A question on bottling T'ej.

[mrspock]

I've brewed mead off an on for about 20 years, and am now looking at T'ej.

I've looked at many recipes, and extracted the key ideas, but am finding they somewhat go against what I (think I ) know.

Aparrently T'ej is bottled after 5 weeks or fermentation... but experience tells me there's going to be a lot of unfermented honey yet, and this will make for bottle bombs. There's nothing in the (traditional) instructions to suggest anything being done to end fermentation, such as an additive or cold crashing.

Is it possible that in a traditional Ethiopian setting one would be using some kind of non-airtight bottle, with the intent of immediate consumption?

How is it that the traditional Ethiopian receipe contains directions that my experience tells me would not go well?

Can anyone help me reconcile?

 

[bernardsmith]

I tend to strongly agree with you regarding the amount of residual sugars left after five weeks so when I make t'ej (and I have made a traditional te'j twice and a variant using US hops once) I treat the t'ej like any mead or wine I make and allow it to sit in the carboy until it has cleared and until I am confident that there is no more sugar to ferment out. I have one gallon of t'ej just about ready to bottle and I plan to prime it with a scant ounce of sugar so rather than use the residual sugars to make the t'ej sparkling my plan is to add a known quantity of sugar - and so avoid bottle bombs because the volume of CO2 that the yeast can produce is a) limited and b) known and c) will be housed in bottles designed for that volume of CO2 (champagne bottles with plastic caps and cages.

PS I suspect that traditionally made t'ej is made to be drunk immediately it is bottled and not stored for any length of time . It was made to celebrate a family or other event. The next event will be celebrated with t'ej made for that event.

 

[biochemedic]

From what I've read, traditional T'ej is basically drank so fresh that it is still fermenting... It's also basically a wild ferment too.... What we end up making if we follow our usual protocols is a modern variant...

 

[NZ-beekeeper]

Could it also be that because Ethiopia is in Africa, and we all know Africa is hot, that fermentation could be almost done in 5 weeks. Plus, the comments above make sense; when you see photos of traditional t'ej, it is not clear, but very cloudy - probably still fermenting.