Brett Lacto mead project need sugar help

[seth8530]

Welp looks like things are getting a little tough. It would seem we are stalled out at around 1.040. ( right around the rated abv cap of the brett btw at 12.5 percent). It appears that the ec-1118 i inoculated with did not really catch on ( abv was higher than intended when I added the ec-1118 starter) so I am in the process of making a rescue starter. I currently have 2 liters of ec-1118 on the stir plate. Later today I am going to add 1 liter of the must to it. Then tomorrow afternoon if all appears to be going well with it I will add another 1.5 liters of must to it. I will then wait a day and pitch into the 60 liter starter.

I guess a wild project is not a fun project without a little bit of drama eh?

 

[seth8530]

Just added a few cups of the must to the rescue starter. I got it in a 5 gallon carboy at the moment. Total volume of the starter is around .75 gallons it looks like. If the starter seems happy I am going to add around a half gallon more must to it in a day or two.. The plan is to make a monster starter to get this guy back moving.

 

[seth8530]

So around 24 hours after adding the ec-1118 starter ( around 1.5 gallons in volume) we have the beginning signs of activity in the mead. Not sure how heated and happy it will get, but it is good to be seeings signs of life again.

 

[seth8530]

Just checked the gravity on this guy, looks like we are at 1.030. Perhaps at this rate we will hit around 1.010 this weekend and I can add the sugars and get this guy into secondary before too long.

 

[seth8530]

I went ahead and added the roughly 2 gallons of crystal 40/60 malt syrup. It brought the gravity up from 1.020 to around 1.035. Now, we hope that this guy wont ferment all the way dry.. Else, I might end up having a little more abv than I want.

The tartness from the lemon and the sour cherry flavour from the brett strain are really starting to shine through. I will give this guy some oak in the carboy and I really can't wait to see how it develops.

I really look forward to seeing how the crystal syrup adds to the body and over all structure as it dries out a bit.

OG 1.134

Grav before Syrup
1.020

Volume prior to syrup
60 liters
Volume after syrup
69 liters
gravity after syrup
1.035

ABV prior to Syrup 14.9%

ABV after syrup

12.98%

ABV after fermentation?!
???
seth8530 is online now Report Post

 

[seth8530]

Gravity is now down to 1.030. It is REALLY crawling now. I went and added some fermaid O to it and gave it a really good stir. Hopefully this will get this guy moving on a bit more briskly.

 

[seth8530]

Looks like we are stuck at 1.028 ish again. I will buy some UV-43 ( hardcore restart yeast) and some yeast hulls ( to strip out toxins). The plan is to add the yeast hulls then rack off of them, and pitch a strong UV-43 starter. The PH is 3.5, the abv is somewhere between 13.5 and 14.5 ish, there should be residual nutrient in the must, so at this point my lead to what is going on is a possible build of toxicity in the must.

 

[seth8530]

So, we got some major strangeness going on right now. The gravity was around 1.030 when I added the starter ( which included 1.5 gallons of water). The gravity is now 1.036-1.038 ( yes it has gone up) and the perception of sweetness has gone down, and the perception of sour has increased. It looks like their might be some minor activity going on from the yeast, but it is hard to tell. If it is doing anything, it is going full ahead slow.

So, here are my theories and I wonder what you guys think.

1) The gravity appears to have gone up from Co2 pushing the hydrometer up, the sweetness perception has gone down due to fermentation and the sour perception increased due to a drop in sugar.

2) The gravity has actually increased due to acetic acid formation converting less dense ethanol into more dense acetic acid. Thus raising the gravity and increasing the perception of acid and decreasing the sugar perception.

Any thoughts or opinions? I have been adventurous with this guy and have had this guy open the whole time.

 

[seth8530]

I was getting a bit concerned about the funk monster so I gave it 200 ppm sulfite and racked it into carboys. Gravity continued to move upward to close to 1.040. It has a kind of acidic taste not like I am used to seeing in lactic bacteria... but, not way out of touch for the style, but if it stays in its current state I am going to have to rack it onto cherries or something that will work with that flavor. With all the trouble getting this guy to ferment down, I am wondering if I ran out of sugars or something around that I could ferment when the guy first hit down to 1.030 and then dropped 6 points after I added the malt syrup.

... I am not overly optimistic at this current time about getting these guys to bottle carbonate.. but, I will test it out in a year or so and see if it looks like it will do anything.

I also put two of the carboys in with a stave of american oak each and the third 5 gallon caboy with a stave of French oak.. All medium +.

 

[seth8530]

So, knowing that thier is some intense sour component I went ahead and purchased 1 gallon of tart cherry concentrate ( from real cherries).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CFMGGI/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I will add this to top off the head space in 1 of the carboys. If this causes re fermentation in this carboy then we know that the whole batch should be viable for bottle carbing... So, we should take care of 3 birds with one stone.

 

[seth8530]

Holy moley of changes! I went into the fermentation room and noticed one of the funk meads necks had a ring of bubbels in it. I gave it a taste and the flavor profile is significantly different than it was yesterday. Instead of being a really hardcore barnyard flavor it is more cherry and tart with a more modest honey characteristic that taste like honey ( ie not horse poop). I sampled the other 2 carboys and they seem to be heading in the same direction, but to different degrees.. So, I am flabergasted about what is going on and how it could have happend so quickly, but I am very pleased all the same.

Perhaps, the brett woke back up and is converting percursors over into different things?

Any ideas or thoughts?

 

[seth8530]

Well, time has made the picture a bit more clear... Bubbles are coming up like crazy from all the carboys. Looks like fermentation has restarted once again!

 

[sweetcell]

what an adventure!

i was wondering if you hadn't hit the alcohol tolerance of the brett & other yeast. apparently not.

 

[seth8530]

Yeah, I am not quite sure what is going on. I heard from somewhere that even simple sugars can become unfermentable if you heat them long enough... So, I am wondering if it is possible that I created much more unfermentable sugars than I intended. I guess the story will be told if the gravity ends up being right next to the pre cherry juice gravity... But, right now it looks like the fermentation has a full head of steam on it. So, I ma very interested to see where it is going to end up at.

 

[seth8530]

And just to prove that it is really going.... A little messy but much better than when it was simply just sitting still.

 

[seth8530]

So, racked these guys today, FG looks to be 1.040.. However, I think that sugar is mostly unfermentatble. Or infact, not sugar at all but perhaps caramel. I did some reading, apperently, if you take simple sugars and heat them long enough they can turn to caramel which is not very fermentable. If you combine this with the fact that the sugar extract that I made from malt was made from malts with high levels of unfermentable sugar, I think it is possible I created a mostly unfermentable syrup for the mead.

It smells kind of atrocious, but I think I might have asked for that with brett and buckwheat. On the flavor, it taste like a very good kriek ( sour cherry beer) with some interesting funky honey notes going. It taste amazingly well balanced for having a SG of 1.040. I think I will let this guy sit for a year and taste again. As far as competitions go, I am not sure if this guy sits better in braggot land, or some exotic other category all by itself.

 

[seth8530]

I have 15 gallons of this mead. I went ahead and bottled 5 gallons of it. The FG appears to be 1.032. I am shooting for three volumes of CO2. If this one carbonates well, I will go ahead and bottle the other 10 gallons and get them carbonating too.

The taste starts off both sweet and sour taste reminiscent of chocolaty sweetened dark tart cherries. It has a very thick mouthfeel, but it does not taste too sweet surprisingly. It also has a strong floral funky kind of smell from buckwheat.. Surprise Surprise. A little ode de barnyard. It taste like this could be dangerously easy to drink. The abv, is god knows what. I plan on having it lab tested.