New Batch ingredients - extra info

Ok, so this morning, its obviously finished it's "lag phase". So, because I wasn't sure about how to work out it's exact nutrient requirements, I posted a question at Gotmead and "Medsen Fey" was kind enough to post this response.

"I really like the approach Wayneb describes in This Post. For D21, you have a medium nutrient requiring yeast, and you are starting at 28 Brix which is moderately high. I'd probably shoot for around 350 ppm YAN. There is a YAN calculator that has been put together, but it generates numbers that are quite high, and even I get a little timid about adding that much. Of course, I used to be timid about adding the amount hightest recommends, and now I find that isn't enough in most cases.

In any case:
1 gram of DAP per Imperial Gallon gives 46 ppm YAN
1 gram of Fermaid K per Imperial Gallon gives about 22 ppm YAN

Typically, I like a 2/3 Fermaid K, 1/3 DAP mix to ensure plenty of micronutrients and yeast hulls. So using 8 grams of Fermaid K and 4 grams of DAP would give about 360 ppm YAN. The honey itself may provide 10-20 ppm.  That is the way I approach nutrient additions."

So I've followed that guidance (not that I understand how to use the YAN (Yeast Assimilative Nitrogen) calculator, so initially it's had 4 grammes of FermaidK and 2 grammes of  the Ritchies yeast nutrient (Diammonium Phosphate and something else that I forget the name of - but I'll include it when I've looked it up).

I'm quite glad that I took a pint out of it and then when it was time to give it a stir to aerate it, that I stood it in the sink as I got an excellent foam eruption out of it. The picture shows it after it's settled down again. I'll check the gravity before I aerate it this evening to see how it's getting on, the intention being that I want it to hit the 1/3 rd sugar break before adding the second half of the nutrients.

TTFN

Apples in season, pressing etc etc......

It's often been a bit of a nuisance when the apples are in season, as I'd dearly love to be able to make use of some.

Whether it's for apple wine, cider or whatever.

Part of what stops me is the price of the kit this should give you some idea of the costs.... very nice, but IMO, over priced.....

Whereas, I recently found this absolute fucking master stroke it's simplicity is brilliant especially if you look further around the net to find the designs for making a press from some framing, pressing boards and a hydraulic bottle type car jack. Or even a smallish, machine shop hydraulic press. You can obtain something like 10 tonnes pressure on the pulp.

The idea of using a "garbage disposal unit" for a grinder is brilliant. Giving a nice, even, "apple sauce" type pommace ready for wrapping up as a "cheese", ready for pressing.

The only downside of that link is the constantly annoying reference of pressed apple juice as "cider". That's more of a language barrier thing between the UK and US (we speak English, they speak "American" - similar, yet very different). It doesn't matter whether the apple juice is clear or cloudy, it's still fucking apple juice. If it's then fermented, it's fucking cider, not "hard cider", just fucking cider!!!!!

Hey ho! be a boring place if we all spoke the same......... Either way, "his" idea and suggestion are, IMO, brilliant......

TTFN!

New Batch ingredients

In an earlier post (about treasure) I showed some stuff that Keith was kind enough to send over for me. In the picture is the remainder of the Oklahoma Wild flower honey mixed up to a gallon (imperial) with water (nothing special, just tap water).

To work out how to proceed, I've taken a gravity reading which tells me that it's quite high, at 1120. So presuming a drop to 1000 to consider the ferment finished, that should give me about 16.3 %ABV.

There was about four and a half pounds in weight of the honey left so I figured I'd just make it up "as is" and just age it.

Hence it doesn't really matter if it ends up with an "alcohol hot" taste when the ferment has finished.

As I had no idea what the gravity would end up at, I wasn't sure what yeast I would use, but as its 1120, I'll just run with some D21.

The intention is to rehydrate the yeast with some GoFerm and then add FermaidK and some DAP once the lag phase has finished.

I'll be aerating it twice a day to the 1/3rd sugar break (1080 in this case).

D21 is listed as having moderate nutrient needs so I'll be checking the mead calculator over at Gotmead to make sure about the nutrient requirements.

Will it taste like shit ?

Raspberry Melomel

Ok, so I've just racked the raspberry melomel that I mentioned in an earlier post. I'd been a bit lazy, but also a bit pressed for time recently and it was left in the bucket with too much air space, though in truth most of that air space will have been CO2, not just air.....

So, from memory, it was initially 1.3kg of blended Polish honey, some steam extracted raspberry juice and some red grape juice. The yeast ? from memory it was Lalvins 71B.

Now when it was nearly finished, I added about another 600 to 700 grammes of honey (actually what was left in a jar that I'd been using for other stuff - about half a jar).

That went in and I left it, then when I tested it to see if it was finished, it was just below 1.000, about 0.998 or something like that. So then I thought about making it a bit more "raspberryish" as the whole point of the exercise was so that it didn't taste so much of the blended honey.

So I pinched a bag of frozen raspberries out of the freezer and chucked them in too.

Now as I already said I want it more raspberryish tasting. I finally found a few minutes to get it racked, not really to remove all the yeast etc, but to get it off the fruit and start it clearing. With that in mind, I did rack it reasonably carefully but it's still very cloudy as you can see. I got that gallon in the picture and another 750ml wine bottle full (the wine bottle full is in the fridge - because when I checked it - it was showing a gravity of about 1.005 which is where I want it but in a wine bottle I don't want it starting to re-ferment if it should warm up a little.

I did take a taste of the little bit that was left in the bottom of the test/sample jar - hard to tell how it's gonna finish really as it's very yeasty tasting etc.

The gallon in the picture was racked onto a half teaspoon of stabiliser/sorbate and 1 crushed campden tablet.

Why I've posed the question of "will it taste like shit", I know that I haven't made many fruit meads/melomels and those I have done haven't in my view been that successful. Well, Ok, maybe they were, but they didn't come out how I expected them too - I haven't managed to find any commercially made fruit meads/melomels to compare to so I really don't know. Hence not knowing whether they're any good or not .............

One thing I did do, was before flushing all the pulp/fruit, was to pick out a raspberry and taste it. I now understand what is meant by seed bitterness. There was a bit of raspberry taste left, but not much, but I got a distinct bitterness taste as I squashed the fruit in my mouth. Strange, as I'd never associated raspberries with being bitter. Sharp and/or acid yes, but not bitter.

I only knew of that from reading stuff.

I'm thinking that if it stays tasting like it does now (not the yeast element, but the rest staying the same) what will it taste like after it's aged ? Should I just say bollocks to it and back sweeten it once it's clear ? I'm quite happy to do that with honey as any tiny amount of yeast sediment that continues to drop out is gonna be 71B which is, as I understand it, Ok for ageing a wine/mead on.

After all, I won't be drinking it for a while anyway. Maybe I should just stick a couple of teaspoons of malt extract into it ? Or sugar syrup ?

It doesn't taste very acidic as the yeast metabolises some of the malic acid in the raspberry, so it's possible that I might still need to add a little of that as well.

Hum ? still a bit of a quandary eh! Maybe I'll just see if the bottle full in the fridge has dropped most of it's sediment and then experiment a bit with it, even though it's really there for topping up........

It's supposed to be 6 bottles to the gallon so if I started with pouring off the mead once it's cleared/cold crashed a bit, then I might just try 1/8th teaspoon of acid and then about the same of malt extract to see how that works. If it gives some sort of improvement (well to my taste anyway) that'll do.

I really don't understand why it is that I "don't get" this mead making with fruit etc, it just seems wrong to my way of thinking. Sure I know that lots of people make them like that and I have to presume successfully as well - it's just that I don't get it.........

Right, off to put some more thought into this......

Novelty Air Lock.......

One of the newer members over at gotmead obviously decided to make a batch of "JAO" and then took the "use a balloon with a pinhole in it for the airlock" just a little further than normal.

Hence my thread title of "novelty airlock". If it works, then WTF! eh ?

TTFN

Mystery liquid & Steam extracted raspberry......update

Ok, so the post from last weekend (24th) where I showed pictures of the mystery liquid and the raspberries in the steam extractor..... the mystery liquid (1.3kg of Polish blended honey and 1 litre of red grape juice) was mixed with the extracted raspberry juice for a "Raspberry Melomel".

On either tuesday (or was it wednesday) evening, I checked to see how it was progressing. The initial gravity on the weekend (Sunday, I think) was about 1090, and allowing for a total drop to 1000 (a drop of 90 points), that would have given me a %ABV of about 12.2, but as it had dropped quite quickly to about 1045 in 2 or 3 days, I added about another 600 grammes of the honey (Polish blended honey - happened to have just under a half jar sitting there) to the ferment and also a teaspoon of FermaidK. What I didn't do, was take a gravity reading of the must after the extra ingredients were added.....

I've just been and checked how it's getting on and while I don't know how much the gravity might have been increased with the extra honey, the ferment is now showing that it's back down to 1035 and there's still a nice view of tiny bubbles showing on the surface, so I'll leave it be now to see where it stops.

It's very likely that it will finish with some residual sugar, which is sort of what I'm aiming for anyway - though whether or not I add tannin to the finished ferment will also depend on the finished taste. The residual sugar will mean that I don't need to think about back sweetening. Plus once I'm happy it has finished fermenting, it'll be sorbated and sulphited to allow it to then settle/clear naturally. I made this up in a bucket as I'd like to make sure that it produces the 6 bottles to the gallon that you don't normally get as you do get racking losses - which will be negated as it should through a reasonable sediment in the bucket. I won't bother moving it to a DJ just yet, as the ferment should produce enough CO2 to prevent any oxidation.

Hopefully that lot makes sense.

Oh, and I don't recall whether I mentioned that I used Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast in this batch, mainly because raspberry is a "malic" fruit and the 71B will metabolise some of that, which should prevent any malolactic fermentation (not always a bad thing of course).

TTFN!

Further to Saturday 24th entry.....

This evening, I took the honey/grape juice/raspberry juice mix and made it up to a gallon (well 5 litres really) and then took a reading to see what needed doing to it.

I was surprised that it was "only" about 1090, so because I don't want it too acidic and that raspberry can often be quite overpowering on it's own, I've just pitched Lalvin's 71B yeast.

71B only has a 14% tolerance but I'm hoping that it should ferment dry, I'll have to check the numbers to see what I need in total gravity drop to attain 14%. If I have to feed it a little more honey, then that's not an issue. The 71B was used dry as I don't want it to kick in too quickly, but also 71B can metabolise some of the malic acid from the raspberries.

So I'm hoping that when I get home on tuesday, it should be showing some signs of fermentation........

More Treasure (4/7/10) - Mareks suggestion........

Thanks for the idea about making a Trójniak instead of the Czwórniak Marek, I'll look into that and try and understand what it entails.


It's just that from reading the descriptions for the Czwórniak, it looked easier for a first attempt than the Trójniak, but I'll certainly check to see what the difference is (apart from the honey/water ratio). I'd only be making a gallon batch as it, to me, is very much an experiment.

It may even come down to having to working within the contraints of how much honey is needed, because I was considering making a 5 gallon batch of a traditional recipe, which is feasible using about 3 and 1/2 lb of honey to the gallon with possible a pound or two for back sweetening - just to retain the full flavour of the buckwheat - and still have enough left over to be able to try a few other recipes as well that include some buckwheat in them.

I'm certainly not going to rush into this, as I don't want to waste a single gramme of this brilliant, if unusual (to me) honey. It's a wonderful opportunity to learn a bit about something that's normally out of my reach (the honey type that is).....

Yet again, I can't thank you enough for the assistance in getting it. Absolutely marvellous.......

Right, off to read up on the differences between the two mead types......

Todays effort of finally removing the fruit!

Well, today, prompted by our picking of some raspberries, has been a bit "spur of the moment".

To start with, after we'd picked the fruit, I decided it was time to make a bit of space. The resulting picture is what's left of last years efforts of making sloe gin.

I started with picking the sloes, then dug round the net to find a recipe. The one I picked was 1lb of sloes, 1 pint of gin and 8oz of sugar - I was a little concerned about that much sugar, so after asking a few people, I decided to change it to 5oz of sugar - mainly on the basis that it's a piece of piss to add more sugar if it needed it but it's a bugger to remove it if it's too sweet.

So, the mix was made, though I didn't waste my time individually pricking the fruit with a pin, I just froze it for a couple of days and then defrosted it enough to be able to pour it into the jar (picture later) and then add the sugar and gin - I did actually add a little cinnamon bark as well to give it (hopefully) just a hint of the spices.

I'd had some out of the jar, but the picture is of what's left - me being quietly pleased as after about a month or so (possibly as long as 2) it was good IMO, though some might have thought it a little sharp/sherberty tasting/acid.

I can reassure any reader that the acid/sharpness has mellowed quite well, hence it's been moved to the 1 gallon jar/demi-john and the 3 bottles (plus there was about a further 1/2 a pint so I've drunk that mixed 50/50 with lemonade, and now have quite a buzz as I type this...

Remaining fruit after it's been drained.

Ok, so here's the remaining fruit. There was about 16lb in total before it went into the gin etc. I've tried taking a bite to see what it's like, as it's possible to make jam etc from it, what with the sloes/blackthorn plant being related to plums (same genus - prunus).

I've decided that I don't want to do that, so it's gonna end up in the steam juice extractor, to remove any further flavour/juice/colour. Which will then be preserved in a jar so it can go into something later......

Raspberries in the steam extractor.

Here's what happening to the raspberries, they're being steamed in the juice extractor, which is also the ultimate destination of the sloes above as well.

I'm extracting the juice, because we haven't got enough space in the freezer for the fruit at the moment, plus if I extract the juice, I can use it to make a batch of raspberry melomel.

Mystery liquid ?

Ok, so what's this ? Well as you can see from the picture above, the raspberries are going into a batch to be made as "Raspberry Melomel".

Now it's fair to point out, that raspberry can be quite over powering if just used as a flavouring on it's own. So as there's about 2 or 3 kg of fruit in the steamer, this picture shows 1.3 kg of honey (part of what's left of the 6 or was it 7 jars of honey that my friend Sebastian brought me back from Poland on a trip home.

The honey isn't really anything remarkable, other than the 1.3 kg (about 3lb) jars as that's a bit larger than we normally see here in the UK - our normal jars being 1lb/454g in weight. Plus I've added 1 litre of red grape juice, not sure why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, and as I suspect that with the honey and grape juice, once I've added the extracted raspberry juice it'll be too high a gravity for a 1 gallon batch, so I'll have to make it up to 1.5 or 2 gallons - only time and the hydrometer will tell.

I've already added 2 tsp of "Pectolase" pectic enzyme, because it's got the red grape juice, and will eventually (after extraction/cooling) get the raspberry juice as well. It might as well have a couple of days to do it's thing to reduce the chance of a pectin haze.......

The ultimate plan, is, allowing for the raspberry juice being quite powerful and only having grape juice and honey in it, I expect to have to make this quite a high alcohol batch, so it's likely to come out as a bit "medicinal" to start with, and hopefully a strong raspberry flavour, so I'll have to back sweeten it. I don't want to make it a "dessert" melomel if I can help it, but if I can finish it so it tastes like an alcoholic raspberry cordial then that'd be brilliant.

This is the first time I've actually thought about how I want the end result to be, rather than just throwing the ingredients into a fermenter and letting them do their thing and see what comes out at the end........

Ok that's about it for the moment........

TTFN!

Elderberry melomel...almost in season!

Elderberry season is almost here, so is one of my favorite meads, elderberry melomel. Employ the same backsweetening method as with concord pyment.

It is easy to pick 33 lbs wild elderberries in a day, we did in 2008. Dried elderberries at the health food store or wine shop are $20/lb, you do the math? I'm drinking elderberry melomel and grinning all the way to the bank...I mean cellar!

After 4 weeks ferment of a classic mead, toss into the carboy about 1 lb ripe elderberries per gallon of mead. Sweeten with chenin blanc for a honey/elderberry delight. As I convinced Fatbloke chenin blanc backsweetening will taste more like honey, than actually backsweeting with honey....FACT!

The elderberries pictured are not ready, as the berry heads will droop towards the ground when ripe. Destem them with a fork after freezing them overnight. DO NOT LEAVE THEM IN FREEZER as I did...they will freezer burn easily. Elderberries are used to accent many different wines, besides making an excellent melomel alone.

All my mead recipes should age for 2 years, but rarely do they last that long. A 4 year old elderberry is to die for...TRUELY an exquisite desert melomel.

ARISTAEUS