Hi all,
I decided to make my first mead batch yesterday night. I will start by saying I decided on making a strawberry-pineapple mead, and I wanted this batch to be a sweet mead. The whole thing may have been a bit more advanced than I was ready for, and I made what was probably a few rookie mistakes as brewing, but decided to see how it played out, as I had already used the ingredients and they were all in the bottle. Nothing could have prepared me for this though.
I followed the instructions of multiple videos I had seen online and forum posts of others to get to this point, and will list everything that happened down below, but if anything seems wrong please feel free to correct me, as this is my first time ever brewing anything:
I used roughly 2lbs of pineapple and 1lbs of strawberries, both of which I froze first and then dethawed to get those juices to the surface level. I put my fruit in first (which I believe was my first mistake)
In a sanitized pot, on low heat (never brought to a bottle, just warmed) I mixed 1/2 gallon of spring water and roughly 4lbs of honey until combined (the “must”) This is where things get a bit dicey.
In hindsight I should have put my honey water in before the fruit, because I believe the density of the fruit caused there not to be enough room in my gallon jug for more water (which could be an issue or no issue at all, I don’t know). As I filled the jug with my honey water, I let it get to a bit over half way, and still had a little less than half of my must left in the pot.
I added my package of yeast, Lalvin D47 (I found multiple sources that said only do half of a packet, while others said they had better luck doing a full packet, so I decided I needed the luck and didn’t want to put away a half package of yeast, and decided I’d do the full packet). Upon dumping my yeast in I realized I forgot to rehydrate it separately, but there was no turning back, and so I did the next step which was gently shaking the bottle until everything was combined.
Lalvin D47 yeast says that it needs a nutrient rich environment, and while I was pretty sure the strawberries and pineapple would add nutrients to the environment, I think of yeast like children — they have their candy that they love (the honey), some fruits, but that’s a lot of sugar, and they probably need veggies too to be healthy — so I added 1/4 tsp of North Mountain Supply yeast nutrient, and again gently shook the bottle to combine everything. I then poured in enough must to fill the bottle to a bit before the neck of the bottle (I didn’t want to over fill it) which left a little bit under a 1/4 of the pot of must left in the pot, which makes me assume I used more around 3-3.5lbs of honey and about a half gallon of water in a 1 gallon jug for mead.
At this point there was a small amount of foam at the top of the mixture, but after some quick research, everything seemed to be fine and normal, so I put my airlock on (this is at about midnight). In a few videos I have seen mead bubble over and make a little bit of a mess, so I put the mead bottle in a cake pan just incase things got messy, and went to bed. Thank goodness I did that.
At about 5am today I get up to use the restroom and walk past my mead. The airlock has exploded off, and mead is filling the cake pan. I put the airlock back on and refill with water, and wash the cake pan. Airlock explodes off again after a minute or two and literally flew across the room.
It is now 11:30am and my mead has been viciously bubbling over with no end in sight. I’ve tried swirling a bit to release some of the carbon, but considering it’s been hours, nothing is helping, and im losing a considerable amount of the fluids. Because the airlock kept exploding off, I didn’t want to let my mead get exposed to fruit flies or anything else, so I put the cap on losely (I could pick the bottle up by the cap without it falling off, but air is still escaping the bottle, I figured this was better than it being left exposed)
My apartment is probably around 70-75°F , so I doubt my mead is above 80°F.
While I am glad that I’ve made a very happy environment for my yeast, my guess is that I put too much yeast in the bottle. Is there any saving this? Will it stop bubbling? If so, should I add some more spring water once it’s done (or more must)?
If you have any questions for clarification, please ask
I decided to make my first mead batch yesterday night. I will start by saying I decided on making a strawberry-pineapple mead, and I wanted this batch to be a sweet mead. The whole thing may have been a bit more advanced than I was ready for, and I made what was probably a few rookie mistakes as brewing, but decided to see how it played out, as I had already used the ingredients and they were all in the bottle. Nothing could have prepared me for this though.
I followed the instructions of multiple videos I had seen online and forum posts of others to get to this point, and will list everything that happened down below, but if anything seems wrong please feel free to correct me, as this is my first time ever brewing anything:
I used roughly 2lbs of pineapple and 1lbs of strawberries, both of which I froze first and then dethawed to get those juices to the surface level. I put my fruit in first (which I believe was my first mistake)
In a sanitized pot, on low heat (never brought to a bottle, just warmed) I mixed 1/2 gallon of spring water and roughly 4lbs of honey until combined (the “must”) This is where things get a bit dicey.
In hindsight I should have put my honey water in before the fruit, because I believe the density of the fruit caused there not to be enough room in my gallon jug for more water (which could be an issue or no issue at all, I don’t know). As I filled the jug with my honey water, I let it get to a bit over half way, and still had a little less than half of my must left in the pot.
I added my package of yeast, Lalvin D47 (I found multiple sources that said only do half of a packet, while others said they had better luck doing a full packet, so I decided I needed the luck and didn’t want to put away a half package of yeast, and decided I’d do the full packet). Upon dumping my yeast in I realized I forgot to rehydrate it separately, but there was no turning back, and so I did the next step which was gently shaking the bottle until everything was combined.
Lalvin D47 yeast says that it needs a nutrient rich environment, and while I was pretty sure the strawberries and pineapple would add nutrients to the environment, I think of yeast like children — they have their candy that they love (the honey), some fruits, but that’s a lot of sugar, and they probably need veggies too to be healthy — so I added 1/4 tsp of North Mountain Supply yeast nutrient, and again gently shook the bottle to combine everything. I then poured in enough must to fill the bottle to a bit before the neck of the bottle (I didn’t want to over fill it) which left a little bit under a 1/4 of the pot of must left in the pot, which makes me assume I used more around 3-3.5lbs of honey and about a half gallon of water in a 1 gallon jug for mead.
At this point there was a small amount of foam at the top of the mixture, but after some quick research, everything seemed to be fine and normal, so I put my airlock on (this is at about midnight). In a few videos I have seen mead bubble over and make a little bit of a mess, so I put the mead bottle in a cake pan just incase things got messy, and went to bed. Thank goodness I did that.
At about 5am today I get up to use the restroom and walk past my mead. The airlock has exploded off, and mead is filling the cake pan. I put the airlock back on and refill with water, and wash the cake pan. Airlock explodes off again after a minute or two and literally flew across the room.
It is now 11:30am and my mead has been viciously bubbling over with no end in sight. I’ve tried swirling a bit to release some of the carbon, but considering it’s been hours, nothing is helping, and im losing a considerable amount of the fluids. Because the airlock kept exploding off, I didn’t want to let my mead get exposed to fruit flies or anything else, so I put the cap on losely (I could pick the bottle up by the cap without it falling off, but air is still escaping the bottle, I figured this was better than it being left exposed)
My apartment is probably around 70-75°F , so I doubt my mead is above 80°F.
While I am glad that I’ve made a very happy environment for my yeast, my guess is that I put too much yeast in the bottle. Is there any saving this? Will it stop bubbling? If so, should I add some more spring water once it’s done (or more must)?
If you have any questions for clarification, please ask
