First Mead Question (Honey Blueberry)

[jawats]

All:

I just made this mead - https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f80/blueberry-mead-34038/ - and it has been in open fermentation for about a week. Smells heavily of alcoholic blueberry honey bread at this point, and I am preparing to move it to airlocked fermenter in the next day or two.

As this is my first time, I plan to move it ("rack it"?) to my fermentor, add a pound of honey, but leave the fruit ("lees"?) behind. Is that correct? Any other thoughts for me as I go forwards?

--Jonathan

 

[jawats]

All:

As this is my first time, I plan to move it ("rack it"?) to my fermentor, add a pound of honey, but leave the fruit ("lees"?) behind. Is that correct? Any other thoughts for me as I go forwards?

--Jonathan

And by "correct", I mean both / either technique and / or vocabulary.

 

[fatbloke]

Actually, I'd leave it alone, under airlock until the ferment has finished (3 identical gravity readings, taken a couple or 3 days apart i.e. day 1, day 4 and day 7 for the the readings across a week).

If they're all the same, then of course, rack it off the fruit pulp.

As to whether you want to add another 1lb of honey ? if the batch hasn't been stabilised (sulphite/campden tablet crushed @ 1 per gallon and a half tsp of sorbate per gallon), then it's likely that some refermentation could start.

So, presuming that you find that because the fruit was in primary and you want some more fruity flavour, I would let it finish, then stabilise, then rack off the fruit as it is, onto some more fruit (freeze, then thaw it) and then just leave it be until the fruit has sunk.

Then rack it off the secondary fruit and do a taste test, if there's enough fruit flavour, excellent, but also judge the sweetness of the batch. Because if you're planning on, potentially, using honey to back sweeten, I find it's best done before the batch has cleared. Because honey can cause a haze in a finished batch and sweetening it now, using a hydrometer of course, gets you to the sweetness level you enjoy and gives you a set of numbers for future reference....

 

[jawats]

Okay, Bloke, it's my first time, and now I feel like a wedding-night virgin.

1. I put it in about 10 days ago, under open air. You suggest locking it, then waiting for how long to check it?

2. Presumably, I am testing the gravity to see how much sugar is leaching from the fruit? And, once the readings stop, then the sugar (and flavor) is done and the lees are cashed?

3. Now, if you read the original post, I dropped a link there. How would you disagree with the method outlined there, and why?

4. Time for a bourbon.

--Jonathan