Bray's One Month Mead

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Do you think I will be ok with "Super Ferment"? Any changes suggested?


Probably, but no guarantees. Since I don't know what's in it, I can't promise anything.

My understanding is to use 1.5 t potassium bicarbonate; has anyone done this?

I use 1/4 tsp per gallon or 1.5 TBSP for 5 gallons.

[*]Any recommendations on fermentation temp (was going to set at 70-75F and walk up to 80F)

For Wyeast 1388, 68 F had the fastest kinectics, but it is clean at all those temperatures.

[*]I also have some orange blossom honey on its way (24-25#), wanted to reuse the yeast but it isnt clear about swirrling the lees and just pouring into a new carboy? Since I only plan to primary for 14-30 days, can I just add new must to the old container? If not, can someone give a better description on getting the yeast out (or should I just use the yeast washing procedure)?

After you first batch hits 1.000, rack the clear part to a new container. You will see a light colored yeast on top of a darker colored yeast. Just dump the light colored part into the next batch.

[*]Since I am making the second batch on the already large yeast cake, I feel like I should reduce nutrients/oxidation! Can someone provide any guidance on this?

While you can oxidize mead, it's pretty difficult to do in initial ferment. Keep the nutrients the same though. New batch needs new nutrition!



Thanks for all the work on this - I plan to make the first mead to spec, the second possibly split to blueberries(mint?) and rosemary (should I try oak?). Then thinking about making a pear and/or apple cyser (possibly with a lighter beer yeast) and then if I still haven't messed everything up may look into a caramelized local wildflower honey mead

Easy on the rosemary. I have a batch of rosemary lavender that is 2 years old and undrinkable. Powerful stuff. Great marinade though!





Better brewing through science!

See my brewing site at www.denardbrewing.com

See my Current Mead Making Techniques article here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/current-mead-making-techniques.html
 
Thanks for the response, still not very clear on how to separate the white yeast top from the darker chunks at the bottom out of a 6gal carboy. Suppose I will give a light swirl and dump in, adding more water if needed to get residuals.

In any case, I am drinking zombie dust clone right now and feeling pretty good. Thinking I would post a awesome chinese recipe I am about to eat if anyone is interested:

hong shao rou
(1-2 lbs) Cut pork belly in 1.5"x0.75" cubes and boil
Wash
Fry in oil
Remove (most of) excess oil/fat
add:
3-4 piece star anise
3-4 piece cassia (like cinnamon, Chinese spice)
Big piece ginger (1"x2"), sliced

Fry low heat covered
(Can put 3-4 dried red chili peppers if you want spicy)
Push meat to side, add 3-4 T brown sugar into oil and melt
Add Chinese cooking wine ~0.75 cups (white wine, get yourself a gallon jug for like $8)
Add water, aged soy sauce (to taste) and boil for 1-2 hours

make sure you have enough or add water so it doesn't go dry, super tasty over rice.
Can stick in fridge and remove excess oil after cooking.

Can also add hardboiled eggs, tofu into boil. They do sell spice packs containing all ingredients needed but maybe not as fragrant.
 
Just thought I would post....

fermentation was going really well at 23C

after your post I swapped to 20C (68F) fermentation really slowed.. So I heated back up

I am back at strong fermentation at ~22C, judging by CO2 production (left for ~30 hours @ 20C and less residual carbonation than about 6 hours @ 22C)

Currently about 1.056 SG. When I changed temp I added 1/4 t K Bicarbonate and also tossed in about 10 organic raisins for good measure. Might have been a pH issue now that I am thinking more...
 
So I made this in April and bottled it in may once it hit 1.003. My question is it seems to be a little high in fusels still will that age out in another month. It is high abv around 13% but is definitely a little warm to drink? I am gonna try another bottle around the 18th of this month and that will be a month in bottles.
 
This may not help anyone, but I figured I would post it just in case. I had trouble finding Fermaid, potassium carbonate, Go-Ferm, and the Wyeast 1388 all at the same online retailer. Since I did not want to pay for shipping more than once, I did some searching.

I found all the items at morewinemaking.com with good prices, and have placed my order. Two day shipping was $7. I am not affiliated with them in any way, just putting this here in case someone like me needs to source all of these items.
 
Would it be OK if I added about 32oz of organic pear juice to this, and some cinnamon sticks? If so, when would be the best time in order to preserve a bit of the flavor? Or will 32oz not even add any flavor. I am guessing secondary but I am not sure. I will be following the rest of the recipe exactly. Thanks!
 
Here's a fun little test I did.

18715212296_a6c8bef1e2_b.jpg


Both of these meads are made with 2.4lbs of wildflower honey, following the yeast and nutrient schedule laid out in this thread.

There's only one small difference between the two, the one on the left received Potassium carbonate, the other one did not. The one with potassium cleared MUCH faster, I let them sit for a couple months, the one on the right was still cloudy. Sunday I backsweetened a bit with Norwegian forest honey and added some Sparkolloid to both. The pic was taken last night... the difference between the two is striking.

I like to mess around with variables. While we all know Potassium is important to yeast health now, just how important is it in the final, slightly aged product, was my question, as I never supplemented it for years and always ended up with good mead.
 
How would the BOMM protocol be adapted to a hydromel? I recently came in to some local darker blueberry honey, and have been interested in hydromels since January, when I started mead, but don't know if staggered nutrients would work well, or if I should frontload everything and hope for the best.

Side note: all my BOMMs have turned out delicious thus far. None has lasted, beyond a sample bottle, more than two months.

Also: will BOMMwork with lighter honeys like locust and thistle, or should I accept a longer wait time for a better end product?
 
Go for it the same procedure IMO. Longer aging will improve almost all meads/beers/ciders to a degree, just not all are affected the same way.

I'd be interested to know how belle saison yeast would work on a session mead, as it's monstrous for a cider.
 
Danmor1 said:
How would the BOMM protocol be adapted to a hydromel? I recently came in to some local darker blueberry honey, and have been interested in hydromels since January, when I started mead, but don't know if staggered nutrients would work well, or if I should frontload everything and hope for the best.



Side note: all my BOMMs have turned out delicious thus far. None has lasted, beyond a sample bottle, more than two months.



Also: will BOMMwork with lighter honeys like locust and thistle, or should I accept a longer wait time for a better end product?
Click to expand...


Although I've never tried it, I would front load a hydromel. The yeast will go very fast and be much less stressed.

All mead improves with age. The BOMM is not excluded in this; it just happens to be tasty in a month as well. A BOMM aged for a year is truly amazing.

The BOMM makes great mead with every honey I've tried so far. It shouldn't take any longer to get a good product unless it's a particularly strong tasting honey (Buckwheat and heather honey, for example). Some honeys are just really strong tasting and need to mellow out. I've used orange blossom, Tupelo, sourwood, palmetto, acacia, mesquite, summer berry, Meadowfoam, and a few others with excellent products. All very different!
 
Bray~

I don't have a Sprouts near me so I wanted to know specifically what kind of cider it is. I have access to Trader Joes and Whole Foods so could you suggest a replacement?
 
loveofrose said:
Although I've never tried it, I would front load a hydromel. The yeast will go very fast and be much less stressed.

All mead improves with age. The BOMM is not excluded in this; it just happens to be tasty in a month as well. A BOMM aged for a year is truly amazing.

The BOMM makes great mead with every honey I've tried so far. It shouldn't take any longer to get a good product unless it's a particularly strong tasting honey (Buckwheat and heather honey, for example). Some honeys are just really strong tasting and need to mellow out. I've used orange blossom, Tupelo, sourwood, palmetto, acacia, mesquite, summer berry, Meadowfoam, and a few others with excellent products. All very different!
Click to expand...

Thanks. I might try a (second) BOMM off a batch of 'summer' honey for the hydromel, frontloading. I can document the process, if you like. I also started a 5-gallon batch with the Forbidden Fruit with clover honey, to play with some variations courtesy of Brewers Best (chocolate peanut butter, banana nut, etc). Do you think blueberry honey would go well with blueberry flavour for a hydromel?

As for lighter honey, if I want to use yeast after the first (and I know you've recommended washing in past comments), would it be best to move from lighter honey to darker before washing, or will there be negligible differences in final product after the yeast cake settles?
 
Ha-lay-freaking-loo-yaa!

I finally found a stocking supplier that carries all the BOMM nutrients in one place, and it's just a few blocks from my brother's place as well, so I don't need to get stiffed on postage!

The place is Bosa Grape, a winery supplier in Burnaby BC that I was put onto by one of the sales guys from Scott Labs, the makers of Fermaid K.

I just dropped a old pack of 1388 into a liter and a half of water mixed in with a half kilo of honey, along with a handful of raisins and some currants, ala the JAO-BOMM recipe of sorts, to see if I can build up some yeast while I wait for the arrival of the nutrients. Seems to be alive in there.

Happy days! If all goes well, I should be putting a carboy of the BOMM together!

TeeJo
 
Do you have any articles on how to start cultures of yeast? I'm looking create my own strain that is less finicky
 
I am 7 days in, and my gravity is at 1.038, I just added the second nutrient addition, and it smells...Wonderful!

I started mine with an older smack pack, and a gallon of starter must mixed up using the raisins and currants that were mentioned in the JAOBOMM recipe a few pages back, but without the spices, and that seemed a pretty good start. I guess the warranty is about nul and void, but...:)

Once I got my nutrients delivered, I made a batch by the simple method of taking the honey I had salvaged from some damaged bee equipment, and adding water until the OG was at 1.100. Came out about a 4 gallon batch.

So far, so good. I gotta say, if it ends up tasting anything at all like it smells now, it's a keeper of a recipe, and like as not I will start another batch right away.

TeeJo
 
I have a gallon of bomm I made about 7 months ago and was thinking of adding some dried orange peel and coriander. Would it be too late to add these flavours or is a new batch a better idea ? I've done berries in the secondary that turned out great ,just want to give this a try. Thanks!
 
I wanna say thanks for your hard work and love of mead loveofrose, I made 3 one gallon batches, the BOMM, the Cyser and your Orange Spice, all were excellent and powerful. Have you or has anyone experimented with the San Diego Super yeast?
 
sublxed said:
I wanna say thanks for your hard work and love of mead loveofrose, I made 3 one gallon batches, the BOMM, the Cyser and your Orange Spice, all were excellent and powerful. Have you or has anyone experimented with the San Diego Super yeast?
Click to expand...


Not that I know of. I'm gearing up for a new yeast experiment, but I've got to empty a bunch of carboys first!
 
Thank you LoveOfRose for all the work.

I have a traditional BOMM about a week in, and decided to experiment with another one last night with the leftover honey. The new one is based on MeadLover's Winter Mead, using cranberry and apple juices, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon. Beautiful red color and vigorously fermenting as of this morning. I'll give updates when they're done, and until then I'm going to keep reading and learning.

I'm particularly interested now in growing yeast to maintain a supply without having to buy a smack pack for each gallon batch. SWMBO is preemptively saying no to new equipment investments, which of course means that I have to figure out a different way to make a go of it. ;)
 
GreyRaven said:
Thank you LoveOfRose for all the work.

I have a traditional BOMM about a week in, and decided to experiment with another one last night with the leftover honey. The new one is based on MeadLover's Winter Mead, using cranberry and apple juices, cloves, allspice, and cinnamon. Beautiful red color and vigorously fermenting as of this morning. I'll give updates when they're done, and until then I'm going to keep reading and learning.

I'm particularly interested now in growing yeast to maintain a supply without having to buy a smack pack for each gallon batch. SWMBO is preemptively saying no to new equipment investments, which of course means that I have to figure out a different way to make a go of it. ;)
Click to expand...


Look on my website for how to make a yeast bank. That alone saves a lot in yeast!

www.denardbrewing.com
 
Whups! Gravity says 0.996. Wowsers!

Might come out a little on the dry side....

Nuthin for it but to park it in the basement to sit for the next few weeks and see how it turns out.

TeeJo
 
Noob question incoming!

This is only my second mead. My first was a longer-aging one: brewed in primary, transferred to secondary to clear "newspaper" clear, then bottled as-is and put down for the Big Sleep. Results will be assessed on Christmas Day this year.

For this one, though, I would like to backsweeten. SO, I need to stabilize. No problem there, other than the fact that I'm still in the primary and would like to limit transfers to keep the volume of the batch up since it's only a gallon before trub loss.

OK to stabilize in primary? Just sprinkle it on top without stirring, and hope it mixes appropriately?

OR, do I need to transfer to a secondary, top off with water back to a gallon to limit headspace, then stabilize?

OR, it's been mentioned that meads are oxidation-resistant. OK to go to a secondary and NOT add the water to top off, then stabilize?

THANKS!

:mug: <--- mugs of mead!
 
skydiver30960 said:
Noob question incoming!



This is only my second mead. My first was a longer-aging one: brewed in primary, transferred to secondary to clear "newspaper" clear, then bottled as-is and put down for the Big Sleep. Results will be assessed on Christmas Day this year.



For this one, though, I would like to backsweeten. SO, I need to stabilize. No problem there, other than the fact that I'm still in the primary and would like to limit transfers to keep the volume of the batch up since it's only a gallon before trub loss.



OK to stabilize in primary? Just sprinkle it on top without stirring, and hope it mixes appropriately?



OR, do I need to transfer to a secondary, top off with water back to a gallon to limit headspace, then stabilize?



OR, it's been mentioned that meads are oxidation-resistant. OK to go to a secondary and NOT add the water to top off, then stabilize?



THANKS!



:mug: <--- mugs of mead!
Click to expand...


To stabilize, you first need active fermentation to stop. This can be through cold crashing or the yeast run out of sugar. It's hard to stabilize a fully active batch of yeast.

Next, rack off of the yeast cake onto your stabilization chemicals. It is always best to reduce headspace with top off. Mead is more forgiving, but it can oxidize.
 
loveofrose said:
To stabilize, you first need active fermentation to stop. This can be through cold crashing or the yeast run out of sugar. It's hard to stabilize a fully active batch of yeast.

Next, rack off of the yeast cake onto your stabilization chemicals. It is always best to reduce headspace with top off. Mead is more forgiving, but it can oxidize.
Click to expand...


Thanks! Yeah, fermentation is caput on this one. Thanks for the "how to!"
 
So I bought everything needed for this mead. The only omission was the Wyeast 1388 as the local homebrew shop is out until the next shipment arrives. The guy there talked me into buying the Wyeast 4347 Extreme Fermentation. Has anyone used this and if so: how did it come out?
 
Thanks dude. I'll order a few packs online. I plan on doing one with straight wild flower honey, another with the same honey but with American oak cubes and the last one with the same honey but with French oak cubes. Should be fun. Thanks for being a kick ass resource for everyone here.
 
Made a hydromel bomm SG 1.054 FG 1.000 from 1.5 lbs of honey for a 1 gallon batch. Front loaded all of the nutrients.

Galaxy dry hopped it after primary fermentation.

Then split it into three 22oz bottles to age for 12 weeks.

1. Beer level carbonation
2. Half beer level carbonation
3. No carbonation

The fully carbonated one was the best/awesome, the flat one was not so good and had some nutrient taste to it. For the half carbonated, I tried some, then added another carb drop and conditioned it for another couple weeks and it ended up being not as good as the fully carbed one.

I might try it again front loading with just half the amount of nutrients.

Would it stand to reason that you would only need half the amounts because there is almost half as much honey in this one?

loveofrose said:
Although I've never tried it, I would front load a hydromel. The yeast will go very fast and be much less stressed.

All mead improves with age. The BOMM is not excluded in this; it just happens to be tasty in a month as well. A BOMM aged for a year is truly amazing.

The BOMM makes great mead with every honey I've tried so far. It shouldn't take any longer to get a good product unless it's a particularly strong tasting honey (Buckwheat and heather honey, for example). Some honeys are just really strong tasting and need to mellow out. I've used orange blossom, Tupelo, sourwood, palmetto, acacia, mesquite, summer berry, Meadowfoam, and a few others with excellent products. All very different!
Click to expand...
 
I've decided I wanted to try out the JAO BOMM, and I have a few questions:

1. Are you supposed to degas it the same way you would a regular BOMM?

2. You are fermenting it in the plastic spring water jug, right? What size stopper works with those?

3. Do you ever have issues with blow-off?

Thanks
 
cmhaynes said:
2. You are fermenting it in the plastic spring water jug, right? What size stopper works with those?
Click to expand...

One trick I've used is to drill a hole in the lid of whatever jug I'm using (1/2"? 5/8"? can't recall exactly, but it's easy enough to figure out) that will fit the black rubber grommet everybody uses in the lids of their AlePails. Drill, place grommet, insert airlock, and go!

NOTE: make sure the hole you drill is a wee bit bigger than the grommet, so the grommet will fit but still have room to grow when you insert the airlock. First time around with this trick, I cut the holes so the grommet just barely fit and the airlock squeezed the grommet against the cut (metal) edge of the cap enough to cut them pretty much in half.
 
cmhaynes said:
I've decided I wanted to try out the JAO BOMM, and I have a few questions:

1. Are you supposed to degas it the same way you would a regular BOMM?

2. You are fermenting it in the plastic spring water jug, right? What size stopper works with those?

3. Do you ever have issues with blow-off?

Thanks
Click to expand...


1. Yes.
2. Standard size on Ozarka, other brands have varying sizes. A pin pricked balloon also works.
3. Sometimes. I always ferment in a secondary container to contain the potential mess.
 

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