BrightDevil
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- Joined
- Nov 11, 2014
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Hey everyone,
I'm looking to set up an experiment to experience the different characters that carbonation will give mead. In about a month, I'll be starting 3 gallons of must, pitching EC-1118, and let it sit in the carboy for about 1-2 months (let it go completely dry, a fair bit below 1.000). After that, I'll take about a gallon and move it into a 1 gallon carboy, I'll take another gallon and bottle it in 12oz bottles with the amount of carbonation that is typical for a beer, and finally I'll take the last of it and bottle it in a mixture of 187ml and 750ml champagne bottles (187ml ones coming from the mini Korbel champagne bottles. I've confirmed with them that they do the secondary fermentation in those bottles and so I feel comfortable putting them at the pressures necessary) and carbonate it to about 4-5 atmospheres. After letting that sit on the lees for ~3 months, I'll do the traditional method of disgorging the lees (by freezing the neck after isolating the lees in the neck).
I have a couple of questions. First, has anyone used the traditional method on a sparkling mead, if so, how much mead should I expect to lose due to just learning the technique? What do you think of the timeline? I thought it seemed quick but there's a meadery in California who uses the traditional method and they said their turn around on a batch of mead was only 4 months. For the record here's the recipe I was planning on:
Honey:
6 lbs OB honey
2.5 lbs Buckwheat honey
Yeast:
EC-1118
Standard SNA
Priming sugar:
Corn sugar (most likely, though could possibly use honey or table sugar)
I'm looking to set up an experiment to experience the different characters that carbonation will give mead. In about a month, I'll be starting 3 gallons of must, pitching EC-1118, and let it sit in the carboy for about 1-2 months (let it go completely dry, a fair bit below 1.000). After that, I'll take about a gallon and move it into a 1 gallon carboy, I'll take another gallon and bottle it in 12oz bottles with the amount of carbonation that is typical for a beer, and finally I'll take the last of it and bottle it in a mixture of 187ml and 750ml champagne bottles (187ml ones coming from the mini Korbel champagne bottles. I've confirmed with them that they do the secondary fermentation in those bottles and so I feel comfortable putting them at the pressures necessary) and carbonate it to about 4-5 atmospheres. After letting that sit on the lees for ~3 months, I'll do the traditional method of disgorging the lees (by freezing the neck after isolating the lees in the neck).
I have a couple of questions. First, has anyone used the traditional method on a sparkling mead, if so, how much mead should I expect to lose due to just learning the technique? What do you think of the timeline? I thought it seemed quick but there's a meadery in California who uses the traditional method and they said their turn around on a batch of mead was only 4 months. For the record here's the recipe I was planning on:
Honey:
6 lbs OB honey
2.5 lbs Buckwheat honey
Yeast:
EC-1118
Standard SNA
Priming sugar:
Corn sugar (most likely, though could possibly use honey or table sugar)
