Search results

As long as all the sanitizer is washed out, I don't foresee any problems. Never complain about free buckets!

Basically what Yooper said. Keep in mind yeast are microscopic critters and they take time to establish a good colony.

Maybe a mead with a higher pectin content could give a "thicker" mouthfeel?

It's possible, but risky. Under certain conditions, and with the right nutrients, yeasts can far exceed their typical alcohol tolerance. Just when I thought my orange mead was done, it started back up again seemingly out of nowhere and now it's pushing 19% ABV.

Unless you're sure its just a protein haze, I'd definitely hold off on bottling until its clear. If there are yeast in suspension, they can wake up in the bottle and restart fermentation and depending on the residual sugars, you get bottle bombs. Use bentonite or another fining agent, or just...

We all were - we are usually excited for all the other batches too. Keep us updated!

A lot of the time if you have fruit in your fermentation, the yeast nutrient becomes optional as they can usually get it from the fruits involved. I think if you're going to have a substantial amount of cranberry in your mead you'll be ok.

I've seen a "high abv high gravity" yeast at my LHBS that says it can go up to 25% ABV. Dunno how that works but I'm thinking about seeing how high I can get it to go in a traditional mead and aging it on oak to try and emulate whiskey flavors.

You can drink your mead whenever you want to, but if its full of yeast it'll be gross. Cold crashing your mead in the fridge will help to pull the yeast out of suspension and make them dormant -- if you're interested in aging after the cold crash you will need to stabilize with sulfites and...

Who needs vision anyway!

Distilled water isn't recommended for stuff like brewing coffee or tea since it's so "chemically squeaky clean." It has a hard time dissolving the chemical compounds resulting in a weaker brew. Maybe for a melomel it wouldn't be so great since it might have a harder time extracting fruit flavor...

Its very popular in Indian cuisine to have the same spices in both raw and cooked forms to highlight all the flavors of the spices. If you have a honey you really like why not apply that same methodology? Make a traditional mead, ferment it dry, stabilize and backsweeten with the same honey...

Sounds awesome. I enjoy a good sour ale from time to time. I never even thought about a sour mead... it definitely sounds like it'd need some serious age to smooth things out a bit though.

The JAOM recipe is specifically made to balance bitterness, fruit flavor, and sweetness. If you leave out the pith it'll be too sweet. If you use a real wine yeast it'll ferment too bitter. The recipe is tried and true and with very very very minimal exceptions it should not be deviated from. I...

5 pounds of honey in 4 gallons is not much at all. Typically most meads call for 3-4 lbs per gallon of water.

Viking Blod was my very first mead. It was good enough that I ended up on this forum every day with 12 gallons of mead fermenting in my back room. I hope you enjoy :)

Oh no, my experience was great. It was just very nearly bad. ;)

Not to mention that honey can boil over in a moment's notice. Good advice here.

While helpful, a yeast nutrient isn't absolutely required. Raisins are a common option, as is boiled bread yeast (that is to say, dead yeast). Forsaking an actual nutrient blend from your LHBS, raisins and boiled yeast should work just fine. I can't speak from experience on re-using your lees...

Yes.