First mead

[kstone803]

I put together my first mead Saturday. Pretty basic and only a gallon as I have not gotten my 60lb tub from dutch gold yet. My recipe was

3 lbs local amish honey
water to a gallon
lavlin yeast

I mixed the water and honey to dissolve then put in the gallon carboy then pitched the yeast right in when it cooled. I had rocking fermentation within 3 hours. It is still bubbling strong. Gonna rack it off in a week or so and let it age at least a month. Hope it turns out ok. My next batch as soon as my honey gets here is 5 gallons of JAOM.

 

[LoloMT7]

Gonna rack it off in a week or so and let it age at least a month.

I've only made mead once so i am not an expert by any means but only on the yeast for a week before racking doesn't seem long enough. I thought most meads are months in both primary and secondary. Not that you couldn't do it faster. I would guess that it just won't clear as well and it might be a bit harsh or (hot alcohol taste). What was the OG ?

 

[ehope411]

I've only made mead once so i am not an expert by any means but only on the yeast for a week before racking doesn't seem long enough. I thought most meads are months in both primary and secondary. Not that you couldn't do it faster. I would guess that it just won't clear as well and it might be a bit harsh or (hot alcohol taste). What was the OG ?

Also doing my first mead now. Was told to leave it in primary for a month or more before racking to secondary, and then racking every month or so to help clear it. Was told 6 months minimum, which seems like an eternity.

 

[fatbloke]

I put together my first mead Saturday. Pretty basic and only a gallon as I have not gotten my 60lb tub from dutch gold yet. My recipe was

3 lbs local amish honey
water to a gallon
lavlin yeast

I mixed the water and honey to dissolve then put in the gallon carboy then pitched the yeast right in when it cooled. I had rocking fermentation within 3 hours. It is still bubbling strong. Gonna rack it off in a week or so and let it age at least a month. Hope it turns out ok. My next batch as soon as my honey gets here is 5 gallons of JAOM.

Excellent. Just a minor point, that without any kind of nutrition for the yeast you're making a "show mead", which are famed for long, slow, torturous fermentations and ending up very sweet.

It depends on what the strain of yeast is. Lalvin do 5 strains in home brew sized packs, but they do something like 20 or so in total, and places like morewine! repackage the commercial sized ones into homebrew size packs.

Most importantly, it doesn't matter about the nutrition or anything else, but without a hydrometer, you'll have no real way of telling how it's getting on.

Bubbles in the airlock just tell you that something is happening, but not what...

As for racking it in about a week ? Probably not the smartest move. You'll likely still have fermentation going on and to rack it so early, will likely leave the better part of the yeast colony in the racking losses.

Ageing for a month, is a waste of time. You may be blessed with a very good palette, but in such a short space of time are most likely to be just tasting something akin to watered down honey.........

Reading matter for the new mead maker........

 

[01TRV]

I've only made mead once so i am not an expert by any means but only on the yeast for a week before racking doesn't seem long enough. I thought most meads are months in both primary and secondary. Not that you couldn't do it faster. I would guess that it just won't clear as well and it might be a bit harsh or (hot alcohol taste). What was the OG ?

My batches that I used 3lb and water to 1 gallon usually came out to about 1.125 OG. Probably pretty close to that range if I had to guess.

 

[kstone803]

Totally forgot to take an OG reading before putting in the primary. So I'll let it sit in the primary at least a month before racking. Would I be able to drop a few raisins in it tonight to add nutrient or is it too late?

 

[kstone803]

Added raisins tonight and my yeast was ladling ec-1118.

 

[LoloMT7]

Added raisins tonight and my yeast was ladling ec-1118.

I also used EC-1118 when I made mine back in February my 3 gallon batch was ligther on the honey though.
OG was 1.075
FG was 1.000

I left in primary for 4 months and then did another 2 months in the secondary. I actually just bottled it a couple of nights ago. I didn't use any raisins in mine I just used a couple of additions of yeast nutrient and I oxygenated it like crazy in the beginning with O2. I wanted to free up the carboy or I'd have left it longer. I'm not going to open a bottle up until at least Christmas time now though. I'm happy with the gravity samples I've tried to this point though