And another one...Er, bites the grain?

[Brewstatic]

Hello, newbie brewer here, and I do mean "newbie". I have only recently started looking into fermenting my own stuff, and just for an idea of exactly how new I am, well, let's just say I tried fermenting cider with turbo yeast for a first try. I later found out that turbo yeast doesn't exactly produce a pleasant taste, but not before I tried using it to make mead. Yes, you heard me. I came home to find a puddle of liquid on the floor and a rather violent fermenter spewing honey water out of the airlock. It's still in there too, but it's calmed down a lot.

Even worse, after cleaning up and trying to stay ahead of the turbulence by dumping the airlock every ten minutes, it actually clogged up from some orange pieces stuck in it that I had in the fermenter for flavor. Needles to say, the bung and airlock blew off, and I heard it clanking on the ground from the other room. Oh boy.

So that's my confession, but I've since corrected my disastrous mistakes. Still going to let that mead keep fermenting for now, but if it turns out like the cider did, I'll be drinking some pretty rough stuff. That being said, I can handle some fire in my water, and I actually drank all that cider I made - my GF didn't though. Had to strain it through paper towels since I impatiently kept disturbing it before the cloudiness settled. Only got one glass that was relatively clear.... makes your tongue curl just thinking about it, doesn't it?

 

[JohnSand]

Welcome aboard. Well, those batches make humorous stories. Study and practice will make better beverages. Experimenting is fun, but I found that learning was easier with proven recipes.
Don't feel bad about mistakes, we all made them. Your ferment will be neater with more head space and probably a lower temperature.

 

[Brewstatic]

Welcome aboard. Well, those batches make humorous stories. Study and practice will make better beverages. Experimenting is fun, but I found that learning was easier with proven recipes.
Don't feel bad about mistakes, we all made them. Your ferment will be neater with more head space and probably a lower temperature.

I'm going to try again with Wyeast dry mead yeast and 3lbs of honey for a 1 gallon fermenter. Waiting on supplies to ship in since all I have is that Turbo stuff. I agree with using proven recipes now, I foolishly thought I could achieve a good brew quicker, since initially my impatience took over. I now see that patience is actually the name of this game. Eventually I want to try making beer. So I guess using a beer kit would be the best way to start that probably, since I'm a complete beginner.

 

[JohnSand]

Beer kits are a good start I think. I started with MrBeer, which is very simple. I was never completely happy with the results of those mixes, though some of my failures were in process. All of the major suppliers sell recipe kits that make good beer. You can read John Palmer's How to Brew online for free, later editions are widely available.
Patience is essential, in time you will enjoy your own brews, and enjoy sharing with others. We just had company for the local St Patrick's Day parade. Some guests brought Guinness and others brought craft beer. At the end of the day only one commercial beer had been drunk, all the rest was my homebrew, Irish Red and ESB. Yeah, I'm proud of that.
There is a whole mead section on this forum, check it out.
Good luck, have fun, brew on!

 

[nDub]

Haha. Welcome! Glad you have a sense of humor about it.

It'll get better. If the mead taste like rocket fuel, it can take up to a year for that to mellow out and the honey to shine.

 

[TKWoody]

Welcome from Minnesota