My first Meads

[195877]

Greetings fellow brewers (I say that with confidence, but haven't brewed anything yet)

Today I visited a local Honey Farm ("The Bee Tree" in Lewis Colorado) and picked up 6lbs of a raw honey (Clover/Sagebrush) What an amazing flavor!

Mixed up a batch in a 3gal carboy to be racked-off into 1gal jugs. I'm thinking I'll leave 1gal as a traditional show and the 2nd perhaps will get cherries or black currant, some spices, who knows?

2.25 gallons of spring water
5.5 lbs of the Bee Tree honey
5 g pack of Lalvin D-47
I'll be staggering LD Carlson's (started today)
Yeast Nutrient (total 2 tsp) and Yeast Energizer (total 1 tsp) over the next 48hrs or so.
OG is at 1.080 (seems a little low using Got Mead Calculator)


I also have a "Storm The Castle" easy mead that I started on 01/06/16 (balloon on plastic Spring Water container is still inflated, LOL, this is my first brew ever)
1 gal water
2.4 lbs clover honey (walmart)
1pkg Flieshmans bread yeast
1 orange
12 raisins
OG 1.096
Plan on adding 2 cups of blueberries and 1/2 cup dried rosehips to the secondary

Any thoughts on today's mix, or the balloon experiment (LOL) are welcome

TK

 

[bernardsmith]

Sounds good. Not sure about the value of using bread yeast in a mead. Bread yeast is not cultivated to flocculate well (drop out of suspension) so it kind of hangs around making for a more cloudy/hazy mead than you might get with yeasts that flocculate better (wine yeasts for example, and some beer yeasts)...
I think the gravity sounds a little low ( i might have expected the SG to be closer to 1.088) but some honey has more water in it and if the water you are dissolving the honey in is warm or hot then the gravity of that water is going to be lower. Also, if the honey is not really well distributed then you are not necessarily going to get a typical reading when you take a sample. But that said, you are talking about a potential ABV of between 10.5 and 11.5 so you are going to be dealing with a mead of about 11 % ABV assuming that you ferment this dry...

 

[JJack887]

I have a pomegranate melomel I had to make with bread yeast. It's been over two months and it just started to begin clearing after a re-rack, and it'll probably be another two months for it to be bottle-clear. But, as long as the mead tastes good...

 

[JJack887]

Also, that batch had an OG of 1.094 and went down to 1.003 at racking – bread yeast will work if they're happy.

 

[ReDim]

Lalvin EC-1118 sometimes they say it's a Champlain yest. I got 10 packs of it for like $8 on Amazon and I pitch 2 re-hydrated packs for a 5 g batch. I tried white labs yest, but the only difference I see is in price.

I added more pom juice and seeds to my Pomegrate Mel in the secondary. It tastes good, some-one remind me why I need to age it again ?

I am exited about blood orange, need to add nutrients today, also maybe add more juice. Today is day 4.

I got Sparkolloid, it says to mix into wine and wait a month before bottling. Maybe I should get yest killer.

I think tart cherry concentrate might need either more cherry or raking for long term storage. I was going to add more cherry concentrate to secondary, but my girlfriend was against it. So it needs attention.

Running out of carboys. Since mid December 2 5gal batches of mead are gone.

 

[Maylar]

I followed the JAOM recipe using bread yeast per instructions and it took the mead to 15% ABV. I was impressed. Crystal clear in 65 days, too.

Just be careful when racking off the lees - the bread yeast lees are light and fluffy and easily disturbed. Just lifting the carboy from the floor to table kicked up a cloud that took a few days to settle. Ditto when siphoning, don't touch the lees.

 

[195877]

I followed the JAOM recipe using bread yeast per instructions and it took the mead to 15% ABV. I was impressed. Crystal clear in 65 days, too.

Just be careful when racking off the lees - the bread yeast lees are light and fluffy and easily disturbed. Just lifting the carboy from the floor to table kicked up a cloud that took a few days to settle. Ditto when siphoning, don't touch the lees.

The lees did look very "light and fluffy" and easily disturbed in the video I watched to make it. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[195877]

I have a pomegranate melomel I had to make with bread yeast. It's been over two months and it just started to begin clearing after a re-rack, and it'll probably be another two months for it to be bottle-clear. But, as long as the mead tastes good...

The pomegranate mead sounds really good, I love pomegranate and might try one in the future.

 

[NyQuil]

I also have a "Storm The Castle" easy mead that I started on 01/06/16 (balloon on plastic Spring Water container is still inflated, LOL, this is my first brew ever)
1 gal water
2.4 lbs clover honey (walmart)
1pkg Flieshmans bread yeast
1 orange
12 raisins
OG 1.096
Plan on adding 2 cups of blueberries and 1/2 cup dried rosehips to the secondary

Any thoughts on today's mix, or the balloon experiment (LOL) are welcome

TK

Just be careful when racking off the lees - the bread yeast lees are light and fluffy and easily disturbed. Just lifting the carboy from the floor to table kicked up a cloud that took a few days to settle. Ditto when siphoning, don't touch the lees.

Agree with this, I have found the JAOM bread yeast to be easily disturbed. Normally I will move it to an area where I am going to siphon it and then leave it there (covered with a towel if the area gets sunlight) for a week just to make sure everything is settled.

 

[195877]

Agree with this, I have found the JAOM bread yeast to be easily disturbed. Normally I will move it to an area where I am going to siphon it and then leave it there (covered with a towel if the area gets sunlight) for a week just to make sure everything is settled.

I wont touch the lees, thanks (I won't even look at em' lol), I plan on adding some blueberries to the second and have purchased some glass marbles so I wont be concerned for the loss or headspace.