Quick Ageing quesiton

[vegas20s]

So on a whim I deiced to make a half gallon of mead. I put a half pound of fresh picked but then frozen blue berries in some boiling water to kill any bad bugs. I also added one tea bag of regular American style tea and punkin pie style spices ( would have done chai spice but didn't have the cardamon). While this was still warm I added my 1 lb of honey (this was wild desert honey from Trader Joes). I poured into my half gallon container and dumped the yeas cake from a bottle of beer into my fermenter (This yeas was a mystery yeast so don't ask). Now this bit of yeast didn't do anything so I pulled a hydrometer reading from an IPA I was brewing with us-05. This got things going good. I kept the temps high (mid 70's) to get some fruity esters in there. After a month I racked it to a secondary. I tasted it and it was not ready to drink, for lack of a good term, it had a dry alcohol taste.


So here I am with a 1/2 gallon of blubbery spiced mead and I have no Idea how long I should let it sit. I shouldn't be incredibly high abv maybe like a 9% or 10%. Any thoughts....

 

[vegas20s]

So I was thinking around 6 months...Any thoughts?

 

[cgenebrewer]

To get a mead ready for drinking sooner, you have to help the yeasties along. This comes in the form of supporting their different phases.

Aerate strongly before you even pitch. I like putting the must into a container that holds twice the amount of must and shaking it like crazy.

What i do is ferment for the first 5 days in a bucket covered with a cloth. This allows me to degass by stirring twice a day. This helps keep the pH from dropping too low, aside from getting the co2 out of their because yeast doesnt like too much of it.

As far as the yeast nutrition, I do a tsp of DAP per gallon, broken into two additions, one at the start and then the other 5 days later. There is a page in the sticky at the top about yeast nutrition and staggering.

The yeast nutrient at my local store contains urea, so I boil some bakers yeast and add that.

You could also use some yeast energizer. I dont just cause I havent bought it. Im looking into it atm.

SO with proper nutrition and aeration, a medium gravity mead can be tasted in a month. I brewed one with 2.8 lbs honey plus a gallon of water on the 25th of november, and it was loved last night at my new years party. I was told my friend that it was better than the commercial mead he tried.

 

[vegas20s]

To get a mead ready for drinking sooner, you have to help the yeasties along. This comes in the form of supporting their different phases.

Aerate strongly before you even pitch. I like putting the must into a container that holds twice the amount of must and shaking it like crazy.

What i do is ferment for the first 5 days in a bucket covered with a cloth. This allows me to degass by stirring twice a day. This helps keep the pH from dropping too low, aside from getting the co2 out of their because yeast doesnt like too much of it.

As far as the yeast nutrition, I do a tsp of DAP per gallon, broken into two additions, one at the start and then the other 5 days later. There is a page in the sticky at the top about yeast nutrition and staggering.

The yeast nutrient at my local store contains urea, so I boil some bakers yeast and add that.

You could also use some yeast energizer. I dont just cause I havent bought it. Im looking into it atm.

SO with proper nutrition and aeration, a medium gravity mead can be tasted in a month. I brewed one with 2.8 lbs honey plus a gallon of water on the 25th of november, and it was loved last night at my new years party. I was told my friend that it was better than the commercial mead he tried.

I'm used to beer, so leaving your batch uncovered and then stirring is just sounding crazy, but.....

How much do you stir?
So do you put it into a carboy eventually?

 

[fatbloke]

There's a few things that are regular in the mead world that are considered total heresy to beer makers. Aeration of unpitched must being one of them as well as not boiling the crap out of the must.

If you read up at Gotmeads NewBee guide, you'll get the answer to most questions, but open/cloth covered buckets is used by some, for ease of management i.e. measuring and aeration, etc. Some till the 1/3rd sugar break, some the half break, some further. I like to get mine into a carboy between the half break and before it gets to 1.020, plus I like to aerate once a day.

 

[cgenebrewer]

I stir with a nicely sanitized spoon until the foam that develops stops growing. Depending on the mead, you can get a couple inches of foam to an entire bucketfull.

If I am stirring and foam keep rising and its over 5 inches I take a break and come back in half an hour.

My arm and hand aches after the stirring, so its quite a bit.

 

[regulatedhobbyist]

I stir with a nicely sanitized spoon until the foam that develops stops growing. Depending on the mead, you can get a couple inches of foam to an entire bucketfull.

If I am stirring and foam keep rising and its over 5 inches I take a break and come back in half an hour.

My arm and hand aches after the stirring, so its quite a bit.

When do you do this? In primary? I hadn't heard about leaving the must uncovered until just recently. Also I always thought to just leave the must after you pitch and then wait until primary is finished to rack to secondary. What are the benefits of continuously aerating the must in the first part of primary? Other than providing oxygen, of course. I know the yeast needs the oxygen to multiply, but, would I be doing something wrong if I only aerated the must in the beginning? Sorry, still new.

 

[vegas20s]

When do you do this? In primary? I hadn't heard about leaving the must uncovered until just recently. Also I always thought to just leave the must after you pitch and then wait until primary is finished to rack to secondary. What are the benefits of continuously aerating the must in the first part of primary? Other than providing oxygen, of course. I know the yeast needs the oxygen to multiply, but, would I be doing something wrong if I only aerated the must in the beginning? Sorry, still new.

dito

 

[cgenebrewer]

I do this for the first 5-7 days of fermentation in my primary which is a bucket. I keep it covered with a clean cloth. You can boil the cloth is you like, I dont. just make sure the entire inside and top lip of the bucket is sanitized. and your spoon and spoon arm. all the way up to your elbow. thats right, get er nice an clean.

I do it to provide o2 for the yeast while they are building up their army, and also to outgas co2, which is not good for the little budding yeasties.

You can certainly not aerate in primary. Many, probably most people do that. Its like adding nutrient, it just helps. Some people would not do it any other way. I have made mead without aerating in primary that was a hit at this new years eve party, and it was only 5 weeks old.