Just goes to show what more water can do...

[Pith]

Just as a very small experiment to see how far I could go with my baker's yeast before I had to make the trek to the brewshop, I made up this wort (which in hindsight needed way more water):

5g chai tea mix
150g boiling water
150g lemon juice
300g honey
75g baker's yeast starter (1 sachet in 75 gram water)

Pour boiling water over tea, add lemon. Shake vigourously, stand for 10. Strain. Add honey, microwave/stir till dissolved. Let cool. Add yeast. Cover with cloth. Stand.

So I let it sit unclosed for a couple of days until it was bubbling, then put the lid on and degassed every day or two. It looked like a healthy fermentation, but what do I know? It's been approx two weeks and I wanted to use the 750mL bottle for something else, so I tipped it into a 1.25L bottle and topped up with a bit over 500mL of water.

The next morning it was going absolutely frikkin INSANE. There was a mad brown krausen and a thick layer of white bubbles and I had to carefully degas for AGES. I guess they just needed a bit more space to move before getting busy...

If it works out, I'll formulate a proper recipe using proper equipment that I have yet to buy.

What proportion honey to water do you use for a sack mead? This would've been a Lemon Chai Super Sack I bet. Do you think it would have fermented out (albeit slooooooower) if I hadn't added water?

 

[Insomniac]

You effectivly had a 50/50 water to honey ratio (though with a low pH due to lemon). It is possible to have it ferment, but it would have been crazily sweet at the end of it, and you probably would have needed a better yeast and a large starter to do it.

 

[Pith]

You effectivly had a 50/50 water to honey ratio (though with a low pH due to lemon). It is possible to have it ferment, but it would have been crazily sweet at the end of it, and you probably would have needed a better yeast and a large starter to do it.

Cool, thanks for the reply. I put the ratio a bit more in water's favour, due to lemon juice being mostly water, meaning 150mL water + 120mL water-in-the-juice (?) + 75mL in starter = 345mL:300mL = 69:60, but in essense you're right.

Also forgot to say the starter had some white sugar dumped in it and left to foam for an hour or two before pitching, but obviously it didn't stand long enough to ferment much of that sugar at all, so yeah, crazily sweet. xD

Do you think the end result would be different between adding all the water in the beginning, vs. in the middle, vs. near the end of primary? If so, in what way?

EDIT: Also, I guess the water:honey ratio would be more like 8:3, now, huh? Would you say that's approaching sack strength? If I did my math right, the water:honey volume ratio of the first recipe on this webpage is about 10:3...
http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1938&Itemid=14
...so, depending on the alcohol tolerance of baker's yeast (sources differ), my mead should have a reasonably high alcohol level and likely a bit of sweetness, but of course with that sour and spicy finish from the lemon and chai. MIGHT be quite repeatable.

 

[Pith]

Man, it's been going crazy all day! :rockin:

 

[Insomniac]

Bakers yeast usually finishes fairly early, I've heard lots of people say about 10%, I'm not at my pc so can't work it out but i think it will still be realty sweet. As for any difference adding extra water at different times, I don't think it makes a huge difference, though adding it later will mean that the yeast were more stressed before.

 

[Pith]

Hmm. I made a citrus wine with 50 percent white sugar and it's really dry. Must be because it's new yeast, or maybe a bit different strain from your lots-of-people.
So what do you think about the 8:3 water honey ratio?

 

[Insomniac]

Well, Gotmead's calculator suggests a new OG of 1.117.
If your bread yeast goes to 10% that will leave it at 1.043, very sweet but not unheared of in commercial meads. (I think?).
That said, if your lucky and your yeast takes it a bit lower you should be good, I'm still experimenting to find what level of sweetness I like. I'm currently aiming at 1.02 for an FG but think that may still be a little sweet for me, but you did say you were aiming for a sack mead so I would at this point just see where it ends up, and if it's too your taste. Then you can plan your next batch with that in mind.

 

[Pith]

Well, Gotmead's calculator suggests a new OG of 1.117.
If your bread yeast goes to 10% that will leave it at 1.043, very sweet but not unheared of in commercial meads. (I think?).
That said, if your lucky and your yeast takes it a bit lower you should be good, I'm still experimenting to find what level of sweetness I like. I'm currently aiming at 1.02 for an FG but think that may still be a little sweet for me, but you did say you were aiming for a sack mead so I would at this point just see where it ends up, and if it's too your taste. Then you can plan your next batch with that in mind.

Thanks for your help. Will definitely have to check out this calculator of which you speak. It's extremely lively and hard to degas so I might add more water, up to 750mL more (difference between 1.25L bottle and 2L bottle). I'll look at the calculator to see how much.

EDIT: I must be doing it wrong because I'm getting different numbers than 1.117.

 

[Insomniac]

For working out roughly 8:3 ratio I entered a Target volume of 11 Litres and One honey addition of 3 Litres, giving 8 Litres of water to get to the total of 11.

 

[Pith]

For working out roughly 8:3 ratio I entered a Target volume of 11 Litres and One honey addition of 3 Litres, giving 8 Litres of water to get to the total of 11.

OH, OF COURSE. *facepalm* Haha. Thank you. Duh.

EDIT: I just tranferred to a 2 litre jug, added 400mL of water and 100g of honey, so logic would suggest that this makes a ratio of 12:4, but volume and weight are very different, so I've probably missed the mark. I guess I'm just interested in seeing if lemon chai flavours work in mead. By the time it's finished I'll have purchased a hydrometer anyway.