3 Sisters and a Cousin

Mead is exciting dang it...Even if it does call for some patients....Lets Spur some enthusiasm here. This is what I'm working on right now...What's your summer plan?
ALL 3 Gallon Batches, and all prepared with NO cooking, but tap hot water.
Cousin.
9 Pounds Clover Honey
D-47 Yeast
Nutrient and energizer
Water

3 Sisters.
6 # Clover honey
3# Colorado Ambrosia Honey (Alfalfa mix)
1 Batch gets RC-212
1 Batch gets D-47
1 Batch gets Cote Des' Blanc.
Nutrient and Energizer to suit.

The Cousin is going to be racked onto DRIED blueberries.

The sisters are going to see Local Seasonal Produce at the end of the summer. I am definitely looking forward to Colorado Palisade Peaches, Rocky Ford cantaloupe, and I'm not sure what the third addition will be, but I will surely have something fine for the winter of '09!

How about using Colorado Choke cherries for the third batch?

honey dew melon????? just seems fitting

Dried Blueberries I will have to try that technique I used three times frozen blueberries and liked the results in primary. Dried in secondary sounds like you would get more flavor and aroma but not the purple color keep us posted because I like the look of the clearer show meads.

Just put together 1 Gal. batch w/ apples,frozen blueberries 1/2 crushed 1/2 whole,3lb honey on a whim I pitched it with champagne yeast. I'm about to put together the ingredients with the lav D-47

BigKahuna said:

Mead is exciting dang it...Even if it does call for some patients....Lets Spur some enthusiasm here. This is what I'm working on right now...What's your summer plan?

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i am planning on making a peach melomel in a few weeks when the peaches ripen. i'm going to use 15lbs of clover honey, 15 lbs of peaches for about 7-10 gallons. i have a 12 gallon plastic fermenter with a loose fitting lid. i'll ferment just the honey for a week, then put the peaches on it for 3-4 weeks stirring maybe twice a week before racking again to finish out fermentation in carboys for about 6-9 months

Patience.

This isn't a Hospital!

Well..I got some fantastic Strawberries at the supermarket today. 8# in fact. Problem is, I get home and take a gravity reading....We are at 1.036. I want to rack onto the berries tomorrow night, but dang. I was hoping for more than that. I'm not even sure that the 8.5% is enough to safely prevent any goobers from growing from the berries. Dang it.
Somehow I thought that the RC-212 would ferment out a bit quicker than that. Especially since the house has been 70 -74 the whole time.

I've fixed a stuck fermentation before by adding raspberries. It may be that the RC-212 just didn't get as good a propragation as you'd expected.

I say give the berries a short freeze (they don't need to be solid, just to where the outsides are getting firm). Then mash em up and put into the secondary, and rack onto them.

I'd also go ahead and suck up some of the yeast cake...just a bit. I bet you get renewed fermentation and it dries out a bit thanks to the nutrients in the fruit.

OK. Roughly 7 pounds of Fresh Strawberries in the secondary. I managed to fit all but about 1/2 gallon of the first sister into the secondary...and what'd Ya Know...Malkor was right. This morning she's bubbling away like I had just pitched the yeast.

I will be interested to see what comes for the next batch. I'm thinking about Peach Based Fruits. Nectarines, White Peaches, and maybe a pear or 2? The point is to keep it all LOCAL.

I'm glad it worked out. Berries seem to be very good at restarting a stuck fermentation, in my experience at least.

I would BS anyone else about this, but you guys are my best friends, so NO BS. Got home from work today, and was actually looking RIGHT AT the air lock filled with strawberry juice thinking..."Mmmm Better do something about that" When KAPOWEE The stopper gave way and the stopper and airlock made it about 3 feet off of the top of the carboy followed by a fiery red rocket trail if mooshed strawberries.
TOO COOL...Got it cleaned up, and said...SH!PP..>I should have taken Pictures.
Sorry....But at least I'm only 4 away from 1000 Posts.

Not to put a damper on the "restart", but it might just be CO2 coming out of solution due to the nucleation sites the berries have created. If it's still going in a couple of days, then it's restarted.
Good Luck,
Cheers,

possible, but they hydrometer will tell all. I know my raspberry melomel got stuck (it wasn't originally gonna be a melomel) at about 1.040 and adding raspberries got it down to 1.021.

as for eruptions, my second mead back when I was just 17, was done without any airlocks, in an ocean spray jug. I'd vent it several times a day (yes it was capped tightly).

well one day while it was venting, it blew the lid completely off and threw a cup of cranberry mead all over the bathroom walls, ceiling and my mother's peach colored cloth bath curtain.

that was hard to explain...being 17 and hiding my brewing...why there was pink and red spots all over the walls.

malkore said:

that was hard to explain...being 17 and hiding my brewing...why there was pink and red spots all over the walls.

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That makes me smile.
Just FYI...It's still bubbling along nicely...about 1 per second from the 3 piece air lock. Definitely fermentation and not off gassing.

Today (15 days on fruit)I took the Cousin (blueberry) off of the fruit. It looks great...tastes great...has a gravity of 1.070? WHAT? Turns out that dried blueberries have a LOT of available sugar.
I am preparing a starter of Premiere Cuve to restart fermentation tomorrow afternoon. This could end up in the 15 to 18 % Range.

New Update.
12 days on the fruit, racked off of Strawberries. They were pale and nasty looking.
S.G. 1.000 Taste is very good too.

How did you prepare the dried blueberrys, did you just toss them in or did you rehydrate them in hot water? break them down in boiling water?

Arneba28 said:

How did you prepare the dried blueberrys,

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This is technical...so pay close attention....It's ok to print and re-read if you need to....

Just Kidding.
I just dumped them in. If I were starting again...I'd have started with WAY less Honey. I had a gravity of 1.07 and like 12% alcohol after 14 days on the Fruit. They have a ton of available sugar. I re-pitched with Premiere Cuvee. It's carrying on like it did the first week of fermentation.

That blueberry experience sounds nuts!

I'm thinking to do a still blueberry mead at some point in the not too distant future... how much dried blueberry did you add, and how does the taste compare to using fresh/frozen blueberries?

Blue Berries were 10 oz per gallon...so total 30 oz. That's 1 1/2 packages of the Costco brand.
I can't compare to a home made blueberry mead with fresh or frozen berries. I am assuming that it is much more intense flavor. The only thing I'd do different is I would start with like 2 #'s of honey per gallon instead of 3. Those little dried berries have a TON of sugar that will more than make up the additional gravity. This is currently sitting at 18%, and still fermenting HARD. 1 bubble every 2 or 3 seconds in the air lock....and no signs of slowing down.

How do you calculate the increase in alcohol % from a fruit addition? I just finished a split batch of fruited wheat beer and figured even though I knew the OG and FG, I couldn't accurately calculate the abv because of the fruit.

Also, how's the color with the dried blueberries?

malkore said:

Patience.

This isn't a Hospital!

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Good catch

The way I calculated (Estimated) the abv% was Og. - FG (Before Fruti) X1.3 +OG (After fruit) - FG X1.3. Basically just did it like a new batch when it came off of the fruit. Obviously there were 15 days of conversion that I missed, as the fruit started letting off sugar immediately. as for color, it is like a light purple red wine color. I'll post a picture soon. It is not clear, so it appears a bit lighter color because of the suspended yeast.

I look forward to the pictures!

I'm not good at math, why the 1.3 factor on your calculation?

Mulberry mead. The berries are dropping from the trees right now, and I've got enough to make a nice batch plus a mulberry pie. Mmmm.

I do envy you kind sir. I am trying to keep this pretty much Local....we don't have Mulberries.

Here is the first sister. 7# Fresh Strawberries, and it's going to stabilize with a gravity of 1.010 and 12% Alcohol. I think the ABV is higher, but no telling what the fruit added over the time it was in.


This is the Cousin. 3# of Dried Blueberry, and a bare minimum of 22% Alcohol. I am sure it's higher, but again...the sugar that the fruit added and fermented out is unknown.

They've both have lovely colors. Have you tasted either yet?

will_cbe said:

They've both have lovely colors. Have you tasted either yet?

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I second this question and add my own - what's the FG on the blueberry?

When my current mead finishes up (a rose mead), I'm hoping to do a blueberry sweat mead with a rocking high alcohol percentage and age it forever, so I'm very curious on dried blueberries (since they're probably cheaper than fresh).

Tasted both when I took these gravity samples. The Blueberry is currently at 1.000. It started at 1.102, down to 1.024 at racking . when I took it off of the fruit, it was back up to 1.070(re-pitched with Premiere Cuvee), and now is at 1.000
The Blue Berry is Fantastic, but it burns like a shot of very smooth whiskey. at 22%...It nearly is. It will sure be good someday.

The Strawberry is very good, but still has some yeasty funky stale fruit taste to it that I suspect will mellow and eventually go away. If you can get by that, it has a ton of strawberry flavor.

Just to remind everyone. Second Sister is Cote Des Blanc yeast, 1.102 OG. Gravity now is 1.010, and tastes NICE. I have added 6#'s of fresh Plums that I cut up and ran through the food processor. MMMMMM PLUMS.

I think that the third sister is getting Fresh Colorado Peaches come August.


The Red one with fruit is the Second Sister. The others in this picture are Left to Right.
The Cousin, Leap Year Mead, Second Sister, Pomegranate Variation of Apfelwein, and the edge of the ail Pale with Apricot Blond.

BigKahuna said:

I do envy you kind sir. I am trying to keep this pretty much Local....we don't have Mulberries.

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well there werent any mulberries here till last year when i planted some the way they are growing ill likely have extra next year to experiment with.......if i can get one through our winters most anyone in the lower 48 should be able too........also have arctic raspberries, alpine strawberries, hardy kiwis, 4 varieties of regular raspberries, 2 different currants, goosberries and other things in the ground.....plans on putting some cider apples into the ground at my parents place......a few years down the road i should have all kinds of home grown fruit to experiment with...

If you were to make a mead, add Pureed Fresh Plums at the secondary stage, then when a plugged racking cane and many other bad things happen, you decide to strain your mead through a screen sieve, drop the sieve in the bucket, strain again (THUS AERATING AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE)...add 3 campdon tabs and call it good...You'd be where I am today.



I think I've probably killed the second sister.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand your ABV calculations. I don't see how 10 oz of blueberries per gallon could raise the gravity from 1.024 to 1.070. 10 oz of pure sugar would only raise the gravity to about 1.052. What am I missing?

GinKings said:

What am I missing?

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I don't know. What I do know, is what I have on hand. I can assure you that I am competent at taking a hydrometer reading, and I can assure you that I did take a second reading to reaffirm the 1.070 reading. I would have assumed a more viscus liquid due to potentially unfermentable additions leached from the Dry blueberries, but I took a gravity reading today and it's 0.996

Also worth mentioning....DoN"T run your plums through the food processor.

I love this thread...I had to post in it just so I have it in "subscribe."

BigKahuna said:

I think I've probably killed the second sister.

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Tonight I racked this mead off of it's 2 layers of junk at the bottom...>SORRY for the lack of pictures....You can thrash me later.

This stuff tastes pretty fair for having been poured through a spaghetti screen....twice.

I'm not sure this will be a good long term mead, but I'm now a BIG Fan of what Campdon can do for you.

Now it's safely in the basement with it's sister, cousin, and awaiting the fresh peaches that'll be added to the third sister come the middle of next month.

BigKahuna said:

SORRY for the lack of pictures....You can thrash me later.

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No pictures!!!

You Fail

(But you're forgive if you've been )

post, just to follow!