Bray's One Month Mead

[Simon78]

my first mead is looking great and starting to clear. some thing i just thought about as i haven't had mead of any sort before... is it served chilled?

 

[loveofrose]

I serve this mead chilled, but try it both ways and see what you like best.


Better brewing through science!

 

[cmhaynes]

I'm very excited about trying this recipe, but I'm about to go crazy trying to find DAP, Fermaid-K and Potassium bicarbonate in one place. I finally just ordered some Fermaid-K from Morebeer, and I found a somewhat local place that has potassium bicarbonate. The local place only has DAP mixed with urea. Is this OK, or do I need it without the urea?

 

[loveofrose]

You can get all at morebeer.com. Look again.




Better brewing through science!

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Quick question, if i turned this into a melomel by throwing in some fruit(in my case one gallon was Blueberry, 1 gallon was Blackberry, and another gallon was a mix of the two)

Any thoughts on how much honey i would need to add to get it up to a semi sweet level? With it finishing at 1.004 its pretty dry, not horrible but i think some extra sweetness would bring the fruit out more i just have no idea how much to add.

 

[loveofrose]

A good rule of thumb is that 2 oz (by weight) of honey raises the gravity by .005 points. After a week, it dissolves into solution. Faster if you mix.


Better brewing through science!

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

A good rule of thumb is that 2 oz (by weight) of honey raises the gravity by .005 points. After a week, it dissolves into solution. Faster if you mix.


Better brewing through science!

2oz per gallon?

 

[loveofrose]

2oz per gallon?

Yes. That is what I meant.


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[bluedubbed]

We started 2 bee colonies this year and have harvested over 100lbs of honey thus far. It taste amazing and is super dark. Figured we had enough to eat and wanted to do something else with the honey and I found this thread.

I'm an experienced beer maker and bottle most/all of my beer. My question is how to bottle mead? I've gone through 38 pages without a clear understanding and figured I'd just ask.

So once I hit my FG and assuming I don't want carbonation and may backsweeten a few bottles, do I bottle in wine bottles with cork or beer bottles with a cap? Will the BOMM age better in a wine bottle with cork?

Sorry if i missed this at any point in the thread.
Thanks for the help. This has been an interesting red.

 

[loveofrose]

If you carbonate, beer or champagne bottles. If you don't carbonate, any type bottle you have is fine.

A warning though. By carbonation, I mean let the mead hit 1.00 or below, then add priming sugar. For backsweetening, you have 2 options.

1. Treat with sulphites to stop the yeast, then add honey to your desired FG, clear, and bottle. I don't do this method for allergy reasons, so other folks will have to give you the details.

2. Step feeding. Add honey to your desired FG. Let it ferment. Add again and repeat until the yeast give up.



Better brewing through science!

 

[IJesusChrist]

If you carbonate, beer or champagne bottles. If you don't carbonate, any type bottle you have is fine.

A warning though. By carbonation, I mean let the mead hit 1.00 or below, then add priming sugar. For backsweetening, you have 2 options.

1. Treat with sulphites to stop the yeast, then add honey to your desired FG, clear, and bottle. I don't do this method for allergy reasons, so other folks will have to give you the details.

2. Step feeding. Add honey to your desired FG. Let it ferment. Add again and repeat until the yeast give up.



Better brewing through science!

to be on the safe side with mead I've heard .096 is a good bet.

 

[Atek]

If you carbonate, beer or champagne bottles. If you don't carbonate, any type bottle you have is fine.

A warning though. By carbonation, I mean let the mead hit 1.00 or below, then add priming sugar. For backsweetening, you have 2 options.

1. Treat with sulphites to stop the yeast, then add honey to your desired FG, clear, and bottle. I don't do this method for allergy reasons, so other folks will have to give you the details.

2. Step feeding. Add honey to your desired FG. Let it ferment. Add again and repeat until the yeast give up.



Better brewing through science!

Unfortunately this is very widely misunderstood. Sulfites alone will not stop a fermentation in most cases. Sorbates however will. Sulfites and sorbates are often used in conjunction for best results. The sulfites protect against oxidation and other possible spoilage where the sorbates effectively halt yeast replication and thus the fermentation. Through very stringent oxygen control methods you can use just sorbates and claim sulfite free on the label with minimal risk of spoilage, this is especially true with mead. Don't be completely fooled however as there are some, very minuscule, amounts of sulfites that are produced naturally during a healthy fermentation process.

 

[Atek]

If you carbonate, beer or champagne bottles. If you don't carbonate, any type bottle you have is fine.

A warning though. By carbonation, I mean let the mead hit 1.00 or below, then add priming sugar. For backsweetening, you have 2 options.

1. Treat with sulphites to stop the yeast, then add honey to your desired FG, clear, and bottle. I don't do this method for allergy reasons, so other folks will have to give you the details.

2. Step feeding. Add honey to your desired FG. Let it ferment. Add again and repeat until the yeast give up.



Better brewing through science!

Unfortunately this is very widely misunderstood. Sulfites alone will not stop a fermentation in most cases. Sorbates however will. Sulfites and sorbates are often used in conjunction for best results. The sulfites protect against oxidation and other possible spoilage where the sorbates effectively halt yeast replication and thus the fermentation. Through very stringent oxygen control methods you can use just sorbates and claim sulfite free on the label with minimal risk of spoilage, this is especially true with mead. Don't be completely fooled however as there are some, very minuscule, amounts of sulfites that are produced naturally during a healthy fermentation process.

 

[bluedubbed]

Thank you guys.
Exactly what I was looking for.

 

[bluedubbed]

Is a daily degassing enough? It seems like during the first few days of fermentation the mead could use quite a few degassings. Any thoughts or suggestions? I started a 3 gallon batch yesterday and have been fermenting at 68-70 F. I gave it a swirl 3 times in the past 3 hours and there is a ton of CO2 each time. Is there any negative effect to to much degassing early on?
I know the all the BOMM recipes say daily, but I was just curious.
Thanks.

 

[loveofrose]

Doesn't hurt anything to degas a lot in the beginning. Depends on if you have the time.


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[bluedubbed]

Thanks for the info. Degassed about every 1.5-2 hours yesterday and couldn't believe the amount of C02 being produced. I guess that happens when the OG is 1.1!

 

[IJesusChrist]

My 60# are coming in this friday. I plan to set up my stir plate again for constant degassing. This time the BOMM will be temperature controlled, so I'm hoping for better results. (ick butyric acid)

 

[loveofrose]

My 60# are coming in this friday. I plan to set up my stir plate again for constant degassing. This time the BOMM will be temperature controlled, so I'm hoping for better results. (ick butyric acid)

My hypothesis is that the stir plate mead should be better, if better is possible.


Better brewing through science!

 

[IJesusChrist]

My hypothesis is that the stir plate mead should be better, if better is possible.


Better brewing through science!

 

[yeaboyson]

So againg is bad when using the Belgium strong yeast?

 

[loveofrose]

So againg is bad when using the Belgium strong yeast?

Aging is always good, but this particular mead is very good young.

It does get better with age if you are patient however.


Better brewing through science!

 

[cmhaynes]

Has anyone tried dry-hopping their BOMM? If so, how did it taste, and what types would you recommend?

 

[loveofrose]

I like citra and Fuggles, but any hops could be used. Experiment!


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[mythbustingpyro]

Just racked one of my 4 one gallon secondarys onto a juiced pineapple. Planning the bacon gallon for next week.

 

[loveofrose]

Good luck with pineapple. I've never tasted one of those that classified higher than awful. How are you going to deal with grease from the bacon?


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[mythbustingpyro]

My plan is to do a kind of steep of bacon drippings in a bottle of vodka to make a kind of bacon extract to add to one of my gallons jugs, along with an undecided amount of maple syrup.
I have some cherrywood malt I might try and add too to have a smoked bacon effect.

 

[cmhaynes]

Oh, don't worry, I'm definitely experimenting. Just out of curiosity, what amount of hops per gallon did you add? I'm thinking about going with 0.4 ounces/gallon.

 

[loveofrose]

Oh, don't worry, I'm definitely experimenting. Just out of curiosity, what amount of hops per gallon did you add? I'm thinking about going with 0.4 ounces/gallon.

Honestly, I just throw a handful in. I have big bags of whole hops though.


Better brewing through science!

 

[rega]

Hello Bray and other mazers on this thread.

I have to first give a big 'thank you' to Bray for providing this wonderful mead recipe here and being so extraordinarily helpful to everyone. I started my brewing life with more traditional meads, but switched to cider because that fits my wife's "patience profile" a little better . It's great to find a real mead that satisfies the same demands!

I'm currently nearing completion on my 4th batch of BOMM or BOMM-inspired mead. The first batch nearly vanished at bottling time, but I managed to save two 16-oz bottles to let them mellow. I have 2 more 1-gal near-BOMM batches (different ale yeasts because I couldn't get the 1388) stewing with some vanilla and oak, and I have a 3-gal batch of true BOMM almost done with fermentation.

I'm not a very experienced brewer, so I have some process questions I'd like to ask the community.

1) A couple of times, step-feeding has been discussed as a way to get a sweeter end product. When doing that, is the best way to calculate ABV to just sum the "delta" SG at each step, converting to ABV change as you go?

2) If step feeding until the yeast "give up" - is the yeast pretty much dead at that point? As in, it could not be re-used for another batch.

3) Regarding reusing yeast: how do you get just the top layer of sludge when you're working through a little hole several inches away from said sludge?

Next up is another batch of BOMM using a local wildflower honey (I'm just up the road from you, Bray - it's from Denison).

Thanks in advance!
--Roger