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  1. elephant

    I think I messed up badly ... thoughts?

    Thanks guys, yeah t was sitting outside for ages. Like a few months. It's been hot the last week, but not before then. There was a fair bit of headspace in the one I'm using to top off, but the others there's not much. I'm basically trying to figure out of it might be dangerous to drink.
  2. elephant

    I think I messed up badly ... thoughts?

    So I had three jugs of mead going ... two are "flavoured" and one is just straight traditional mead that I use to top up the other two jugs once they've been racked. Anyway, that traditional mead I just had it lying around outside without an air-lock (it had a cloth tied over it). I just...
  3. elephant

    Lost my Head

    I don't know why it's changed, but I think you should expect it to be only lightly fizzy. To get it to be really carbonated you need to do a second, pressurized fermentation. I'm certainly not a kombucha expert (only on my second batch personally, and I don't plan to ever make it really heady...
  4. elephant

    Why does my scoby look so gross?

    Thanks ... although I wasn't really worried about it being "super healthy" or not. ;) I assumed it was all good because my kombucha tastes delicious. I was more just wondering how all the folk on Google Images make theirs looks so neat. If it's some kind of natural process or additive, or if...
  5. elephant

    Why does my scoby look so gross?

    I know none of them look exactly "pretty", but if I do a Google search, there's lots of pictures of relatively neat looking scobies. Mine looks like a mess with gross little tentacles hanging off it and stuff. Do people take them out and trim them to look really neat or something? This is what...
  6. elephant

    One of my jugs has stalled ... weird ... chuck it out?

    I think I'll just use water from now on. Mind you I braved it and drank a glass of that batch and I'm not dead yet. Everything to me points to it being fine, especially considering the other batch, which was excatly the same mix, finished on pretty much exactly the same gravity. Suggests to me...
  7. elephant

    Best way to get labels off wine & whiskey bottles?

    I actually found a very effective way ... I collect old books and sometimes you get them with a price tag from 1980 or something still on them. I found the best way is to scratch if off very carefully, then cover it oil and a layer of plastic wrap and leave it there for 24 hours ... or at least...
  8. elephant

    One of my jugs has stalled ... weird ... chuck it out?

    I dunno if anyone is still following this, but I still need some advice. I have a bit more information ... the second ~gallon jug finished a couple of days ago. I took a reading today ... and it's almost exactly the same as the first one, 1.022 gravity, which is hardly surprising since they...
  9. elephant

    Best way to get labels off wine & whiskey bottles?

    Thread title says it all. I tried to peel them off but now they're covered in sticky glue and half torn off labels.
  10. elephant

    Show us your Mead in a photo!!!

    This is literally my second ever mead. My first one was last week. Actually ... this is kind of my 1 and half mead, considering it's my 2nd ever mead with the headspace topped up using my first ever mead. The recipes are a bit different but I don't care about mixng them. I made it with bread...
  11. elephant

    One of my jugs has stalled ... weird ... chuck it out?

    Hey guys, thanks for all your helpful responses, I do appreciate that. To answer your questions:- The size of the batches are 5 liters each (~1.3 gallons). Yes, the sanitizer mix was diluted, although very strongly. I just filled a small (~150ml, ~1/2 cup) container full of hot water, added a...
  12. elephant

    One of my jugs has stalled ... weird ... chuck it out?

    What's the "fermentation krausen"? On both of them, the froth from the fermenting must went up into the air-lock in the first couple of days. I had to clean them both out. I'm worried somehow the sanitizer form the airlock got back into the must and made one of them inhospitable to yeast, and...
  13. elephant

    One of my jugs has stalled ... weird ... chuck it out?

    Hey, I have two jugs of braggot going - it's a simple recipe with pellet hops, 1/2 honey and 1/2 amber beer malt extract and larger yeast. What is weird is they are both exactly the same (they even came from the same mixture pot!), but one of them hasn't bubbled at all for almost a week while...
  14. elephant

    First meads report.

    Just out of curiosity for future reference, if I did bottle it now while it's very quietly fizzing after I stir it (I have to have my ear right up to the opening), would I risk blowing stuff up? Or would it just become "sparkling". I ask as I have a few mead-beers (kind of braggots) on the go...
  15. elephant

    First meads report.

    Thanks! Anyway ... that mead is actually coming along surprisingly well. I did exactly as you suggested, I racked it, being careful not to suck up the sludge, then topped it up leaving only a tiny bit of head space, with a mixture of water and honey (250g). I left it outside overnight...
  16. elephant

    First meads report.

    That was a very interesting video. It leads to one more quesiton ... I've watched a few of these videos now where guys are "santisting" things and then seemingly not worried about rinsing any of the sanitizer off. They just pour stuff into jugs full of bubbles and use equipment still covered in...
  17. elephant

    First meads report.

    Really great info, thanks for sharing it. I don't mean to hammer you with questions, but what do you mean, "wash the yeast"? You mean like literally wash it off with water? It just looks like cloudy sediment at the bottom of the jug, it doesn't look like the yeast that came out of the dry...
  18. elephant

    First meads report.

    Thanks for all your help and detailed replies, I really appreciate that. Very interesting stuff. So that gunk at the bottom is now actually "yeast mead" huh? From bread mead? Interesting. I guess I'll have to look up how that works. One other question ... even if it tastes a bit like fruit...
  19. elephant

    First meads report.

    P.S ... on second tasting, the flavours aren't actually even that horrible. It's just got a weird super-zesty fizz to it, like orange juice left out in the sun.
  20. elephant

    First meads report.

    Well ... it doesn't get any more fermented than this, right? It seems to be a 0 on the gravity reading... Initial Gravity ... only 19 days ago ... was 1.084.... I had a taste of it and I was dissapointed. It didn't give me gag reflexes or anything, it just didn't taste very nice. Slightly...
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