Beginner

Hello everyone,
My name is Thor, I´m 21 and I´m from Brasil.

I just learned you could brew your own Mead recently. I used the "McGayver" method over at the The Joy of Mead website. A baloon for an airlock, no special yeasts or nutrients (raisins here). I did flavour it with orange, cloves and cinammon. The fermentation look very good, no sign of any contamination, and the baloon smells great.
Anyway, it´s much harder to find brewing equipment here (on top of that our beer sucks too). Importing costs too much, as delivery is more expensive then the actual products. After a long search I found some beermakers willing to sell me a bucket, some airlocks (plastic), a carboy and some oak chips of their own. They also had some yeasts but apareantly they were all meant for beer and I didn´t want to risk it.
They did have one by Lalvins, so my first question is if K1-V1116 is good for meads, and what is it like. I´m using Fleischmanns now, so I´ll switch if it´s better.

Also, I´ve seen many recipies, but I didn´t find any cocoa (chocolate)-vanilla. Does anyone have it?

the pics



The first one is a fraud, it was photoshoped by a friend to look more tasty, The second one is the real thing. Suggestions? Criticisms?

Also, I have one more question.
On this recipe, I put everything on the first stage of fermentation- cloves, cinnamon, oranges. When I rack it for the first time, should I leave the old cinnamon sticks and orange leftovers there and throw away, or bring them into the new container? Even if I leave them, and feel the orange or cinnamon taste is not strong enough, should I add more?

Thor - Welcome to homebrewing and this forum.
Your English is great, (or better than mine at least) do you go to a bi-lingual school?
My Dad wanted to name me Thor, thanks to my Mom he compromised on naming me after Eric the Red. (Kids can be cruel and being named Thor would have been a little difficult).
I have never used that yeast, but you should be able to mail order some dry yeast packets if worst comes to worst. There are some post here on experimenting with different yeast types for meads, ciders, etc, I would recommend reviewing that. Any beer yeast should be OK for making low gravity meads, but you do want wine / champagne yeast for high gravity dry meads.
I can throw in my two cents on the spices, you will get very subtle and mellow flavors by using them in the primary, the C02 drives off most of the aroma. I would not transfer them to secondary but add a little more.
I almost always add the spices into the secondary, and usually only the last week.
You would be best to do a few experiments to determine what fits your taste the best, you may also want to read up on washing yeast through the search function here. It should help you with finding and keeping good yeast.
Best of luck.

Thanks Kahuna,
I did live in England for a month with family. It helped a lot.
On the name, Thor is the easiest name there is. Your parents keep telling you you´re a god, once you get to school nothing can get to you, those puny mortals with dull biblical names.
But Eric and Thor, very good names to drink Mead. I´m back home, hehe.

K1V-1116 is a strong yeast that will ferment clean and very dry. It also tolerates low nutrients levels. It is much better than Fleischman's.

great! This one I can get here very cheap

welcome to HBT.
I have found many people here that have answers and a genuine love for brewing/meadmaking.

The lalvin you are mentioning will be a big improvement over the fleishmanns.
I have made a mead similar to yours.
It was ok for what it was... a training run.

In time, and with guidance from the Guru's of HBT; you will be making mead worthy of the God's themselves.

May my minions in Valhalla toasts to that!

Guys,
My McGayver mead has stopped fermenting, after 2,5 weeks. It´s going on but at a much slower rate, way slower. Lots of sediment on hte bottom, I´m thinking about racking it.
Problem is, I still don´t have my measuring tools, along with more decent equipment (they are on the mail, probably arrive this monday). Should I wait for them to rack?
Also, as this first phase had raisins for nutrients and oranges for energizers, should I add the polen I just got, lemon (as acid blend) or anything else?
And this may seem a silly question but will it keep fermenting after I rack it? Should I just leave it, and when it´s done it´s done?
(Yeast is fleischmanns, normal recipe, 1,5kg honey for 5L)

Well you could do 1 of 2 things and should be ok...First, just leave it for another 1.5 - 2 weeks then rack it off into a secondary and let it age and clear. Once it's clear take a hydrometer reading and bottle. Or... Rack it off the raisins and oranges now into a secondary and let it set without doing anything else until it's clear. Just depends on if you want to take it off your oranges and raisins yet or not..that's up to you. As with JAOM, he leaves it on the oranges and raisins for a good couple months.

Yes, it will keep fermenting a bit, although much slower, when you rack it.

Dan

I would leave it until your equipment gets there.

Also, I have had great luck with the k-1116. It is a really good yeat, much better than flieschmans.

Spices can be very overpowering. You may want to taste it before adding more.

Oi Brasileiro, tudo bem? Morrei no Brasil por tres anos. Boa sorte com sua cervecarinha!

With a mead, you can easily wait a month or more before racking. Wait for your equipment and take measurements, drink the sample and realize how bad it taste, but take good notes to compare to its taste 6 months later and a year later.
This is your first experiment, and mead. Tasting green mead is one of the first steps. Then learning patiences takes a lifetime.

Ok, update.
Got my equipment. Fermentation seems to have halted at all. Got a taste of it and it seems very alcoholic, but it´s not all that bad, it´s even drinkable. Couldn´t notice the spices, but the orange is there. I measured the density and it is 1050 if I got it right.
Lots of sediment in the bottom. I´m anxious to rack it, especially since it´s stopped.
Imput?

Hey guys, please, I need some help here.
Primary has ended, density is 1050. Is that good? it actually tastes ok, I´d guess 10% alcohol.

Thor, I think you're having trouble getting responses because you're posting too late. Your posts wind up getting shoved off the board before the day crew sees them.

Unfortunately I can't help you with your mead. All I know is beer so I don't want to guess and give you bad advice. Trying bumping up your post tomorrow around 4 or 5 PM central time.

Oh, ok. I´m writting from Brasil, so...
I´ll just try and write sooner.
Thanks a bunch

Brasil is only 3 hours difference(from us in Central time zone)..so that shouldn't be an issue.

Thorsr....what was your starting O.G.????

Dan

First, Give your mead some time. I usually give all of mine atleast a month in the primary. Meads take considerable time to finish fermenting then even longer to age. At 1.050 it will be very sweet. I know that bread yeast will leave a mead sweet, unfortunately I don't have experience with them so I don't know how sweet. I would guess you will drop several more points in the next couple weeks.

That Lalvin K1V yeast is a good neutral yeast. It has a high alcohol tolerance so making a sweet mead with residual sugar is not recommended. You still can back sweeten if you can get a hold of potassium sorbate and campden tablets.

When you do rack to the secondary leave the trub, fruit and spices behind. If you feel it needs more spices or fruit at that time you can add more in the secondary.

When making mead yeast nutrients are very helpful. You can get by without them, especially if you are making braggot or pymet but the fermentation usually goes faster and has less chance of a stuck ferment with the nutrients. The sticky at the top of the forum has alot of great information.

Good luck

Craig

Thanks Baron,
It´s not all that sweet though. Tastes ok, much room to improve.
Anyway, I finished racking, new container, I´m kind of relieved. Proper airlock.

So, I left the fruit carcasses and put a new orange, 3 more cloves and 2 cinnamon sticks. As I said, it´s not all that sweet so I added 200mL of cashew honey (strong, dark, and a little bit acid). I also added a tablespoon of bee dehydrated polen, which someone told me is good nutrient. And a tablespoon of lemon juice for acidity. (no acid blends here)

Unfortunately nothing is happening, not a single bubble. I´m starting to think the fermentation stopped. What do you guys think? more nutrients? Maybe raisins instead of polen? Or can the yeast be dead already?
In that case, I got handle of two different professional yeasts (no lalvin yet). They are beer yeasts. They are both from a company called fermentis:

1-Safale S-04 Dry ale yeast. fast fermentation, high sedimentation, medium final gravity.

2-Safbrew T-58 dry brewing yeast.

I really need advice. No bubbles at all!

Here is the transition. Big improvement



PS: I only got my hydrometer, so I didn´t have an starting OG.

you may not see any activity, but from my experience you can definitely have fermentation going on without seeing a single bubble. just let it go. my guess is that it will be okay.

Bubbles,
bubbles came, stuff is happening, yay!

Still, are those quantities I put ok? The Lemon, the Polen

thorsr said:

Thanks Baron,
It´s not all that sweet though. Tastes ok, much room to improve.
Anyway, I finished racking, new container, I´m kind of relieved. Proper airlock.

So, I left the fruit carcasses and put a new orange, 3 more cloves and 2 cinnamon sticks. As I said, it´s not all that sweet so I added 200mL of cashew honey (strong, dark, and a little bit acid). I also added a tablespoon of bee dehydrated polen, which someone told me is good nutrient. And a tablespoon of lemon juice for acidity. (no acid blends here)

Unfortunately nothing is happening, not a single bubble. I´m starting to think the fermentation stopped. What do you guys think? more nutrients? Maybe raisins instead of polen? Or can the yeast be dead already?
In that case, I got handle of two different professional yeasts (no lalvin yet). They are beer yeasts. They are both from a company called fermentis:

1-Safale S-04 Dry ale yeast. fast fermentation, high sedimentation, medium final gravity.

2-Safbrew T-58 dry brewing yeast.

I really need advice. No bubbles at all!

Here is the transition. Big improvement

PS: I only got my hydrometer, so I didn´t have an starting OG.

Click to expand...

Careful with those cloves. They can be a powerful spice. I made some mead that ended up being over powered with cloves, and that had 5 cloves in 2 gal.

I don't have any experience with it but i have also heard that bee pollen was a good nutrient. For future batches I would use both the raisins and pollen.

It is usually a good idea to add the nutrients during the first half of the ferment and to not add acid until after fermentation is complete. The nutrients are only useful to the yeasts early on and can cause off flavors if not used up. you will probably have less of a problem with the bee pollen than with more refined nutrients. Mead does not usually have much buffering, which means that the must can drop in ph very rapidly causing stalled ferments. Adding acid during or before the ferment just makes this problem worse. Many mead makers add potassium carbonate to the must to help buffer against low ph.

Sounds like you are learning alot with this batch and I think it will turn out great. Just remember that it takes a lot of time before mead really gets good. Even if it is drinkable early, give it time and you will really be pleased.

Craig

I have made a few batches myself and have found that although there is no visible bubbling it doesn't mean it has stopped. Even if it has stopped most of the fermentation will happen in the first 2 weeks. The yeast is mostly done and at the bottom. You shouldn't add anything. If you want really sweet then having it stop is a good thing. The best thing to do here is rack about every month to 2 months. I have gone 3 months but have found if you don't rack it about that frequency then it doesn't clear much. Racking every 1-2 months is ideal and you should only need to rack it 3 more times at most. On the first racking, don't be greedy. By that, I mean don't even try to get everything that is sediment free. It is Ok to leave just the top centimeter of mead in the carboy, you are sacraficing some volume but it is worth it for future rackings. The first racking after removing the fruit is the most critical for this. I think that this sounds like a great mead, Personally I just juice the fruit and de-pulp it with a normal screen to get the best results. I have also frozen and thawed and then put pectin acid in the pulp for a few hours to get just a bit more out juice out of the pulp. Once you have the juice the best time to put it in is in the secondary. This way the flavor of the fruit doesn't get ripped apart by the yeast. Also, where spices go, be sparing, alcohol extracts spice flavor very well. For instance doing a clove mead, you only need 1-2 whole cloves for a full 5 gallon batch. Hope it turns out well.

thanks a lot guys, very encouraging.
I was economical with the cloves. 2 Before 2 now. One orange in each also.
But I didn´t add any orange juice. I just started secondary so now would be a good time, and from what matrix is saying, that´s what I should do I guess.

I also bought today apple honey, more cashew honey and eucalyptus honey. I´m going to do a pure mead now. I got a oak small barrel (5L) and want to try mixing those flavours.

Update,
After a week in secondary I measured it and tasted it. Heavens, it tastes worse then before! Rocket fuel, as someone said. SG is still at 1050, but it seems much more alcoholic now. It cleared a lot, really, a lot (I was kinda surprised) but the taste is terrible.
Is that normal? Will it be drinkable?

I think that it will still be drinkable. Many meads taste like antiseptic before done. Mostly, once the yeast is done doing it's job, It is very "hot" that term meaning very alcohol tasting and it is very promiment. My first mead was this way too. But after it gets a chance to age it will improve and the subtle flavors will come out. Basically the taste of the alcohol is in the forground and the sweetness doesn't come through. Be patient. I usually wont taste my mead until I am about ready to bottle it and then decide if I need to back sweeten it. When I feel that it is completely ready to bottle, I wait a month or two before I do so just to be sure that it is completly settled.
Just a little patients. It will taste bad for the first few months after you pitched the yeast.

Great to hear that. This was exactly the problem, too "hot"