Recent content by fossilcat

Has the gravity changed at all? Counting bubbles is not a reliable indicator of fermentation.

Agreed, yet the sentence remains incomprehensible.

It was only a few years ago that I was looking for answers like you. I did a ton of research, read a couple of books, and read this forum regularly. Now, this year, I've got 20 gals of mead in secondary or beyond that I'm sure will all taste delicious. I uploaded one of my recipes that details...

I tried to do this but couldn't decide which side of my carboy was the front. Wasted a good moon too.

Hi JD Yes, I agree. Given the right conditions, 71B frequently outperforms it's stated alcohol tolerance level. I currently have 71B at 16% in a cranberry orange and another at 18% in a mango chili pepper. Yeah, pasteurizing makes me nervous. I don't feel right about heating my nearly finished...

So I'm bumping this cause I need some advice on a little problem that's developed with 2 of these Bochets, including the Blackberry that started this thread. Quick review, I fermented 3.5 gals with 71B and split to individual gallons with the 1/2 used to top off. OG was 1.110, FG is 1.025. I...

When I first started to make mead (about 4 years ago) I used the attached amounts and this short on line guide: https://www.winning-homebrew.com/melomels.html . Good starting points in my opinion but as bernardsmith suggests, if you're serious, and you'll know after your first brew, research...

Not sure if this is what you're talking about but.... My meads consistently taste and smell BAD from about 1.040 on. It lasts for a period of about 10 to 14 days. And it worries me EVERY time, I don't know why. You'd think I'd be more confident by now. But at the end of this period it starts to...

This is "most" of what I've got going now. I won't be doing anything else until the elderberries ripen, then the peaches....maybe. :D

Tossing the cubes and adding the whiskey was an option when I first thought of flavoring the blackberry with whiskey, and may still be for another brew later on. But the subtle introduction of the oak and whiskey taste over time seemed more in keeping with the character of mead, rather than the...

It looks real good! 1.015 is in the sweet zone so I'm not sure you'll want to backsweeten just yet. It's only a month old, which is very young, and it's at 17%. Give it another month or so in the carboy and then taste again. That'll give it time to blend tastes and age out some of the "burn"...

Thanks for the update JD. I, for one, am VERY interested in how this turns out. I've had very good success step feeding beyond a yeast's stated alcohol tolerance. I've pushed 71B to 18 a couple of times, and 1116 to 21, and that was an acidic cranberry juice environment. I've never tried...

So I pitched a 3.5 gal raspberry honey mead last night around 6p with 71B. About 3 hours later I went downstairs to see if I had made it through the lag phase and this is what I found. :rock:

So maybe a little too late for this racking (sorry bout that, just saw this), but I noticed that the precipitate in a melomel with fruit in primary has (at least) two levels: the very bottom is composed of the dead yeast, while everything above that is the spent fruit. When I get as much...

Thanks for the input guys. All VERY helpful. I have some Lagavulin that I was thinking of using but I'm afraid the "peety" flavor might overwhelm the blackberry. And a bottle of Jameson's Caskmate Stout but maybe I'll check out JD's recommendations before I commit. I've got med toasted...