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D47 is slow, so it will problably still be going for a bit. I'd guess it might end up at something like 1.010 to 1.020 given the D47's alcohol tolerance. As of sugar, it can balance out quite a few of the offtastes. While many comercial meads tend to be super sweet, a drier mead can easily be...

You can try to ferment at around the coldest temperature range for the yeast; then the process will be a bit slower but should not foam too much. This has benefits when it comes to taste and aging time as well. I have most experience with the D-47, which in itself often tend to be a slow...

I took that big piece of foam you can see in one of the pictures and jammed it into the window frame (with some blankets and stuff filling the smaller gaps). With the floor heating on medium strength, I'm able to keep it pretty fine at 17C now. If it drops, it'll go straight back into the...

There are various ways of doing things, but some add citrus directly to primary while others add to secondary. With very sour things, like lemons, adding to primary can be a big problem due to PH, but for less sour things it might be a benefit as certain fruit can provide a source for much...

Okay, I'm back now and it seems like fermentation is approaching done, or my room might have been too cold while I was away. More lees have dropped and minimal airlock-activity. Just checked gravity and it's around 1.007-8. I also had a small sample. Ofcourse it's young and has a bit of a...

Out of curiosity, what yeast did you use and at what temperature did you ferment this at?

See section 6.3 in this if you want to get an overview of what you can do to balance it: http://www.bjcp.org/mead/Mead_Study.pdf I'd recomend that you do small experiments with different taste-components and then scale it up to the full size when you have decided what works best. Sanitize...

Not from Scotland, but right across the pond; Norway. This particular part of Norway have traditionally had strong trade connections and cultural exchange with Scotland though. I like the idea of using heather tea as a bittering agent. I might want to try that. Would you think it's best to...

Thanks! Just wanted to be sure it wasn't like Lactose or Maltodextrin. I was talking to a beer-brewing friend of mine last fall, and he mentioned that certain kinds of sugars affect the fermentation and final taste, but he didn't go into the details on it. In the old days maybe they squeezed...

The thing with mead is; You often need enough honey for an Original Gravity of 1.100 or more to get enough flavour. This in addition to honey being very poor in nutrients and at times quite acidic, some beer and ale yeasts may not be able to handle it. This is the main reasons why certain wine...

As my first batch of mead started so well, and still I got some packs of D47 left, I am planning to try out a second batch. This will be a smaller and more fancy one; I am talking Heather Mead! I am still not back from vacation, and on the islands in the area of my family home there is...

Yes, but be aware that any other strain yeast you add will change the charasteristics of the final mead. ;)

I see you're pushing the yeast in terms of final ABV. I know some recipes suggest this if you want residue sweetness, but personally I preffer it to go dry and rather stabilize and backsweeten. This puts less strain on the yeast and as such reduces aging time. It seems to be typical for meads...

Cleared the floor and put blankets around before I left, so no stress if anything should happen.

If you washed the pwb throughly away before Star San was added (and no washing after Star San), then the bottles should have been fine... Pwb is an alkaline and Star San is acid. Any pwb left when Star San is added will neutralize and reduce the sanitizing ability of the Star San. It might...

Yes! There is quite a lot of it at least on the west coast of Norway. There are still recipes for Rowan jam in many of the cookbooks over here.

How does it act if you shake it around a bit? It almost looks like colonies of something, maybe some kind of mold or lactobacteria or something. Someone more experienced than me might be able to give more light on the case. If it is, then it problably got in during bottling as it's not in all...

Small update, racking is now complete! It went pretty well, only briefely hit the top of a carboy with the bottle-filler once but otherwise no spilling. Sometimes I wish I had three arms though! Unsurprisingly the last carboy of the racking was the first to pick up steam afterwards, but now...

Thanks for the replies! I've decided to rack, so I've been getting everything ready for tomorrow. I'm going to rack into 5L glass carboys, as these are a bit more practical to handle than the buckets with regards to excess airspace, you cannot get any bigger of the glass ones in this area and...

It's down to 1.020, but I got a small logistic problem. I'm soon leaving for the holidays and won't be returning till well into January. Should I rack it on Tuesday (before I leave), or should I wait till I return (that's about 2-3 weeks extra in primary)? While it might be pretty critical to...