Just started the hobby. Brew log.

[Chasawah]

Just started the hobby, watched probably 100 hours of how to etc. and decided "Hey.. I drink lets make it myself" and dropped a few bucks into starting.

Im going to keep my first set of "projects" updated here for... whatever reason.

Everything was sprayed and/or rinsed with 1step sanitizer, including the work surface, surrounding area, and myself.

2 "Juice bottle wine" (started 8/7/23)

2 bottles of Welch's Concord Grape
- 1.5cups juice
+ .75 sugar
+ 1/4tsp Ferm-o
+1/2tsp Yeast
1 Bottle has MO5 Yeast, one has D47 Yeast

4 Carboy Mead 2 recipe 2 yeasts, the recipes are very similar, only difference being 2.5lbs honey vs 3lbs honey. After looking at the SG of each I realize there should be very little difference. (started 8/10/23)

2 Carboy
2.5lbs "local raw" honey
+Spring water up to bottom of OneGallon mark on carboy
(vigorous shaking)
1 tsp Ferm-O
Carboy A 5g D47 yeast
Carboy B 1tsp MO5 yeast (edited after looking at my notes)
SG for these appears to be 1.112 (not sure I measured correctly)
(a few more shakes)
Clean bunghole fill airlock, close up.


2 Carboy
3lbs Kirkland's Wildflower Honey
+Spring water to bottom of One Gallon mark
1tsp Ferm-O
(shake shake)
Carboy 2A 5g D47 yeast
Carboy 2B 1tsp MO5 yeast (edited after looking at my notes)
SG appears to be 1.12 (again not sure I measured correctly)
(a few shakes)
Clean and close.

Ill update when anything interesting happens or if anyone asks a question or gives a suggestion.

 

[IslandLizard]

Looks good!
At what temperature are these fermenter jugs kept?

Given the relatively smallish headspace, it's probably wise to prevent excessive foaming by keeping the temps toward the cooler side of the yeast's range. For D47 that would be between 62-70F.

Keep an eye on how high and how fast that foam rises. If it goes bonkers it may even blow the airlocks off, making a mess, while losing precious mead/wine to the countertop.
For some reason explosive fermentations usually happen overnight or whenever no-one is watching it.

 

[Chasawah]

The D47 overflowed the grape juice around the 15hr mark, which is why they are in a sheetpan now. The house is kept around 75. Ill definately keep an eye on the D47s.

 

[IslandLizard]

The D47 overflowed the grape juice around the 15hr mark, which is why they are in a sheetpan now. The house is kept around 75. Ill definately keep an eye on the D47s.

Look up swamp coolers/cooling.
And find a cooler place in the home perhaps?

Once the big, turbulent fermentation is nearing completion, the foam starts to recede. At that stage it's recommended to place the fermenters in somewhat higher temps, 68-76F to keep the yeast engaged, so she can finish out the attenuation, while sliding into her conditioning phase. I'd keep it there for at least another 2-3 weeks, possibly longer, depending on the clarity, before racking to secondaries for the long conditioning haul.

 

[Chasawah]

So my carboys have slowed down a lot, I gave them a few swirls and they bubbled a lot, but seem to be producing considerably less bubbles.... I added 1 tsp ferm-o when I started them, and I seen a lot of people say they dont use any nutrients and some say add it several times... Its been 2 days should I be seeing a slowdown like this, or should I add more Ferm-O?

They look and smell great, much lighter in color and giving off a nice honey smell.

 

[Chasawah]

Degassed and added 1/2 tsp ferm-o... almost had an eruption on one.

Also, was looking at my notes and used a tsp to gram calculator and it says yeast is 4.68g per tsp. I used a 10g packet of MO5 and only scooped out half, so I must have been using a 1/2tsp scoop. I will change it in my notes.

 

[Chasawah]

So I tested one of the carboys today, and it went from 1.112 to 1.009 in 7 days. Is that a normal rate? And we poured our gravity test mead into cup and are drinking it, anyone else do this? Tastes kind of like honey and pineapple....

 

[Mkrice2]

Oh I taste mine all the time out of the gravity tester. I just did that earlier with some Vikings Blood that I just racked into secondary today.

 

[Chasawah]

Racked the D47 with raw honey to some bottles, and it has a sort of fake taste, like plastic almost. It is drinkable but just has a weird flavor in it like drinking from a hot cheap plastic bottle. Any ideas what that might be, or is it common for some people to taste that in a D47 yeast traditional mead? The MO5 using the same honey did not taste like this.

Also poured one of the wines into a bottle, it isnt the best wine ive had but it also isnt the worst. Definitely has some ABV to it, which I did not measure.

 

[Chasawah]

So we racked both D47 carboys into 34oz bottles, the raw honey came out to 13% abv and the wildflower came out to a little over 16%. Both have subtle honey flavor, the wildflower16% is dry. We also racked both wines, and they are pretty good. Just started a white grape wine in one of the empty carboys.

I like the hobby and cheap booze.

 

[DollarStoreChili]

So we racked both D47 carboys into 34oz bottles, the raw honey came out to 13% abv and the wildflower came out to a little over 16%. Both have subtle honey flavor, the wildflower16% is dry. We also racked both wines, and they are pretty good. Just started a white grape wine in one of the empty carboys.

I like the hobby and cheap booze.

It may also be helpful to log your brews on paper as well. I keep a semi-meticulous log of batches in a notebook.
Ingredients, yeast type, gravity readings and dates, special preparation methods, etc.

Grape juice comes out really well. Purple grape especially ferments very vigorously. I've cleaned more airlocks of
purple grape juice than any other brew.

 

[Chasawah]

Yeah I got 4 more carboys and have already brewed more... I have 3 fails where I did 2 lb honey 1 lb frozen fruit strawberry, blueberry, and cherry... they all came out kinda gross, especially the strawberry. Also did 3 clover 1 orange blossom 3lbs each... the clover is super good havent racked and tasted the orange blossom yet. And did a white grape in the carboy which is pretty good as well.

 

[bushpilot]

I am still on the fence with concord grape juice based wines. Young, they taste too "grapey" to me, but I recently cracked open a 2 year old bottle of grape-raspberry mead (raspberry pyment), and it was quite good.

I have a couple of concord grape wines and pyments aging right now, and am withholding judgement until I taste them. But they tasted grapey when bottled.

Most white grape juices I find have preservatives in them. Welch white grape does. What did you find to use?

 

[bushpilot]

Don't toss the fails, most are quite fine after aging!

 

[Dan O]

Mead is magical. As @bushpilot mentioned, most meads turn out fine with some aging. It seems, (in my experience) most meads that were so-so when I made them turned out to be quite nice after a year of bulk aging.