Just finish bottling my first mead

[copachono]

Well i brew this on feb 02, this year i didnt had any yeast nutriend so i sacrified some bread yeast every 2 days for the first 8 days. I used:
-13.5 pounds of coffe blossom honey
-2 packs of lalvin D47
-bread yeast nutrient(boiled)
-fermented at 15 for 2 days then 1 degree higher each day.
-tartic acid 0.2g/L or per taste.
-3 pound of honey for backsweet at 1.010

Its still young but really drinkable, specially chilled at about 8 celsius.

 

[JimRausch]

I like the look of your bottles. My only question at this point is that before you backsweetened with the 3 lb. of honey, did you stabilize with sorbate and metabisulphite? If not then she will probably kick off another fermentation in the bottles and kick the corks out.

 

[copachono]

hi, thank you,

this one its already stabilized, i missed that step on my comments.

 

[Kyzaboy89]

First successful bottling is always a great feeling, and I'll add to what JimRausch said, I like your bottles haha. Looks like a rum/whiskey bottle which I'd prefer aesthetically over plane jane wine bottles. Congratulations and don't forget to try saving a few bottles for 6 months and succeeding years to follow, if you can manage to hide it from yourself.

 

[Toxxyc]

What was the batch size? Looks good, I love those bottles...

 

[copachono]

What was the batch size? Looks good, I love those bottles...

This was a 4 gallon batch, it truned really nice imo, thank, this bottles are the only ones i can get locally, they look nice but the are capped, and only have some seal which its not oxygen absorber, so i had to put beeswax to be on the safe side

 

[Toxxyc]

You sure about that finishing gravity? I'm asking because I use 2.3lbs of honey to backsweeten 6.6 gallons from dry (0.996) back up to 1.010, so your 3lbs on 4 gallons seem a bit of a high dose. Was it mixed properly?

 

[Kyzaboy89]

One factor that I think gets over looked on occasion is what's the s.g. of 1 lb/kg honey in a gallon of water. I've had honey anywhere from 29 to 38 points depending on source. Something that I like to do when trying new honey is take a 1 lb honey container, weigh it full of honey, then a full US gallon of water and combine them in a 2 gallon bucket, rinse the honey container with some of the water to get all the sugars out, weigh the container and see how much the "pound" of honey actually was without the container and then measure the gravity of that honey in a full gallon of water. Do your math and it's easy after that. However, you can still have fluctuating sugars levels in jars of honey when you get a mixed order of new/old season honeys. Just my two sense on getting a better idea of your sugars rather than averaging the usual 35 points per pound, more math and accuracy is my preference, nothing says a good mead never came from average practices.

Do you plan on labeling those bottles copachono? Whereabouts are you in the world that those bottles are standard if I may ask?

 

[copachono]

Hi, in fact no, the honey didnt blend well so, i just bottle the bottom of the mead which had a crazy 1.030 and put a small tape to labaled as sweet mead, i was about 4 bottles of the bottom of the mead, i was affraid of shaking and introducing oxygen so i just leave like that, in the end i was looking for a semidry mead at 1.010.

I live in Honduras, i believe we import this bottles from Costa Rica, this bottles are the standard for "Rompopo" i believe you may know it as eggnog

 

[Kyzaboy89]

My wife is half honduran, her abuelita makes incredible rompopo so yes I know it well.

If your honey doesn't mix completely you can stir it gently until it's blended properly, if it's not sloshing on top it's really not oxidizing. Also try to keep rotating your bottles over time to help it slowly blend or it may settle at the bottom.