First taste test?

[espaic09]

Hey guys, new to this mead thing. Wanted to make some for the family and friends and maybe for selling if my first batch doesnt go bad. So im trying the orange, raisins and cloves mix, i used 3 pounds of local honey and 1 packet of local dry active yeast. The gallon jug has been sitting inside a cabinet in my room for 5 days now and i was wondering when i could open to have a first taste to see how its going, it has some sediment at the bottom i read that its pretty normal and that i shouldn't be concerned. And also i plan on dividing the gallon in 2 different half gallon glass bottles. When should i remove the fruit? and if i could move the mead to the other bottles would it keep fermenting?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Arpolis]

Give it 30 days minimum.

The original Joes Ancient Orange Mead over at GotMead.com in the Newbee section is the widely used orange/raisin/clove type mead and it actually says to wait 90 days without touching, stirring, testing or even looking at it.

It is usually safe to rack to a new bottle after the fruit has dropped to the bottom of the jar. That can take anywhere from 30 - 120 days depending on many condition.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi espaic09, Three lbs of honey in one gallon will create a high potential ABV (around 16%) so the question is whether your choice of yeast may be up to that task or whether it will give up the ghost before all the sugar in the honey has been fermented.
Sediment is likely to be a mixture of the yeasts and fruit and spice particulates flocculating and dropping out of suspension. You can expect sediment to form over the next few weeks and months.
IMO, it is good practice to taste your wines as you make them. At the very least to gain some knowledge about how the flavors change as the fermentation process progresses. Five days is not long. Even those who use lager yeasts to ferment honey don't expect to bottle faster than a month, but at 16 percent alcohol I would think that you might need to allow your mead to age a year or more to allow the flavors to blend and any fusel oils (the paint thinner flavors that yeast can produce when it ferments at higher temperatures or at higher concentrations of sugar) to dissipate.
You mention selling your mead. If you live in the USA that is likely to get you into very serious trouble with the federal govt. You can make wine and mead - and cider and beer for your own use and to give as gifts to family and friends but selling alcohol without the required licenses and bonding is in fact illegal. But I am not a lawyer and I don't give legal advice.

 

[espaic09]

Thanks, i live puerto rico and i have yet to find anyone here that sells mead by the bottle. Should i add more yeast to lower the ABV?

 

[espaic09]

Thanks @arpolis. great help.

 

[sanguine]

Thanks, i live puerto rico and i have yet to find anyone here that sells mead by the bottle. Should i add more yeast to lower the ABV?

Adding more yeast is certainly not something would lower the ABV - if anything you would get more alcohol, not less.

To elaborate - the final alcohol content of a beverage (ABV, Alcohol By Volume) is primarily determined by two factors. The first of these is the amount of sugar available for fermentation - more sugar means a higher potential alcohol content. We generally measure the amount of sugar available with "OG," or "original gravity" - more dissolved sugars means a denser, heavier liquid, and we can measure the density of a wort or must fairly easily with a hydrometer.

The second factor is the alcohol tolerance of the yeast - yeast is far more tolerant of alcohol than most microorganisms, but even yeast can only stand so much alcohol before it stops reproducing. Fermentation will generally stop when the yeast runs out of fermentable sugar or hits its maximum alcohol tolerance, whichever comes first; the alcohol tolerance can very greatly depending on which strain of yeast you are using. A sweet mead yeast, for example, will quit at about 12 or 13% ABV, while a champagne yeast like Lalvin EC1118 (which I use for my dry meads) will keep on cruising up until 18%.

What kind/strain of yeast are you using? I'm not terribly familiar with bread yeast (i.e. storebought "active dry") but from I've heard it will probably cut out at about 12% ABV.

At any rate, 5 days is a very, very short time in mead land - brewing, especially mead brewing, is a craft that requires very high degrees of patience. You should allow, at absolute minimum, two weeks for the primary fermentation. Mead has a tendency to ferment vigorously for a few days and then trail off slowly - this is due in a large part to the fact that honey is a mix of a couple different sugars, one of which ferments more rapidly than the other. Resist the urge to taste early - time is your friend here! I would probably allow at least another two undisturbed weeks for fermentation, followed by a good long time aging in secondary, or, failing that, in bottles.

 

[espaic09]

Hey @sanguine thats very helpful. Thanks a ton.

 

[sanguine]

No problem! If you ever start to branch out and are having trouble finding a local homebrew store near you, there's always the internet - I'm sure at least some of the internet stores will ship to PR.

 

[espaic09]

Haha yeah man thanks a ton