My First Mead -Got Questions

[BlackSundog]

So , I just bought a mead brewing kit on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ICTNPK8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

But as a few have noted, I feel this kit is for more experienced home brewers.

I've a few questions before I start:


1. I've only done some extract brewing prior. On sanitation -I was going to use iodophor but can I use campden tablets? 4 crushed tabs as a rinse in a quart of water? (And how long do I Rinse? And after rinsing, do i just air dry, or rinse again with water?)

http://www.eckraus.com/blog/campden-tablets-what-they-can-and-cant-do


2. On honey -the kit says that FDA regulated honey + distilled water is fine. Just...dump it in with "DO NOT BOIL" it capitalized bolded letters. None of the stuff has crystalized.

This is all good right?

3. I have to rehydrate this yeast packet but...

The packet contains enough yeast for " 5 gallons". I have a 2 gallon fermentation bucket, and 1 gallon glass carboy. Do I want to measure a 1/5th of this packet, or can I just dump the whole thing in (Included were 3 of them)? Is there any disadvantage to this?


4. Spices & other ingredients:

- the kit included a big bag of toasted oak
- I bought 333g/12oz of Raw Organic Blue Agave nectar
- In the meantime, I've taken an interest in Capsicumel (something sweet AND spicy maybe?)

http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/honey-sun-iqhilika-mead--african-birds-eye-chili/69687/
http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=105184&st=0&p=1388424&#entry1388424

So in preparing the must.....what should go in it? I've heard peppers can add "wooden" notes, does that mean the oak would go well with hot peppers?

What of my Agave? Could it ALL go "in the pot" as it were and come out great or should these ingredients become 3 different meads? Also, if I do go with a capiscumel/chilimel, is it better to put the peppers in the secondary as the above did or....can I put them in primary? The directions of the kit only talk about adding spices in primary fermentation.

Also, is it better to add a whole pepper or two, or add dried and ground spice?

5. Sugar Breaks:

The directions talk about "sugar breaks". You determine the 3 of them by taking the specific gravity of the original must. You take the original gravity, determine what your final gravity should be based on ABV tolerance of the yeast (it does not say on the package of Red Star dry wine yeast), and then break the that number (the difference) into 3rds. You're supposed to aerate the must daily while within the first "sugar break".

That aside um...how DO I use a hydrometer? The kit includes one, but says nothing on its use.


6. What about...a "short" mead? How do you make your mead ferment faster?

What do you have to say about short meads?

:fro:

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Blacksundog - and welcome. I will try to answer one or two of your questions.
In no particular order - A "short mead" is usually a mead with low ABV and which is designed to be bottled and drunk shortly after fermentation has ceased- You are talking about a couple or 3 months. Fermentation takes the same amount of time but a short mead will have fewer issues that need to be aged out. You make a mead with a relatively high gravity and you ferment it at higher rather than lower temperatures then you need to age it 6 or 9 or 12 months or more.

"Sugar breaks" I think, refer to supposed good times to feed nutrient to the yeast. Typically the amount of nutrient needed is based on the quantity of honey being fermented in the volume of liquid. Honey is notoriously poor food for yeast. it is nutrient poor. So, mead makers divide up the amount of nutrient they intend to feed the yeast into three and feed the first 1/3 as soon as the yeast has become active; If your starting gravity is say 1.090 then you would feed the yeast next when the gravity drops to about 1.045 and a third feeding would be at the point when the gravity drops to about 1.020.

Boiling the must: In the past I have to assume that when water contained all kinds of questionable bacteria and parasites folk would boil their water (they may still imagine that all wine making is a subset of brewing and so boil fruit and honey) but honey ain't grain and boiling honey (indeed heating honey) destroys flavor and aroma molecules... so you use (spring) water at room temperature. Now to make honey more viscous - and so pour more easily - you might heat a pan of water and place the honey jars in that water for a few minutes.

Sanitizers and sanitation. In my opinion, Campden tabs are kinda expensive and an inefficient way to sanitize your fermenting equipment. They are OK for killing wild yeasts in a must but honey is in and of itself quite anti-microbial and if you look into how honey has been used in the past you will see that it was used often to cover wounds to PREVENT infection so IMO, there is really no great benefit in adding a crushed tablet to your must. But the active ingredient of Campden tabs is K-meta and K-meta when dissolved in water produces SO2 and SO2 is a very effective sanitizer of fermenting equipment. I think I generally use about 1 tablespoon of K-meta in a gallon of water as my sanitizer. It is effective for months in a sealed container (You can smell the SO2 - but don't try to!), and I find that it is effective both as a liquid soak and as a gas (to sanitize caps and corks). I generally allow equipment to sit in a bath of K-meta for a minute or two.
Since SO2 is a good sanitizer and since water is not in fact sanitized then you do not really want to wash off the sanitizer with water. A drop or two of the sanitizer will have no noticeable impact on any process and later on free SO2 (not all the SO2 is chemically free) inhibits oxidation (the lower the pH (the more acidic the wine or mead) the less free SO2 is needed to inhibit oxidation)

Last point - using yeast - I think that it is virtually impossible to "overpitch" yeast when you are mead or wine making at home. A package costs - what? A dollar or two? It is good for ANY volume between 1 and 5 gallons. Don't fret the pennies. Use the whole package - The downside of "saving" an opened package of yeast is that bacteria can proliferate in the package and so the next time you measure out the gram or so of yeast those cells will be competing with a host of other bacteria.

I will leave answers to questions about oak and ingredients to others as these are more about judgment calls and preferences

 

[BlackSundog]

Hi Blacksundog - and welcome. I will try to answer one or two of your questions.
In no particular order - A "short mead" is usually a mead with low ABV and which is designed to be bottled and drunk shortly after fermentation has ceased- You are talking about a couple or 3 months. Fermentation takes the same amount of time but a short mead will have fewer issues that need to be aged out. You make a mead with a relatively high gravity and you ferment it at higher rather than lower temperatures then you need to age it 6 or 9 or 12 months or more.

"Sugar breaks" I think, refer to supposed good times to feed nutrient to the yeast. Typically the amount of nutrient needed is based on the quantity of honey being fermented in the volume of liquid. Honey is notoriously poor food for yeast. it is nutrient poor. So, mead makers divide up the amount of nutrient they intend to feed the yeast into three and feed the first 1/3 as soon as the yeast has become active; If your starting gravity is say 1.090 then you would feed the yeast next when the gravity drops to about 1.045 and a third feeding would be at the point when the gravity drops to about 1.020.

Boiling the must: In the past I have to assume that when water contained all kinds of questionable bacteria and parasites folk would boil their water (they may still imagine that all wine making is a subset of brewing and so boil fruit and honey) but honey ain't grain and boiling honey (indeed heating honey) destroys flavor and aroma molecules... so you use (spring) water at room temperature. Now to make honey more viscous - and so pour more easily - you might heat a pan of water and place the honey jars in that water for a few minutes.

Sanitizers and sanitation. In my opinion, Campden tabs are kinda expensive and an inefficient way to sanitize your fermenting equipment. They are OK for killing wild yeasts in a must but honey is in and of itself quite anti-microbial and if you look into how honey has been used in the past you will see that it was used often to cover wounds to PREVENT infection so IMO, there is really no great benefit in adding a crushed tablet to your must. But the active ingredient of Campden tabs is K-meta and K-meta when dissolved in water produces SO2 and SO2 is a very effective sanitizer of fermenting equipment. I think I generally use about 1 tablespoon of K-meta in a gallon of water as my sanitizer. It is effective for months in a sealed container (You can smell the SO2 - but don't try to!), and I find that it is effective both as a liquid soak and as a gas (to sanitize caps and corks). I generally allow equipment to sit in a bath of K-meta for a minute or two.
Since SO2 is a good sanitizer and since water is not in fact sanitized then you do not really want to wash off the sanitizer with water. A drop or two of the sanitizer will have no noticeable impact on any process and later on free SO2 (not all the SO2 is chemically free) inhibits oxidation (the lower the pH (the more acidic the wine or mead) the less free SO2 is needed to inhibit oxidation)

Last point - using yeast - I think that it is virtually impossible to "overpitch" yeast when you are mead or wine making at home. A package costs - what? A dollar or two? It is good for ANY volume between 1 and 5 gallons. Don't fret the pennies. Use the whole package - The downside of "saving" an opened package of yeast is that bacteria can proliferate in the package and so the next time you measure out the gram or so of yeast those cells will be competing with a host of other bacteria.

I will leave answers to questions about oak and ingredients to others as these are more about judgment calls and preferences

Thanks for the info, one more thing though. The directions do note that honey is actually a poor nutrient source, and they do mention that a homebrew shop would carry nutrients. But what they offer instead, is the idea of using a "neutral" white grape or apple juice to start things off -it's not supposed to add any flavor as long as you don't use too much of it. What do you think of this, and how much should I add to a 1 gallon bucket?

Also...is white sugar heretical?

 

[NyQuil]

Just bear in mind my knowledge is limited compared to a lot of others on this board but:

Honey, and grapes to a degree, is a very nutrient deficient medium to grow an alcoholic beverage. The nutrients the directions talk about are probably are a blend of nitrogen and essential minerals which can be purchased at a local brew shop. It is usually packaged as Yeast Nutrient. A lot of people use Fermaid K as their nutrient. I haven't used that yet but plan on experimenting with it next.

For a one gallon batch you could also just boil down 25 raisins with some spring water and use the goop to feed your mead. That what we use when we make Joe's Ancient Orange Mead.

Not sure about white sugar being heretical but I haven't seen any recipes calling for, but a few do call for brown sugar. I'm not sure if that is due to white sugar typically being used to boost the alcohol on wine or some other reason.

 

[bernardsmith]

Mead is made with honey. Adding sugar - brown or white - except perhaps to prime (to carbonate in the bottle) is considered by most mead makers as not anything they would consider - But if you know precisely what flavors the sugar will impart and you want those flavors then adding sugar to honey is your call.

As to adding wine or cider to add nutrient - again, your call: fruit adds flavors. I guess I want more control over the range of flavors I am adding. I prefer to use ingredients that I view as not contributing to flavors if I only want the contribution to be nitrogen or nutrients..
I think by the way, that grapes are near perfect fermentables...which is why they are the fruit of choice of the world's best wine makers.