user 338612
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2023
- Messages
- 3
- Reaction score
- 4
Hello to all,
Thought I should say hi since I just joined, I got the bug a week or two ago so I did some research and went to the local brew shop (Aussie)
since then I also did a little online shop, and then someone locally had a bunch of brew equipment going cheap, so I suddenly have a whole bunch of brew stuff!
Anyway, I got 15l of mead on the go currently. Recipe so far is:
4kg of store bought homogenized honey (had a very distinct honey funk like I remember from when I was a kid)
400g jar of much better honey that had a vanilla bean in it when I bought it (smelled like an expensive chocolate bar, I almost wanted to keep some but it all went in!)
10l of spring water direct from the store bought container to the fermenter
(all fruit sanitized and cut with a sanitized knife)
1 Navel orange (cut into quarters and squeezed in before throwing them in as is)
1 Honey Belle pair (turned out to be hard as a rock with not much juice, but I cut it into small chunks and threw it in anyway for the name)
2 x Panama passionfruits (found the wrinkliest ones, they smelled awesome)
That was my initial recipe but I also added a 240g jar of bee pollen I got online from a semi local apiary, I hear it feeds the yeast pretty well and imparts honey flavours etc.
After that, I added about half a packet of yeast nutrient and then pitched some 1118 yeast I got from the brew shop, but I basically dry pitched into a small cup of the mash for a few minutes and then dumped it all in. Didn't get much movement over the first couple of days so in the end I did a proper pitch with some mango jack's mead yeast which had about the same ABV potential, but this time did a real pitch in boiled water cooled down, pitched and waited for a nice foam and then temp corrected and poured in. After that we seem to have a fair bit more activity but the airlock refuses to move, I assume I just have a leak somewhere though because the mead has a very nice krausen which I have been stirring in daily and degassing. I'll probably stop doing that soon though because it's fizzing away nicely and I don't want to introduce o2 after a certain point, but the cap is drying out so I feel for now that stirring it back in daily will stop anything bad growing on it and keep the yeast attacking the proteins etc. I know it's fermenting from the foam and degassing alone, so I'm not too worried about the airlock for now because it's a purpose built brew vessel so my guess is the airlock bung has a pinhole leak.
Anyway, we're at day 3 after the re-pitch and I checked on it today, still no airlock activity but another krausen had built up and when I stirred it back in it fizzed up again.
I might just leave it to do what it's going to do for a week or two now and take a SG reading when I think it might be on the way to done. (started at about 13% potential ABV but that didn't count the fruit bits)
I'm thinking what I have added will add some subtle citrus and sour notes, but only hints since it's all in the primary, I plan to put it in 3 x 5L carboys and add something else for the final flavouring, so I can give a couple of mates the option to add their favorite fruits etc. and run through secondary since the yeast is good for about 18% and it should ferment dry in the primary with more headroom to go. I figure they can probably get a pretty tasty brew by just putting in more sugar than it can handle and let it go until it's done, then rack a couple of times to get rid of sediment etc and bottle. We might try to keep one bottle of each for aging and open for a special occasion.
Anyway, let me know if I'm doing anything wrong haha, I think I've read enough forum posts and watched enough videos to have a pretty good idea of the fundamentals though, sanitize everything and watch for mold etc. So far though it's only been a nice brown crust forming from the foam coming out, and a ripe fruit smell but so far I don't think rotten or anything, just ripe which I assume is fermentation taking effect.
I might post a pic or two if I remember to take them when I'm doing stuff.
Thought I should say hi since I just joined, I got the bug a week or two ago so I did some research and went to the local brew shop (Aussie)
since then I also did a little online shop, and then someone locally had a bunch of brew equipment going cheap, so I suddenly have a whole bunch of brew stuff!
Anyway, I got 15l of mead on the go currently. Recipe so far is:
4kg of store bought homogenized honey (had a very distinct honey funk like I remember from when I was a kid)
400g jar of much better honey that had a vanilla bean in it when I bought it (smelled like an expensive chocolate bar, I almost wanted to keep some but it all went in!)
10l of spring water direct from the store bought container to the fermenter
(all fruit sanitized and cut with a sanitized knife)
1 Navel orange (cut into quarters and squeezed in before throwing them in as is)
1 Honey Belle pair (turned out to be hard as a rock with not much juice, but I cut it into small chunks and threw it in anyway for the name)
2 x Panama passionfruits (found the wrinkliest ones, they smelled awesome)
That was my initial recipe but I also added a 240g jar of bee pollen I got online from a semi local apiary, I hear it feeds the yeast pretty well and imparts honey flavours etc.
After that, I added about half a packet of yeast nutrient and then pitched some 1118 yeast I got from the brew shop, but I basically dry pitched into a small cup of the mash for a few minutes and then dumped it all in. Didn't get much movement over the first couple of days so in the end I did a proper pitch with some mango jack's mead yeast which had about the same ABV potential, but this time did a real pitch in boiled water cooled down, pitched and waited for a nice foam and then temp corrected and poured in. After that we seem to have a fair bit more activity but the airlock refuses to move, I assume I just have a leak somewhere though because the mead has a very nice krausen which I have been stirring in daily and degassing. I'll probably stop doing that soon though because it's fizzing away nicely and I don't want to introduce o2 after a certain point, but the cap is drying out so I feel for now that stirring it back in daily will stop anything bad growing on it and keep the yeast attacking the proteins etc. I know it's fermenting from the foam and degassing alone, so I'm not too worried about the airlock for now because it's a purpose built brew vessel so my guess is the airlock bung has a pinhole leak.
Anyway, we're at day 3 after the re-pitch and I checked on it today, still no airlock activity but another krausen had built up and when I stirred it back in it fizzed up again.
I might just leave it to do what it's going to do for a week or two now and take a SG reading when I think it might be on the way to done. (started at about 13% potential ABV but that didn't count the fruit bits)
I'm thinking what I have added will add some subtle citrus and sour notes, but only hints since it's all in the primary, I plan to put it in 3 x 5L carboys and add something else for the final flavouring, so I can give a couple of mates the option to add their favorite fruits etc. and run through secondary since the yeast is good for about 18% and it should ferment dry in the primary with more headroom to go. I figure they can probably get a pretty tasty brew by just putting in more sugar than it can handle and let it go until it's done, then rack a couple of times to get rid of sediment etc and bottle. We might try to keep one bottle of each for aging and open for a special occasion.
Anyway, let me know if I'm doing anything wrong haha, I think I've read enough forum posts and watched enough videos to have a pretty good idea of the fundamentals though, sanitize everything and watch for mold etc. So far though it's only been a nice brown crust forming from the foam coming out, and a ripe fruit smell but so far I don't think rotten or anything, just ripe which I assume is fermentation taking effect.
I might post a pic or two if I remember to take them when I'm doing stuff.
