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Hi all, I've been more-or-less following the standard recipe for this on the website but with actual squeezed lemons, not bottled "Realemon" (which isn't a thing in this country afaik). The fermentation went very well but it has been clearing for around a month now and it's a long way from...

Thanks, buddy. That makes my life easier!

I've tried some pretty foul wine kits. They are usually really pale and sour. I've found Beaverdale kits (not sure if they are available in the US) to be the best I have tried and they aren't too expensive. A good rule of thumb is to assume that a 30-bottle kit is really only a 25-26 bottle...

I've just ripped the zest from a dozen lemons to make a batch of limoncello and figured I'd have a go at a gallon of skeeter pee with all the juice in the newly bald fruit. There are a couple of problems though (apols if questions have been asked already - 1700+ posts is a lot to check through)...

Shame we never heard any more about this - my macabre curiosity is piqued. Is there an additive that could reduce the acidity a jot?

I had a phantom fermentation in one batch. It started at 1.080 and I left it for two weeks in a fairly warm place and there wasn't a bubble, not even any noticeable pressure difference i the airlock. I opened it up to repitch to start it going and thought I'd take the gravity while I was doing...

I got a degassing wand for christmas wand so the next batch is going to get royally whoooshed during primary. Wheeeee!

I think that the FAQ answer to nutrient pitching is along the lines of: 50% when pitching yeast 30% 24 hours later 20% once the gravity is half way between start and target (so about 1.040 for you) I use Tronzymol as well and I'm extremely unscientific about it. I pick a quantity between...

I didn't know Middle Farm did mead. I thought that they were mostly ciders. Now you told me not to get them I might have to ;) (I don't mind sweet too much). I've been a bit gung-ho with my yeast up to now. I didn't even write down what yeast I was using (I didn't realise that there were...

Has it been bubbling through the airlock? If my internal calculator is correct that would have started around 1.080 so I daresay fermentation is going on but to only drop to 1.074 in ten days is fairly slow in my limited experience. This is probably due to the lack of nutrients. If you...

I'm not really talking about a specific batch as much as a hypothetical one. I do have a couple of rank bottles but I'm not familiar enough with the different tastes to determine which sort of horrible it is. I suspect it's because I bottled it far too early. There's gunk in the bottom of the...

Does bulk aging (by this I assume you mean aging in a barrel or semijon/carboy) produce different results to aging in the bottle? I've bottled immediately after clearing but don't intend to open them for six months.

I gave a bottle of my first dreadful effort to a gang of revellers on a mission to get wasted. One of them was kind enough to say it tasted "interesting". By far the best compliment it received.

The couple of recent "my mead tastes bad" threads has made me think about what to do with mead projects that end up being disgusting. While this forum is generally postive about the outlook for most batches, there will inevitably be some failures but I figure that tasting revolting shouldn't...

You can get away with an educated guess instead of a hydrometer (i.e. it hasn't bubbled for a while and tastes kinda alcoholic - assume it's finished) but you're running the risk that your bottles will explode. I recommend using something transparent as you wait for it to clear because it...

Someone here mentioned that dissolving some Werthers original for flavouring might be an idea so I gave it a try, topping up with a Werthers solution after stablising the primary, chucking in a camden tablet and racking to a glass vessel. After a few hours a whole load of creamy gunk has...

Many here will advocate doing it exactly as you are - leaving any flavours until you rack to secondary.

It's pretty expensive in the UK, too. There is a honey farm locally that vends both self-produced and imported stuff. The cheapest honey they have is "blended" which is a little over £5 (~$8) for 3lbs but own honey is twice that. My favourite is "Greek honey" which weighs in at a mighty £12...

I'm not an expert but from reading similar questions I think you'll want to add a honey/water mix to add sweetness when you first rack it (or any time between primary fermentation and bottling as far as I can tell), but before you do that you'll want to make sure that the new sugary goodness...

I've just recently emptied out my shed and am thinking about leaving my secondaries out there to clear. I hear that mead clears better in colder environs but am a bit worried that it might not like constantly changing temperature and it might get too cold. The Brighton climate bottomed out at...