Todays Purchase......

A quick visit to the local honey wholesaler, has go me this 3.17kg bucket of mexican honey. Mexican honey for any reason ? yes, because I wanted a strong flavoured honey and this is one of the stronger tasting ones that he sells......

Different flavours etc, and other things.....

Been reading up on some stuff about some of the different flavours that people over at Gotmead have been using.

Some of them sound excellent, but some of them sound very bizarre - well to me they do anyway......

I mean, Chocolate ? Apart from those cream based liqueurs like Baileys and other similar products, I can't get my head round why you might want to produce a Chocolate, or maybe Coffee mead.....

Surely, the whole reason why those work with the cream based liqueurs, is because of the flavour and the presence of the cream and sweetening in them ????

Or maybe something like Banana. It makes great deserts, eaten raw, etc etc, but banana flavoured booze, mead or whatever ?

I just don't get it.

Yes, I can see a bit of "novelty factor", or even the "make it, because I can" idea but I still just don't see the point.....

Of course, something like the cyser that I'm having a go at right now, well, say to have something like a stronger version of a cider (that's hard cider for those in the US), but "appley" with a honey sweetness, sounds wonderful (and hopefully my efforts will turn out like that).

Sure, I know that there's a few fruits etc that are grown for cropping in the US that are grown less so here (Pumpkin comes to mind), but why anyone might want to make a "pumpkin" flavoured mead is beyond me (hell I've never eaten a pumpkin dish that I've liked anyway - maybe that's got something to do with it).

Oh well, s'pose I'll just carry on reading about some of the weird and wonderful brews others make and continue to keep "scratching my head" over the "why" bit...

As for the "Other things" mentioned, well I've read a number of times about not adding any further "non-organic" source of nitrogen as at that stage, the yeast can't use it and that only "organic" sources of nitrogen should be used after the 1/3rd "sugar break".

For "organic" nitrogen, I've read that "yeast hulls" are good/ideal. The only snag being that I can't find them locally......... though I've read that if I boiled some yeast it produces the same thing.

So yesterday, I dug out a small tin of bread yeast that had gone out of date (probably nothing wrong with it, but it was ideal for an experiment), I added about half a pint of water into a small saucepan, heating it until it was boiling and then added the tin of yeast. I had to stir it a lot and reduce the gas so that the yeast/water mix was just simmering.

My problem is, that the term "yeast hulls" suggests something that at least resembles the tiny yeast pellets in brewing and/or bread making packs. Whereas my "boiled yeast" (I boiled it to about half it's original volume) looks like a yeast coloured sludge. Which I don't mind, because lets face it, most of the additives used in mead/wine/beer making don't look very appetising do they.....

So with the "yeast coloured sludge" image in mind, how do I work out how much to use, if at all. Damn! I'll have to go and dig round the web to see if I can find any further info on this.....

TTFN!

Cyser (Apple mead ☠ ☺) part 2.

Ok, so I got a bit impatient and have just been through the very messy process of filtering/straining/pressing the juice to remove as much of the dry matter from the apples as I can.

I've still got about 10 litres or so, but am now waiting to see if the fermentation kicks in again, as the filter/press/strain thing tends to knock the guts out of it.

I'm also trying to work out how the hell I can get a rough idea of the gravity of the juice before I pitched the yeast and started the ferment.

The apple juice itself, was about 1.050 - I know that from letting the pulp sit with the sulphite and pectolase, and then managing to take a bit of a sample from below the cap of dry matter/pulp that had settled on top of some of the juice.

I also know, since I remembered to take a reading about 20 minutes ago after I did the strain/press/filter thing - it's currently back down at 1.055 (bare in mind that just the juice was at 1.050 so pretty much all the sugars in the honey have been fermented now).

I just don't know how to work out what the likely gravity the addition of the 3lb of honey to the 1.050 juice might have been - I know there's a way of working it out (albeit not very accurately), but I don't know what that method might be......

edit - I've just found a document on the net, that says "3lb of honey in a gallon gives a specific gravity of about 1.090" - so as there was about 2 gallons of juice @ about 1.050, then that would suggest that with the honey and the elderberry juice, I can make the presumption that the starting gravity would have been about the 1.095 to 1.100 range - I'm not fussed about accuracy particularly but it's nice to have a few numbers to be able to guess what's going on and how far the batch has to run - with D21 it should, theoretically, ferment dry - if I haven't managed to kill the yeast when doing the filtering/straining etc.....

Either way, I will consider the moving of the liquid during that process, it's last aeration.....

Cyser (Apple mead ☠ ☺).....

So, last weekend, my partner came home with a bucket full of apples. She'd spotted some (there's quite a few around here) the day before, but on inspection, found that the ones she'd seen had been messed up/crushed/etc by the local kids. So she'd been to one of the other more accessible tree's and got these ☄ .


Some of them went into a couple of apple crumbles, which are awaiting my attention in the freezer, the rest, well after a little consideration, I decided that it might be best if I had a go at a "Cyser" which is a mead made with apple juice.

It took me an hour or so, to pick through them, rinse them off thoroughly and then chop them up a bit and put them through the food processor (a task that I don't really like as last time I used it to do something like this, I nearly burned out the bloody motor on it).

So after they were all trimmed to remove as much as possible of the bruised parts and any that had been munched by bugs, I ended up with about 6 or 7 litres of apple pulp. To this (as it looked a bit on the dry side) I decided to add a litre and a half carton of apple juice so to make it easier to mix in some sulphite (campden tablets, crushed) and some Pectolase (pectic enzyme).

This was then left until wednesday evening. I decided that I needed to do something with it. As I didn't have sufficient of any other type, I took 3lb of the Polish Buckwheat honey and mixed that in, along with about a litre of elderberry juice (the sulphite had "bleached" any minor oxidation/browning from the apple pulp on sunday evening, but I thought it might be nice if there was a colour other than "appley/cider" brown - in any event, it would add some tannin and other non-honey and apple flavour).


Through choice I would have added K1V-1116 yeast, as it has the "killer" property and would have easily become the dominant yeast (and yes, I'd taken as much precautions of sanitising all the kit as I practicably could). So when I found that I've run out of that at the moment, I decided to use D21 (got plenty of that at the moment..... thankyou Keith, you're a star). That was rehydrated in water, but as I was getting tired, I'd forgotten to use any GoFerm when rehydrating the yeast. So when the yeast had had 15 or 20 minutes at less than the 40 degrees C the packets mention I chucked it in - along with about a half teaspoon of GoFerm and gave it a good stirring to.

Thursday morning, I come down to breakfast only to find that I was glad I'd left the bucket in the sink as it had foamed like hell, blocking the airlock and actually forcing the lid off the bucket......

So after a bit of a mad panic to clean up the mess and some "emergency sanitising", I then gave it a damn good stir/aeration and then syphoned the must, pulp and all, into a 12/13 litre water bottle and then airlocked it, finally leaving it in a sink full of cold water in the hope that the cold water would reduce the temperature of the must/ferment enough to stop it foaming and popping the bung/airlock a second time (Oh and during all the mess - I found no signs of any fruit/fermentation flies, so I presumed that I was safe).

On getting back from work on thursday evening, I found that my attempt had worked, and that the pulp was starting to separate nicely. So I just gave it all a good swirl.

This evening, I got home and it looked basically like this........

Now the only difference between that picture and how it looked is that I took this picture after I'd managed to get enough liquid from below the crust of separating pulp to measure the gravity (it was 1085) and then gave it a damned good stir/aeration and then weighed out 5 grammes of FermaidK and 2.5 grammes of DAP, both of which were added to the 100 mls that was used to check the gravity and mixed in thoroughly before being added to the main body of the must - which was then given a further good stirring and aeration.


So far, the only thing I haven't managed to do, was to check the gravity after the honey and elderberry juice was added to the apple pulp - I did manage to get a measurement from the apple pulp/juice, that was 1050, but I have no way of really knowing what the gravity was before I pitched the yeast - I should have let it stand to separate the pulp enough to measure it..... I didn't.

I'm gonna post a question over at Gotmead, as I understand that there is a way of getting an approximation, from the ingredients alone, but I won't know until I've posted the question.......

Todays "master plan" 2 .......

Not bad, if I do say so myself. From memory, it was made using one of "CJJ's" recipes from his "First Steps in Wine Making" book, though as Bob over at Wines at Home says, a lot of his recipes do seem to come out very sweet.

Yes, it does taste sweet, almost sugary, but also alcoholic enough (I'll know once I've got pissed enough). The colour doesn't show well in the photo as it's a dull day outside. It's actually a "dark white/hint of rose/pink" in colour (don't forget, canned strawberries aren't as red looking as fresh ones).

So, yes, the bag in a box setup did work, well sort of. My partner had to call me downstairs, as I'd left it to do it's thing i.e. run through the filter into the box/wine bladder, but while I was typing the previous post, it still managed to leak out from somewhere and as a result, it's managed to soak the bottom of the box - fuck!

Just goes to show that even when putting wine in a bag in a box, it pays to have patience and keep an eye on it...... Next time (I bought 2 kits) I'll have to filter the wine into a glass or plastic receptacle and then syphon it into the bag.......

So even the best of "master plans" can go to a sack of shit if not carried out properly. I'll only know it's true worth, if it doesn't oxidise while I'm drinking it.....

Pip pip!

Todays "master plan".......

Ha! Ok, so I'm getting nagged a bit as there's too much WIP.... a.k.a. wines in progress littering the dining room floor (well it wasn't until "she" decided the dining room needed a change round and all of a sudden the wine isn't just "out the way" etc).

So, what to do?

Well, some of it needs to be aged for longer, some is still clearing, some needs filtering and dare I say it, bottling.........

Bottling?????  Aaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhh! The bain of the wine maker (unless you make huge quantities and have some bottling machines to make life easy..... like an ozone generator and plenty of money for bottles by the pallet, etc etc).....

Anyway, I went out with the intention of pillaging some of the local flora for the last of the elderberries, but it started to rain (still is), so I diverted to the local HBS for kit and ideas...

The kit was some plastic bottles and ascorbic acid to put the gallon of steam extracted elderberry juice in (some that I did 2 weekends ago, sorry, forgot to do a write up/article on that).

While at the HBS, inspiration struck, with "how the hell do I get out of having to piss around sanitising bloody bottles etc" ? The inspiration was a small display of "Bag in a box" kits.

You get a flat packed box, an "aluminiumised" plastic wine bladder and a tap.

It's a shit photo but here you are.......

That's the "aluminiumised" bag, with the box behind and the tap in front, the gallon of wine chosen to test drive (an 08 Canned Strawberry) and on the left is the gravity filter unit (an old boots one, not the more up to date "Harris" one - I can still get the filters so it'll do as I was given it by my aunt).

This picture shows the box made up from flat, with the wine bladder in place and the wine is filtering straight into it.

This (one of my less artistic efforts - crap camera work, but it was with my phone) shows the path from DJ down through the filter to the "bag in a box" setup.














Now, I should mention that this is a bit of a pain to do, but it's infinitely better than having to de-label old wine bottles (too tight to buy new ones), then clean them, rinse, sanitise and drain them (you will, if you've got the wine properly cleared, racked and filtered, get a full 6 bottles to the gallon, though in reality 5 and a half).

So, the "master plan" is by using the "bag in a box" kit, the wine has all air removed by holding the tap open and squishing the bag until some wine comes out. Then as the wine is dispensed by the glass, the bag sucks in on itself until it's nearly empty, by which time you just pour yourself the last bit into a glass. Thereby reducing the chance of getting any air into it and oxidation problems that you get by having a part opened bottle of wine.

The same thing can be done by using a "cornelius" keg system, which is pressurised with an inert gas (not CO2 as that is absorbed by the wine and you get a sparkling/fizzy wine, where you'd have wanted a still wine), which will have purged all the air/O2 but also provided enough pressure to dispense the wine. The difference is that a bag in a box kit is about a fiver, a "corny keg" even second hand/used will cost considerably more (seen them go for 30 quid plus on ebay).

Right, I'll close this for the moment so I can go and check to see if the wine has finished running through the filter (it's the one thing that's a bit of a pain, as the filter pad gets blocked by sediment, the slower it runs.... unless you have a mini-jet pump/filter device or similar)...

Will edit and update with a picture of the wine - which does smell of canned strawberry but I have no concept of what it'll taste like......

Some of my meads (and other stuff)......

Ok, this is what some of my means look like once made, racked, filtered and possible topped up.

Without getting them out from under the stairs again, that's (from L to R) "Greek" honey (nice and cheap from the local brand of Lidl), then Winter mead (recipe found on the net), a traditional type made with Oklahoma Wild Flower honey (thanks Keith, it's lovely honey) and a modified JAO recipe, though made with lemon and lime instead of orange.

As you can tell from my earlier post, I wasn't sure what to do, so I thought "fuck it" and just ran them through my gravity filter and made sure that they were topped up to the brim and then just put them away for ageing (the JAO, Winter and Greek are already about 2 years old).

It remains to be seen whether they improve any further........

Of the other wines/meads etc, I'm gonna continue racking, filtering etc, but not until I've got a "bag in a box" set up. So then I don't need to bottle any of the fruit wines that are a couple of years old, just get them used up......

I think I'll also end up making up the last few 1 gallon batches, but then move over to making less batches, but 5 gallon ones, instead of the smaller ones. It's a lot of effort and messing about for just 5 or possibly 6 bottles........

Occasional moments of confusion and indecision.....

Ok, so here's where I'm at........

I have a number of 1 gallon batches, some need bottling, some need racking, some need...... well something.......

I don't really want to bottle what needs bottling, because I like bulk ageing meads, I also like how they look in a 1 gallon glass demi-john jar.

So what's the problem?

Well, if I rack the ones that need racking then there's always some racking loses, so you'd normally top them up with something. Water ? Well I don't want to reduce the body of a finished mead/wine/whatever, or reduce the alcohol content. I can use "a similar mead/wine", but I don't really have anything that will do the job.

Then there's the ones that need bottling. My enolmatic vacuum bottler and it's associated filter tend to lose more than if I used something like a "Harris filter" type device - I actually have the older "Boots" filter, but I'm still not a big fan of those as they seem to rely on sitting on top of a demi-john 1 gallon jar, and the wine then splashes into the receiving jar below. I don't like the idea of splashing the wines as it can lead to oxidisation (yes I know that meads don't tend to suffer as badly as other wines, I still don't like the idea......)

What the hell, I might just do that anyway and then just top them up with some of the chenin blanc "panic" wine - it might change the flavour a bit but does that really matter ??? As once it's filtered etc it'll just be put away to age (forgotten about ;-D ).......

Damn! I don't know, I just can't make my mind up what to do next.......

I just want to do something, because then I can start again, and hopefully try and be considerably more organised than I have been up to now..........

Blackcurrant Melomel (clearing out the fridge.....)

Blackcurrant Melomel (soon)

Ok, so one of the things that Clare wants to do over the weekend is to make me some "Lemon curd". Which is wonderful (nice that she's making it and nice to eat, on bread and butter :-p ).

So after having a look at our stock of empty jars (jam, honey, pickles etc etc), we find that we're running low on them.

I remembered that after last years visit to the local PYO, we came home with 6 or 7 pounds of fruit (don't recall the exact amount) and I promptly put it all through the steam juice extractor (reduces the size/volume of original fruit - excellent for "red" type fruit) and jarred it, the jars went straight into the fridge once cooled.

I also had the last of the 6 jars of generic Polish honey that my friend Sebastian brought over with him, last year or the year before. The were all crystalised anyway and would need warming through to use.

So I figured that as Clare needed some empty jars and I'd been thinking about what to make next, presented an opportunity/idea. Black currant Melomel.

Now I love black currant anyway, so the picture is showing the empty honey jar (1.3kg size), the last of the re-sealable jars of steam extracted black currant juice and the bucket being used as the primary fermenter (containing the honey from the jar, a jar of juice the same size as in the picture and 3 x 1lb jars of fruit juice).

The reason why I haven't put all the black currant juice in, is that I'm going to ferment this, but once it's finished and racked off the lees, I'll add the last of the juice to make it more fruity/black currant in flavour. The honey taste is less important as it's nice tasting but it's processed and of unknown provenance.

I haven't taken a gravity reading yet, just mixed up the honey, black currant juice and made it up to just over a gallon with water. That in turn, has had about 2 teaspoons of pectic enzyme and 1 crushed campden tablet whisked into it.

I'll leave this for 24 or maybe even 48 hours for the pectic enzyme to do it's thing, as the BC juice seemed a little thicker than I remember, and while it tasted fine, it's probably set a little pectin from when the juice was being extracted, hence the 2 tsp per gallon amount used (I'll probably have to add more once I add the rest of the juice anyway.....)

I haven't decided on which yeast yet, though as black currants are a malic fruit, it might be sensible to use 71B, due to it's property of being able to metabolise some of the malic acid. I'm also in 2 minds as to whether I really need to add any tannins as there's gonna be some in the fruit juice.

Finally, whether this ends up as a 1 or 2 gallon batch is dependant on the gravity when I measure it today or tomorrow.

TTFN!

Batch news......

So, I decided to check to see how the latest batch was getting on (the Oklahoma Wildflower mead batch that is).

It started at a gravity of 1120, now with the presumption that finished is 1000, the 120 point drop would be, as far as I can work out (shit at maths) 16.3% ABV.

The yeast I've used (Lalvins D21) is apparently good for 16%, though maybe, with a little luck, it could go higher.

Where was I, Oh yes, so after carefully suspending the hydrometer in the batch (fully sanitised of course), it said that it had a gravity of 1070, which is actually a little lower than the 1080 1/3rd sugar break. Not to worry, it's close enough.

So I figured it was time to add the rest of the nutrients, and as per previous posts, the guidance I'd been given suggested that 2 grammes of the DAP and 4 grammes of Fermaid-K would be in order.

Now I was thinking about this today and I remembered what it was that I left out of the batch so far, that would be any acid addition and tannin of some sort. So I thought that this batch should now be stable enough to take the last pint that was taken out to give it some head space, and hatched the master plan of putting the pint of honey/water must into the liquidiser and then adding the nutrients, acid and tannin. Lots of sanitising spray and that went smoothly (the whole lot was the colour of the "head" in the milk bottle on the left of the main DJ).

So I carefully put the DJ in the sink, and start adding the mixed/aerated must and nutrient/minerals to it. It wasn't one of those fast "fuck fuck fuck" type foam eruptions, it was a slow but steady one that ended up with me having to sanitise the turkey baster in a rush and use it to suck out some of the foam.

For the moment, I've re-air locked it and put the rest of the must/minerals etc back into the milk bottle so the foam can settle out of that and I'll have another go at gently pouring it into the DJ when I get up for work.

So, TTFN