What do you think

[DungMonster]

Ok new member but on my 4th batch from a 20l speidel and several gallon jugs made learning the the fruit aspects of mead over the basics. I sanitze some but don't pay amazing attention when making mead, I mean it was open air brewed way back when so I am not too fussy. So far I have made 4 batches of cinnamon clove/orange mead which turned out fine and am tryng an experiment to be ready around my birthday. So this is what I currently have:

3 gallon water
7 oz unsweetened coconut flakes
60 oz crushed pineapple in real pineapple juice
2 litre coconut water
15 lbs honey from my back yard.
1 packet lavin d47 yeast

OG is 1.114. EDIT** 1.115 OG (adjusted for temp)
Edit** oddly I left the liquid in then tube last night when I went to bed. When i got back home from class I noticed the gravity was 1.118. I stirred the tube and rechecked incase it was due to the sugars settling but each time it reads the same 1.118. This is confusing as it had no yeast added and increased instead of decreased over that a few hours.
I opted coconut water and flakes over coconut milk due to fat from the can and not wanting to worry about it spoiling or having to pay it extra attention to prevent that, I am pretty lazy after all. So what do you guys think of this? I have seen a lot of coconut posts on forums but very few people ever come back to say if the coconut mead was good. I figured the pineapple coconut would be rather interesting hopefully.

Edit* forgot to mention rack 1 & 2 will have another 20z of crushed pineapple and juice added and coconut water to top off secondaries. Should come out with a good flavor and decent alcohol content

 

[CKuhns]

I noticed you had no replies. No experience with coconut so can't help much there. But sounds really interesting.

Thought I would take a shot at the SG question... (I could be way off base but the following may be one explanation for the observed increase.)

Is it possible your first reading was taken at roughly 30+- a few deg F higher than your second? If so read on. If not i have no clue and no need to continue reading... sorry.

When using a hydrometer for a SG reading it is important to understand the effect of temperature. Most hydrometers are calibrated at 60 Deg F (but not always). To get an accurate and consistent SG reading you must adjust the SG reading at any given temperature back to the calibrated temperature of the hydrometer. In effect account for the impact of temperature on the density of your liquid. (This is not complicated and there are many on-line charts and tools to help you with this.)

Example a 1.114 SG at 90 Deg F using a 60 Deg F calibrated hydrometer would mean you must add 0.004 to the observed reading of 1.114 due to the 90 vs 60 deg temp. Obviously then gives you a 1.118 SG after adjusting for temperature.

Think about it this way - Warm liquid will be less dense than cool liquid and thus warm liquid will allow the hydrometer to sink a bit in the liquid.

 

[Vex3521]

With the coconut I'd love to hear how it goes. I know another thread was going for a toasted note so we were thinking if you go a little over what you'd use for a garnish to infuse more of that "toasted coconut" note would be wise. With the coconut water I'm intrigued =) Always looking for new things to test!

agree on the gravity readings and temp impact.

With sanitizing and such it's true that it was open air and such so I applaud anyone that's less in the watching it like a hawk mindset. I'm learning to sit back and watch but I'm still all up in the keeping it as sanitary as I can. I'd hate to wreck a batch with something like a fruit fly getting in an airlock or similar. I think we've all got our quirks and what works for us, that's the cool thing about homebrewing.... we all find our style =)

 

[DungMonster]

Lol 30 deg difference? There was no more than 1 or 2 deg F difference in the temp since it is in my house and I ferment it inside at 68 ish deg F. Plus that night there was not much drop in temp outside, it has been really nice here in NC so far this winter, really warm. Oh plus the liqud was all room temp when I added. Even honey was room temp I just shake water in the jars from a water jug I plan to add to the batch anyways to not throw off count. Something odd to note on the gravity change is that for curiosity I left it there again overnight and put the hydrometer back in after classes and it went back to the OG number which made me scratch my head. Never left any test out so it was an interesting experience.
Edit* also yo reminded me I didn'tadjust the scale. It should actually be 1.115 or much closer to that that 1.114 as like I said my house typically stays at 68.

About the coconut I thought about toasting but felt it wasn't a big deal since I was also adding the coconut water to enhance the mellow flavors of a coconut. I was worried about the pineapple overpowering it but I will know more in a month or less and figure out what I need to add to it to pop the flavors. My taste buds are anxious! I will let you guys know how it turns out upon first rack and everything I did provided it is promising. This fruit stuff is more involved than just honey/cinnamon/cloves/rasins lol

On sanitizing, I never said I didn't do it at all, just not a main concern. I do use airlocks as fruit flies are horrid in farmland and I have a toddler so we eat a ton of attractive tasty fruit. I do have some sanistar or whatever that I use, mainly for secondaries, but I focus more on washing with dawn and hot water (from my stove top tea kettle) more so than using it. Never had a batch turn to vinegar or grow an alternative life style so I am happy. If I ever decided to get my cousin to help me get my sellers license (she is ALE here and has already offered to help me not get in trouble with my other basic meads lol) then I would definitely focus on it more as if I recall processes, to include sanitizing, get inspected so it becomes more of a chore... I will stick to my 'gifts' for now though lol.

 

[CKuhns]

"There was no more than 1 or 2 deg F difference in the temp"

There are a couple of other explanations:
- The awesome energy of a toddler in the house does have to be accounted for. I just don't know how to measure the effect on our lives. But, I do know they definitely have an impact on everything we do.
- House Gnomes are always a possibility.
- Garden Sprites can be a bit fun, although my experience is that they usually stay in the garden.
- Or, you could chalk it up to a mystery of the ages.

I hope others can offer a more scientific explanation. I would love to hear one. For now I suspect Toddler Energy (TE) until someone else has a better explanation.

Let us kn ow how the coconut batch turns out it sounds pretty amazing.

 

[DungMonster]

My kid doesn't grab off the counters anymore after a few days following him with a flyswatter and lots of pissy faces lol. It was a lot of fun for one of us! I am inclined to belive it was gnomes... This is an old house and I don't think anyone ever cleared them out. Maybe I will take my kid snipe umm I mean gnome hunting this weekend!

 

[DungMonster]

UPDATE

Since I started this on the 15th it has been fermenting rather well and no foam. So out of pure curiousity and such I took a small sample after making some cookies today. Well all I can say is it is amazing. It is stil overly sweet to the point it gives you diabetes, but you can really tell the pineapple and coconut are there. The pineapple is just barely stronger than the coconut, I surmize the coconut water helped this fact. Overall the flavor is reminiscent of a pina colada, which is perfect. The alcohol was barely there, roughly 5-7% by taste. Though it is harder to mouth the rough abv of sweet things over dry ones for me as the suger throws me off. When I rack it I will have a more accurate %. Though as of now it is 10 days and tastes grrrrreat. Below is a pic of what it looks like and my cookies! No I havent cleaned up since I made the cookies...

 

[Rav]

I would think that maybe it took abit for some of the sugars suspended by the coconut to go into solution.

 

[DungMonster]

Most likely but that was at 10 days and it is still fermenting really well, plus I have pushed the coconut down a few times to try and get the flavors in it better as it has pineapple chunks in it also. . I have it in a 20 L speidel and the air lock is huge compared to the normal sized ones. It takes a bit more pressure to push it up and it is still bubbling every 3-5 seconds with large bubbles.

 

[DungMonster]

About 1 month now and fermentation is slowing down rapidly. It sits currently at 1.012 gravity which puts it at about 13.5% abv. It ofcourse tastes yeasty but doesnt have the over bearing sweetness anymore. I have some in the freezer I am shocking to drop the yeast for a better taste as earlier when I tasted I had some mint chewing gum so I can't say the flavors truly. I plan to rack this in the next few days and then let it disperse of the leftover floaters for another month. I may add some coconut water to top it off but I am not 100% on actual calculations when adding items in the middle and don't care too much as it gets too technical and I am lazy now days. Anyways as I stated before this is more informational as I have not seen any follow through from people using coconut. Will update again as it develops.

 

[DungMonster]

Ok racked it 2 hours ago... if you plan to use coconut I Strongly recommend have it in cheese cloth or something other than that. Essentially some coconut falls to the bottom and some stays up top. The bottom huggers will cause issues in suction and a cane pump will start suctioning air from around the rubber slide. This introduced ALOT of air into this batch of mead and caused me a lot of annoyances. It might also benefit to maybe try making a mesh bulb of sorts around the pump end to stop soo much coconut suction and air introduction. At this point I was annoyed and did not take a gravity reading. I did add 1 liter of extra coconut water though to top it off some. Hopefully this excessive air introduction will not harm it long term but will will wait and see. Overall it did smell decent though and I will let it sit for a bit and see as it is already building up mud on the bottom.

Almost forgot the whole reason I added the coconut water over just filling the jug with excess co2 prior to topping was that the coconut flavors from the previous sample I had shocked was low in coconut flavor so I am hoping for a slight coconut flavor increase from it. Will update as it goes on.