My experiences with StC's one-gallon mead recipe

[Dendinius]

Hey, y'all. This current batch (started back in February) is turning out pretty tasty and potent. I used Storm The Castle's recipe, with three pounds of honey, and at one point, it was going bready, but I left it alone for a few more weeks, and now it's starting to taste really good. It's not clarifying very fast despite being racked (I think I left too much of the lees in it during racking), but otherwise, it's turning really tasty. I've bottled one bottle (I'm the only mead drinker in the house) that I've added additional honey to (about half a pound), and I'm leaving that bottle the hell alone for the next several months. My mead has been in a relatively cool basement (averages 65°F/18°C) in a room that is rarely lit up. This is my second attempt at it (My first attempt in 2014 ended up having to be abandoned because I was evicted from the place I was living at the time, and I'd started the batch earlier that year, so I wasn't able to taste it), and so far, it's turning out nice.

 

[PantherEnjoyer]

Hello, and great work! Mead's best friend is time. And while Storm The Castle's recipes may be old, they are still damn good.

When you say you you bottled one with additional honey, are you certain that fermentation had stopped? Did you kill off the yeast with K-Meta and Sorbates, or did you step feed till the yeasties were so drunk they couldn't do anything anymore? (ABV stabilising)

Otherwise you may start up fermentation in the bottle and end up with a bomb!

 

[Dendinius]

I didn't do any of that... I've been keeping an eye on the bottle since the other day (as in the 5th) when I added the honey. the fermentation had seemed to stop by that point...

 

[PantherEnjoyer]

So just for future reference, yeast will drop out of suspension and the mead may clear right up but there is still plenty of yeast in the clear mead, dormant.

When you brew beer, or anything else and want to bottle carbonate, you take your clear, sometimes even cold crashed beer or whatever and bottle with a small, specific amount of sugar. The yeast will rouse up again, and perform a mini fermentation in the bottle. Under a tight seal, the co2 has no where to go and is absorbed back into the liquid. Producing carbon-ation.

Many people do a sparkling mead this way. The only real way to stop the yeast is to kill it off or otherwise render it unable to ferment.

With mead, this is usually through an addition of potassium Metabisulphate (K-Meta) which scrubs all oxygen preventing yeast from breeding. Then you add sorbate, which kills off any stragglers (some people can taste these additions)

The other 'natural' way is to send the ABV so high that yeast can't function. Say you use a yeast with an ABV tolerance of 10% - it may go as high as 14 before its fully cooked, or it might top out at 10. You can plan this into your recipe, then step feed small adittions of honey into the secondary, noting if the SG starts to decline again due to fermentation. Once you have gotten the desired sweetness, and the SG no longer drops over say a two week period, you *should* be safe to bottle.

This is always the dilemma for people who don't keg and want to do semi sweet or sweet ciders. You either end up with a sweet cider at like 16% ABV that may not carb, or you kill the yeast off at whatever ABV you want (say 5%) and sweeten but can't bottle carbonate so have it flat.

Keeping the bottle in the fridge will buy you some time, but it's not a guarantee that fermentation won't kick off slowly. Depending on the bottles you used, they may not take much pressure to burst.

 

[bushpilot]

I didn't do any of that... I've been keeping an eye on the bottle since the other day (as in the 5th) when I added the honey. the fermentation had seemed to stop by that point...

How are you keeping an eye on a sealed bottle? I see bottle bombs in your future.

 

[Seamonkey84]

Open a bottle and check!

 

[Dendinius]

The bottle is where I can get to easily, so I can visually inspect stuff and release pressure if need be.


Update July 12th, 2020: I got the stuff to start another batch. Balloons are hard to come by, so I'll be sterilizing a sewing needle and using that to poke a few holes in the water jug's lid like I did with the first batch.

 

[Dendinius]

An update... It seems I managed to get the last of the carbonation out of the portion of the first batch of mead that I bottled after adding additional honey out totally, as the last several times I've checked it, I've seen no signs of resumed fermentation. I've started another batch as of 7/17/2020. and must not have left enough room in the bottle, as I discovered a layer of what appeared to be wet yeast on top of the bottle, having been pushed through the pinholes I made in the lid. It IS fermenting, but I'm not sure how well it will turn out.

 

[PantherEnjoyer]

Is there any way you can get an airlock? Otherwise a bung and some tubing into a glass of sanitiser as a blowoff set-up would best best

 

[Dendinius]

Right now, I don't have the funds for that. Otherwise I would.

 

[PantherEnjoyer]

Yeah no stress. An airlock is only like $2 and will save you money on ingredients going bad if you get infections. Just my thoughts.

 

[Dendinius]

it's something I'll look into later this year.