Antipodal Mead

[cmgreczyn]

has anyone brewed the antipodal mead recipe from papazian's book?

i brewed up a 6 gallon batch on november first. i broke my hydrometer earlier that day (after brewing up a brown ale), so i wasn't able to check og. it is still bubbling up quite a bit, 5 weeks later. i checked gravity earlier today, and it was at 1.31. should i be worried about this? should i do anything now to speed up the fermentation, or should i just let it keep bubbling on its merry way?

the only meads i've brewed before have been based on papazian's barkshack ginger mead, and jao. each of these fermented quickly, which is why i'm a bit nervous now.

any assistance would be appreciated.

cheers,
craig

 

[BigKahuna]

Boy...I hope you mean 1.031. Did you add nutrients to the mix? IIRC, that's a basic show mead with some water hardening salts or something isn't it? It will take a good bit of time to ferment out. If you are at 1.031 after 5 weeks, I'd say you didn't add enough nutrients, or you didn't sufficiently aerate. The good news is that it will still likely be very good in time.

 

[cmgreczyn]

you are right - if it was at 1.31, it would be some seriously strange stuff. 1.031 is correct.

i did add "yeast energizer" when i mixed it all up, and shook the carboy like crazy for a while for aeration. would more of the yeast energizer be helpful now? i'd assume that trying to add any aeration now would lead greater problems than just a slow fermentation, is that correct?

thanks!

 

[BigKahuna]

you are right - if it was at 1.31, it would be some seriously strange stuff. 1.031 is correct.

i did add "yeast energizer" when i mixed it all up, and shook the carboy like crazy for a while for aeration. would more of the yeast energizer be helpful now? i'd assume that trying to add any aeration now would lead greater problems than just a slow fermentation, is that correct?

thanks!

no more aeration...you could add nutrient. Mix it with some boiled and cooled water.
Should take right off.

 

[RayInUT]

Had to do the same with the last mead I made. Add some enrgizer and it will take off. I added more yeast AND enrgizer to mine and it finished and cleared within three more weeks.

 

[cmgreczyn]

IIRC, that's a basic show mead with some water hardening salts or something isn't it?

i didn't address this earlier, but you are correct - for a 5 gallon batch, it calls for 15 lbs honey, 1 tbsp gypsum, 4 tsp acid blend, 1/4 oz yeast nutrient (i used "yeast energizer" instead, since that's all i had on hand), irish moss and champagne yeast.

now that i'm reading over the recipe again, i'm worried that not boiling it was a problem too, as i'm not sure how the irish moss would work without a boil or anything.

Had to do the same with the last mead I made. Add some enrgizer and it will take off. I added more yeast AND enrgizer to mine and it finished and cleared within three more weeks.

i added more yeast energizer on the 6th (Sat), and it is bubbling a bit more actively than it had been. i'll probably just try to ignore it for a while and start checking its gravity again in three weeks.

thanks y'all.

 

[portlandbeergeek]

I brewed a similar mead last week. It was my first mead, so i'm not quite sure what i'm doing I added energizer and nutrients along with the yeast right away. Three days later I added another 2.5 tsp. each of energizer and nutrients and put the airlock back in. Half a second later the airlock shot up and hit the ceiling, and my carboy foamed up. It looked like a bottle of champagne that was shaken just before opening. I lost a good quart or two.
I guess this dosen't have anything to do with your question....I'm just sharing.

 

[Unregistered]

Just be patient!. I originally brewed this same Mead in 1997 for my daughter's wedding in '98. It was a disappointment because it wasn't ready. I stored it in my basement in a dark cool place and tasted it for several months and it still tasted like turpentine but I hate to toss out my labors so I let it sit and literally forgot about it for another 4 years. When I 'discovered' the stash in 2004 I opened a bottle and it was truly a sweet honey champagne and verrrry potent. I couldn't keep people away from it but it was only for sipping and what treasure. Well I started another batch this past October and just today transferred it from the secondary carboy to bottles. It is much milder in taste, probably because I used raw honey and kept it in the secondary stage much longer. I know it will get better so I'm letting this one 'sleep' for about a year before I interrupt one of the bottles and test it. Today's advice is "be patient", good luck and enjoy your beer in the meantime. The Specific gravity of my first batch was O.G 1.100 with a F.G of 1.014. My most recent batch measured O.G. 1.114 and F.G. of 1.002 - by my calculations about 11.55% alcohol.

 

[JayMan]

I made an antipodal mead in the winter of 2005, racked it into a secondary in the spring and bottled it in the fall of 2006. It wasn't Charlie's recipe exactly but close although I used a french "champange" yeast from white labs to sparkle it a bit. My buddy and I just shared a bottle over lunch and it is fantastic, but not totally done yet. Come spring of 2030 we'll climb up into the Uintas and unearth the case we buried in 2007, should be at it's peak. Basically, if you're making a mead you're making an excellent choice but it takes quite a bit of patience.

 

[Nimrod1193]

I plan on brewing a batch of mead using Papazian's recipe tomorrow. I plan to use Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead Yeast instead of the champagne yeast. Is this going to be good to go, or should I stick to the recipe? Also, how many days into the fermentation do I need to keep aerating and adding nutrients? I plan to serve this in two years for my parent’s 50th anniversary.