter in color and more firm than others as I cut into them. I think they could have benefited from a few more weeks on the plant.

xfevv said:

I only added the nutrient once.

Airlock activity stopped after about three weeks. I didn't take a hydro reading since my hydro was broken at the time. I went ahead and racked it when the activity stopped.

I harvested the prickly pear from neighbors, they are all over out here in AZ. I noticed that some of the fruit was lighter in color and more firm than others as I cut into them. I think they could have benefited from a few more weeks on the plant.

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Alright great! Thanks for the help. I cant wait to get started on it. I am just going to go by the airlock activity as well b/c i dont currently know where my hydro is. I just need to figure out where to get the prickly pears

Well, I've not made this reciepe, but I've made some mead, and have a few suggestions.

1. Boiling honey will drive of the honey flavor volitals, it isn't recomended and soem tests with mead have shown that it isn't a sanitation issue either. Remember that receipe was written like 20 years ago. Using hot water to help soften/mix honey is helpful, but not necessarily needed.

2. Doing a stepped nuetrient add has been found to improve fermentation rate and quality. Basically you take all the neutrient and then add 1/4 at the start (take OG) add 1/4 at 12 hours, 1/4 at 24 hours and then the last 1/4 when the sugars are at 50% to 30% of the start. Stir each time. Aerating a bit on the 2nd and 3rd additions, and just to degass on the 4th. While O2 is bad for alcohol (it alows the yeast to convert the alcohol to food) if you aren't finished fermenting, then the yeast will use it up and still make more alcohol. Ok, that is a first order approximation.
Sugars at 50% to 30% means if you start with an OG of 1.080, then you should put in the last of the nuetrient at 1.040 (50%) and then 1.024(30%) Ideally it should be closer to the 50% - ie doesn't have to be perfect. Degasing helps take stress of the yeast by decreasing partial preasure.

As your hydro is MIA, I'd be careful about aerating, and just degas. Also I might fold the last neutrient add into the 3rd. (so 1/4, 1/4 and 1/2)

Good luck

ACbrewer said:

As your hydro is MIA, I'd be careful about aerating, and just degas. Also I might fold the last neutrient add into the 3rd. (so 1/4, 1/4 and 1/2)

Good luck

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Can you clarify what you men by degas or point me to a good description of how to do it? Sorry if it is a remedial question but im new!

I've never made mead before, but it interests me. I know that with honey, you don't want to boil off the aromatics. Keep any water that hits the honey below 100 F.

I use prickly pears a lot as a chef. I would also avoid heating the prickly pear juice past 100 F. How did you cut the fruit and prepare the juice? I cut off both ends, then using tongs I make a slit down the length of the skin, pry the skin back, then roll it off the fruit like you're unraveling a cigar. Repeat this process for all of the fruits and then juice them, or blend them on low speed. Strain with a wide mesh on top and fine mesh sieve on the bottom. Then you sort of sparge the pulp and remaining seeds with a bit of water to get the most out of it.

Here are some artisan honey links:

http://www.savannahbee.com
http://www.beefolks.com/

And here are a few instructionals:

http://byo.com/component/resource/article/Indices/38-Ingredients/325-brewing-with-honey

http://www.gotmead.com

http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2012/01/homebrewing-make-your-own-mead-with-honey.html

bobbrews said:

I use prickly pears a lot as a chef.

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Do you know where I can get the fruit possibly online (and not for ridiculous amounts of money)? Im in upstate NY and we dont have many cacti up here lol

I'm from Northern NJ. We use a wholesale distributor for the restaurant. But when I buy them for home use, I visit any local Latin farmers market / supermarket. They should have them in stock for at least 6 months out of the year. The fruits run at about 50 cents each if you buy them by the case. A case is about 30 or so fruits. So with the above prescribed method, you'll get about 3 liters of juice.

bobbrews said:

I use prickly pears a lot as a chef. I would also avoid heating the prickly pear juice past 100 F. How did you cut the fruit and prepare the juice? I cut off both ends, then using tongs I make a slit down the length of the skin, pry the skin back, then roll it off the fruit like you're unraveling a cigar. Repeat this process for all of the fruits and then juice them, or blend them on low speed. Strain with a wide mesh on top and fine mesh sieve on the bottom. Then you sort of sparge the pulp and remaining seeds with a bit of water to get the most out of it.

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I peeled them like you described and then I added the peeled fruit to about 2 gal of water and simmered for a while. I then strained the liquid and reduced to about 1/2. It was my first time working with prickly pears and I just followed some info I found online.

Try the non-boil method next time as described above. Even if you just want to get a feel for what the juice itself should taste like. When fresh, they taste like a combo of raspberry/watermelon/tomato. Whatever liquid is gained from juicing/blending approximately 30 of the fruits, you would only need enough water to balance out to about 3 liters worth. From there, I always like to add fresh squeezed lime juice for acidity (since prickly pears benefit from some added sourness). The addition of water weakens some of the natural sweetness of the pears, so I compensate for this by adding a dash of light agave nectar to taste until a balance of acidity and sweetness is acheived. This red pears produce my favorite juice in the world. It's truly amazing tasting and would be a welcome addition to mead or beer, while also lending a lovely magenta color. Filtering is very important. Strain until completely smooth and free of sediment.

tims5377 said:

Can you clarify what you men by degas or point me to a good description of how to do it? Sorry if it is a remedial question but im new!

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Sorry I should have defined that. Degas is a wine term and it is what it sounds like
de - gas v.t. to agitate or stir a solution -mead/wine- so that the disolved gases -CO2- bubbles out.

So that is it, you stir the mead a bit to cause some of the CO2 to come out of it, thus decreasing the partial preasure in the must from the CO2. Again, for your purposes this is something done early in the making. This helps with yeast growth/management. If you've read about stir plates and making starters, it is the same reasoning, only on a much shorter time scale and for a correspondingly shorter/smaller effect.

When making a wine or mead, you also degas at the end - one of the reason for multiple rackings - as a way of getting CO2 out and making it so the solids have nothing to make them boyant. This helps to clear a mead or wine or cider.

You won't need this for your degas, but wine making stores have a stiring attachement that fits a standard drill. It is very helpful to help degas at the end of a batch of wine.

For other tips take a look at gotmead.com

One more thing on the honey.

Chemically honey is about 20% water, of the remainder it is a sugar solution that is like 55% glucose snd 45% fructose (of the 100% sugar part) and these are rough numbers. Now less than 1% of the honey are the chemicals that give it the flavor with think of as 'honey'

Now I strongly recomend if you want the honey flavor, sourcing a local honey source, otherwise it is likely that the large scale processed honey will be imported from over seas (china source) or something and have been treated in such a way that will have driven off most of that 'less than 1% chemicals' that give the honey it's flavor.

Given you are doing a 'prickly pear' and are looking for a somewhat exotic veriatol honey (misquite?) it is likely you will have just that and no issues with honey from overseas. All of this will drive up cost usually.