BrewingWisdom
Well-Known Member
Hello fellow brewers 
I am done with my first ever 9 liters batch of hydromel and I would like to share my experience here. Just a very simple recipe but still it can somehow help someone in the future to learn something new.
I started it on the 16th of May and used around 2.25 kgs of honey. The 1.25 kg of honey was light-colored big bee honey that came from a commercial bee farm and the rest of 1 kg of dark-colored wild acacia honey came from our northern region. It's a kind of exotic honey considered here(if in the US or elsewhere you have something similar let me know). I slowly mixed 9 litres of water with honey and again rinsed the honey bottles with that same honey mixture to get the last remaining honey out of those bottles. At this stage, I separated two empty Jam glass bottles with that honey fluid which I will later use as priming sugar.
Then I hydrated the CS 31 yeast(Chinese yeast by angels yeast company) with water to activate it. Let it rest for 20 minutes and when the form appeared I pitched it in the fermentation bucket. The primary fermentation continued for almost 2 weeks. After that, I equally put the honey water fluid in the bottles which I separated earlier and filled those bottles with fermented mead. The secondary fermentation continued for another 2 weeks and then stopped suddenly.
I refrigerated one bottle of mead for 2 hours(for best results I recommend it).
Carbonation : Very high carbonation with a big foam on glass. Very fizzy.
Nosing :Very fruity aromas and esters. It's because CS 31 is an ale yeast with an esters profile. There was a good aroma of alcohol mixed with fruity notes. Another reason could be the high temperate here in summers. Warmer temperature produce esters.
Tasting : Almost dry and very few sweet notes. No flavor of honey at all and little tart as well.But strangely there was no harsh alcohol taste.It was not harsh on the palate. I guess over time it will be more smooth? Or maybe it's me who first time brewed with a proper brewers yeast? In the past everything I brewed with a bakers yeast was hard on my throat and palate.
It was supposed to be dry because CS31 is a high alcohol tolerance var. diastaticus type yeast. It eats up every last sugar.
The ABV was somewhere between 5-10 %. Since I didn't have a hydrometer I cannot be certain. The booze was pretty good though.
Overall it was a drink of fruity aromas, tart taste, and nice booze. Good for summers.
Good enough first experience to motivate me to go further.
Thanks to everyone here who helped me in the mead section when I asked questions here.
I am done with my first ever 9 liters batch of hydromel and I would like to share my experience here. Just a very simple recipe but still it can somehow help someone in the future to learn something new.
I started it on the 16th of May and used around 2.25 kgs of honey. The 1.25 kg of honey was light-colored big bee honey that came from a commercial bee farm and the rest of 1 kg of dark-colored wild acacia honey came from our northern region. It's a kind of exotic honey considered here(if in the US or elsewhere you have something similar let me know). I slowly mixed 9 litres of water with honey and again rinsed the honey bottles with that same honey mixture to get the last remaining honey out of those bottles. At this stage, I separated two empty Jam glass bottles with that honey fluid which I will later use as priming sugar.
Then I hydrated the CS 31 yeast(Chinese yeast by angels yeast company) with water to activate it. Let it rest for 20 minutes and when the form appeared I pitched it in the fermentation bucket. The primary fermentation continued for almost 2 weeks. After that, I equally put the honey water fluid in the bottles which I separated earlier and filled those bottles with fermented mead. The secondary fermentation continued for another 2 weeks and then stopped suddenly.
I refrigerated one bottle of mead for 2 hours(for best results I recommend it).
Carbonation : Very high carbonation with a big foam on glass. Very fizzy.
Nosing :Very fruity aromas and esters. It's because CS 31 is an ale yeast with an esters profile. There was a good aroma of alcohol mixed with fruity notes. Another reason could be the high temperate here in summers. Warmer temperature produce esters.
Tasting : Almost dry and very few sweet notes. No flavor of honey at all and little tart as well.But strangely there was no harsh alcohol taste.It was not harsh on the palate. I guess over time it will be more smooth? Or maybe it's me who first time brewed with a proper brewers yeast? In the past everything I brewed with a bakers yeast was hard on my throat and palate.
It was supposed to be dry because CS31 is a high alcohol tolerance var. diastaticus type yeast. It eats up every last sugar.
The ABV was somewhere between 5-10 %. Since I didn't have a hydrometer I cannot be certain. The booze was pretty good though.
Overall it was a drink of fruity aromas, tart taste, and nice booze. Good for summers.
Good enough first experience to motivate me to go further.
Thanks to everyone here who helped me in the mead section when I asked questions here.
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