My first mead ... meads ...

[user 247158]

Alright, where to start ...

I have had the really crappy mass produced meads, I've had some pretty out there flavored meads at a mead competition, but I'm not too familiar with the many faces of mead, and for my first batch, I decided on an experiment.

Everyone says what kind of honey you use matters.

Everyone says how much you use matters.

So ... I tried to be quasi scientific about it.

Four separate 1 gallon batches

1. The "Sweet" One
4 lbs of Cheap Honey
1.160 OG
37 Brix

2. The "Normal" One
3 lbs of Cheap Honey
1.100 OG
23 Brix

3. The "Dry" One
2 lbs of Cheap Honey
1.070 OG
18 Brix

4. The "Good" One
3 lbs of Amish Apple Blossom Honey
1.110 OG
25 Brix

My OG and Brix measurements were done after pitching the yeast in, and they were sloppy, I don't think I did them quite right, so if I did them wrong, I'm open to learning better methods.

The theory I was going off of is that the 3 from Cheap Honey aren't costing me much, and they can show me the difference in ABV and maybe sweetness. The 3 lb Cheap vs the 3 lb Amish can show men the difference in Honey qualities.

No plan survives first contact with the enemy and I had a whole RANGE of issues when it got started.

Originally I forgot to take temperature into account for primary fermentation, I have absolutely no idea what the whole gravity thing is about. I know what it means, not quite sure on the "why I care"
The scale I was using was only accurate to 5 grams instead of 1 gram.
I got sold the wrong size plugs for my carboys.
I got sold the wrong nutrients.

But I muddled thru.

I used star-San and sanitized the heck out of the kitchen. Some in a spray bottle for incidentals and soaking the bits and pieces for at least 2 minutes. So hopefully I won't have any issues from sterilization.

I put the honey in each Carboy with about 1/2 a gallon of bottled water. Mixed it up fairly well.

Each 1 Gallon must got 5g (about a teaspoon) or a nutrient/booster mix. The nutrient was wyeast beer nutrient, the booster was LD Carlson DAP with some other stuff. Don't have the labels near me.
I wanted fermaid, but they were sold out, sold me wyeast beer nutrient instead. I should have just bought the fermaid-o but it was too expensive for me this time.
I thought I was buying pure DAP, but no, realized it was a mix today, didn't feel like driving a couple of hours to the homebrew shop to replace it.

I boiled water, let it cool to 104-110 F, mixed in 6.25 g of GoFerm to 130ish g of the water, put 5g of yeast into it and let it bloom for 15 minutes

I used Lalvin 71B-1122 for all 4, didn't want yeast being a variable in this experiment.

After the 15 minutes it got a gentle mix and then I brought some of the must in to cool the yeast 10F at a time, giving it 5 minutes to acclimatize before adding more must to get it down to around 70F which is what all of my musts were around, sitting in my plastic bin become swamp cooler.

Yeast got pitched in, then I added water to bring the must up to about 4 inches below the top, only about a 2 inch circle of the top of the must is exposed to air.
Gave the must a gentle stir and put on my airlocks.

Sort of. Everything I read online said size 6.5 stopped for 1 gal Carboy, but they kept assuring me that 6 would be perfect, so I had size 6.

They kept being pushed up and out just by the pressure difference in the airlocks, it was frustrating. I must have been doing something horribly wrong at this point.

And then on my third jug (el Cheapo 3 lb) the stopper went in. Thankfully I had a spare hug there and waiting for me, I quickly poured off into the other jug (yay oxygen -mumbles-)

At this point duct tape made an appearance. A short one though, I had metal screw on capsfor the jugs, I got the drill, sanitized a bit, drilled a hole into the screw top lid, bent the metal back, slid the airlock tub thru the new hold, into the size too small stopped, so that the screw top metal lid actually holds the stopper in my jugs.

I'll be ordering new lids from amazon tomorrow so the system is a bit less ... mark whatney.

It's all a blur at this point, but figured I should document it all here to get opinions and direction.

If I've forgotten something important let me know.

 

[voltron]

I personally am not a purist and have made mead with all sorts of honey and have gotten good results and people who have tasted it have liked it. . But this is my opinion as well as feedback from random tasters of the mead I have made. having said that there is fake honey, i have seen stuff labled honey but the ingredients say high fructose corn syrup, and i have others that have malitol syrup. So my point is you can get good results as long as it is pure honey. But this is my opinion. Perhaps bc i lived in such a remote area where beer and wine was not sold we had to get creative with what was available that I developed a wide palate for all sorts of wines and meads. I once made a jolly rancher mead and it was good. I look foward to your results, and as for mishaps we all get them, and its nice to learn from them as well as how to salvage stuff by learning how to correct it or turn it into something else. You will be amazed by what you can do when mishaps occur and how you can still end up with a pleasant product.

 

[growlrr]

Nothing cannot be overcome with the proper application of power tools and duct tape....Bonus points to you for "The Martian" reference....(FYI - Movie was great but the book was better!)

 

[user 247158]

Yup good book, not so good movie.

I do have a couple of other questions though.

When can I have a taste of the must become mead?

When do I rack these into secondaries?

All the racking I've seen done everyone says it's only for clarity, I don't plan on submitting them to a contest or anything so does clarity really matter for me?

 

[Maylar]

You can taste any time you like, though I don't bother during the ferment since the yeast has a taste that won't be there at the end. And that's why clearing is important, you want all the yeast to fall out before bottling.