A few questions

[Brewer1986]

I was thinking or making a few batches of plain Mead and then back sweeten with multiple honeys and spices. Do you think that would work?

I sure do. I don't know how well the spices will take but I say give it a try! And let me know how it goes I would love to hear and possibly try it myself.

 

[jackfrost]

I sure do. I don't know how well the spices will take but I say give it a try! And let me know how it goes I would love to hear and possibly try it myself.

I plan on heating the (cheap) honey up to about 100 to 110 add spice back. And or fruit. Store and let simmer for an HR then cool then back sweeten my mead

 

[Brewer1986]

I plan on heating the (cheap) honey up to about 100 to 110 add spice back. And or fruit. Store and let simmer for an HR then cool then back sweeten my mead

That sounds like an awesome plan! It sounds stable. Don't burn your honey and be sure to taste I can't wait to hear how it turns out!

 

[jackfrost]

That sounds like an awesome plan! It sounds stable. Don't burn your honey and be sure to taste I can't wait to hear how it turns out!

Thank you for the vote of confidence think I will get started o. That tomorrow mite take one of my 1yr Meads and test it out..naw. probly start from scratch

 

[Smiddy1488]

Added 1 tsp citric acid yesterday and found out i had too much vodka for it to be able to push through the airlock. It's bubbling every 8-10 seconds now though!

 

[scottv]

I need to get some cheap vodka myself. I've been using water with just s little bit of sanitizer. I haven't had any problems.

 

[jackfrost]

Taaka. Vodka is cheap and good LOL I use it in mixed drinks 6.60 a liter

 

[fatbloke]

-----snip----
Vodka is cheap -----snip-----

Not here it isn't matey.

last time I checked, the excise duty on spirits works out at about £6/nearly 10$ per bottle - and while we don't usually pay VAT/sales tax on food/food products, if it's considered "luxury" food, it gets the usual 20% on top, hence even the cheapest vodka is IRO of £11 - £12 per bottle.

Which explains why people here are less likely to use it in an airlock, but wouldn't be too bothered if it was going into a batch for fortification. An airlock evaporates, effectively wastes it, fortification preserves it so it gets drunk later on......

I plan on heating the (cheap) honey up to about 100 to 110 add spice back. And or fruit. Store and let simmer for an HR then cool then back sweeten my mead

If you do a bit of research how spice extracts are made, you'd find that for most of the spices commonly used for flavouring like this (stuff like cloves, vanilla, cinnamon, etc), they are "extracted" by steeping in higher strength alcohol (vodka right the way up to high strength spirit like "everclear"). So it's actually usually easier to add them as whole spices, but in small amounts, given that you'd have no way of telling how powerful the flavour can be (cloves are a very good example of that). So say, 1 clove per gallon of "finished" mead, then leave it for 3 or 4 weeks and taste for spicing level. Multiple spices can be hard to work out as some of the spice flavours will mask or counteract others, so it would be best to do this one flavour at a time - of course, that makes it quite a slow process, but it's better to use too little, than to use too much (too much clove can quickly make a batch undrinkable). Once the flavour is in the batch, if you use too much, it's virtually impossible to get it out......

 

[Smiddy1488]

I need to get some cheap vodka myself. I've been using water with just s little bit of sanitizer. I haven't had any problems.

Yeah don't think it makes too much of a difference but it's a little bit better to obviously

 

[scottv]

Well I think it's more of a factor if the vodka gets into the must no harm no foul. If the sanitizer gets in eeeeew. But I have been careful.

 

[fatbloke]

Well I think it's more of a factor if the vodka gets into the must no harm no foul. If the sanitizer gets in eeeeew. But I have been careful.

Which is why I make up home made sanitiser from the recipe by CJJ Berry in his "First Steps in Wine Making" book.

It's just 5 crushed campden tablets and 1 teaspoon of citric acid all dissolved in a pint of water. I keep it in a hand spray and after everything has been washed and rinsed, I just spray liberally allowing for 2 or 3 minutes of contact time.

I also just squirt some of it into my airlocks. It's not got anything in it that would harm a wine or affect taste etc and it's a zillion times cheaper than buying something special or even wasting perfectly good drinking vodka.....

 

[Smiddy1488]

Ok so I've just taken out my raisins and strained them. Tried to take a hydrometer test but it basically just sunk to the bottom of anything I would put it in and my mead tastes like a vodka shot? After one week? 0.0 Any ideas?

Oh and I also can't taste any blackberries nor honey lol

 

[Smiddy1488]

Urgh double post, sorry guys.

 

[scottv]

I can not answer that. Hopefully fatbloke or golddiggie sees this. I just did my first racking into my carboy and added 9 lbs of peach purée and it does not look to great lol. Has a strong alcohol smell. The taste is ok but not like meads I have tried. So as golddiggie says I'm gonna put it in a dark corner and leave it the jxhcfhfgjjbfy alone lol.

 

[fatbloke]

Well on the basis that a hydrometer floats high before a ferment and the brew has lots of sugar and you say that now it sinks ?

It sounds like you may have a finished ferment on your hands.

Ok so its easiest if you have a 100ml test jars so you can take a sample (if the test jar is sanitise as well as the hydrometer I just make my tests and the put the sample back into the batch). The reading should be 1.000 or close to it. The test jar is used so its easiest to see the hydrometer scale but if your fermenter is a bucket and the liquid is deep enough for the hydrometer to float (and you can still see the scale) just sanitising it and dropping it in the bucket is also fine.

The taste you describe sounds like "alcohol hot". Which isn't a surprise. Generally it mellows with ageing.

So your next thing is to take a hydrometer reading and record the numbers then take another test after about 3 days and record numbers then a final test after a further 3 days and if all 3 tests give identical readings you can presume its finished as long as its somewhere around the 1.000 already mentioned. If it higher by any distance it could be stuck but it doesnt sound like that.

 

[Smiddy1488]

Well on the basis that a hydrometer floats high before a ferment and the brew has lots of sugar and you say that now it sinks ?

It sounds like you may have a finished ferment on your hands.

Ok so its easiest if you have a 100ml test jars so you can take a sample (if the test jar is sanitise as well as the hydrometer I just make my tests and the put the sample back into the batch). The reading should be 1.000 or close to it. The test jar is used so its easiest to see the hydrometer scale but if your fermenter is a bucket and the liquid is deep enough for the hydrometer to float (and you can still see the scale) just sanitising it and dropping it in the bucket is also fine.

The taste you describe sounds like "alcohol hot". Which isn't a surprise. Generally it mellows with ageing.

So your next thing is to take a hydrometer reading and record the numbers then take another test after about 3 days and record numbers then a final test after a further 3 days and if all 3 tests give identical readings you can presume its finished as long as its somewhere around the 1.100 already mentioned. If it higher by any distance it could be stuck but it doesnt sound like that.

Thanks for the reply mate. After a week though?! Finished after a week? 0.0 the hydrometer was at near 1.000 but it has pretty much no flavor at the moment and its still bubbling the airlock.

 

[Smiddy1488]

Thanks for the reply mate. After a week though?! Finished after a week? 0.0 the hydrometer was at near 1.000 but it has pretty much no flavor at the moment and its still bubbling the airlock.

Any ideas anyone? So I can sort things out before Christmas if needs be

 

[Smiddy1488]

Ok so i took another reading to be sure. I'm now not getting any air bubbles pretty much took a reading and it's at .994? It started at 1.100.

I've now added stabiliser as i'm just going to bottle and let it age. Any clues to if i've done something massively wrong? It smells much like a wine (of course mead is pretty much a wine) and im hoping the flavors will come through after aging as at the moment it tastes pretty damn strong!

 

[jackfrost]

I like it strong like a good jar of corn whiskey from south eastern oklahoma

 

[Smiddy1488]

Haha well its safe to say my mead was a hit. Strong and a great aftertaste!