Banana Mead Part 4

Ok, last night, when I checked the brew, there was plenty of foam showing, but the gravity test showed little, if any movement.

Tonight when I checked it, I could see not only plenty of foam but some yeast scum on the top of the inside of the fermenter, so I was happy that it was fermenting fine, and my concerns of the previous posts on this where unfounded, just that I suspect I'm correct in thinking that I should have left the must in a bucket for a day or two more to dissipate the sulphites more.

Either way, it's going well.

Both last night, and tonight, I've stirred the hell out of it and managed to generate foam eruptions twice. When I checked the gravity tonight, it was down to 1.070 - which is only 10 points from the 1/3rd sugar break, so I took about 750mls out of the fermenter and put it into the liquidiser once I'd sanitised it and ran it on slow to aerate the contents. At the same time I stirred the fermenter as well, to help remove some of the built up CO2. Once that was done (about 5 minutes of "aeration"), I thought "sod it" it's gonna steam past the 1/3rd break over night (probably), so I added 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of FermaidK and 3/4's teaspoon of DAP (di-ammonium phosphate) and stirred that in well, before pouring the 750mls of well aerated must back into the fermenter.

I'm gonna leave it for now.

Just for info, the ferment was well underway, until I stirred the hell out of it. If you look at "Machalel's" (he's ? - a newer member over at gotmead) video clip, that's about the same level of activity I was getting, just that my batch didn't look quite as impressive as my fermenter is a 3 US gallon water cooler bottle (I'll try and post a pic another time) coloured transparent blue, and my must is lighter in colour as his batch was "caramel banana", mine is just banana.

Right, that's it for now. TTFN

Banana Mead - Part 3

I left this batch for about 36 hours, stirring a number of times to dissipate the sulphites. Then I rehydrated the yeast with GoFerm, then before I pitched the yeast, I gave it another good stir to aerate the must (actually I sanitised the liquidiser and blitzed a pint or so) and pitched the yeast.

Ok thinks me, looking good as I could see a few bubbles in the airlock after about 12 hours i.e. as far as I could tell, the lag phase was over, so I give it another stirr to aerate it and added 2 teaspoons of FermaidK and a teaspoon of DAP (di-ammonium phospate).

The next day......bugger all. No sign of bubbles in the airlock and no apparent drop in gravity.

Looked this morning and there did seem to be some sign of bubbles in the airlock, so I can only presume that I didn't leave the must long enough for the sulphites to dissipate.....

Should I just put a clean cloth over the top of the fermenter instead of an airlock ? Don't know. I prefer to use an air lock as it does show indications of something going on.

I'll have to wait and see when I get home tonight, to make sure that I wasn't imagining things. I'll give it a stir anyway.......

Banana Mead, part 2

Ok, so I chopped all of the fruit, after it was "topped and tailed" into pieces about 5mm or so thick. I managed to get the whole lot into my GF's "Maslin" pan (jam/jelly making pan) with about 6 litres of water, but had to take some out and transfer it to the base of our pressure cooker, as it was just too much fruit for the 1 pan.

Both pans were brought to the boil, and then simmered for 30 minutes, then switched off and left to cool.

Once they were cool enough, I checked (the liquid/fruit was put through a strainer, and then the pulp was wrung out to remove the last of the "juice") how much "juice" I had and then made it up too 2 gallons. I was working from guidance that suggested 4 and a half pounds of banana to the gallon, and figured that 5 and a half pounds per gallon wouldn't make much difference as there was no point in trying to split the numbers. To that, I added the 6lb of local wild flower honey. All the liquid contents went into the chosen fermenter, which was capped and I shook the hell out of it. Then added sulphites (in the form of campden tablets). I use 3 tablets, because with the honey, it was up to about 11 litres of liquid.

This has been left for about 36 hours, with lots of shaking in between, so I'm hoping that the sulphites will have dissipated enough not to be a problem. The whole point of the sulphite was because I wasn't sure about what I was going to do next and was still digging round the net for idea's etc.

I've mixed up about 150mls of water and the same amount of the juice/honey mix, which has gone into a jam jar with half a tablespoon of GoFerm (7.5 grammes - which according the some stuff I've read about dosage should be 1.5 x the weight of yeast - a 5 gramme pack). I've put the yeast into that and shaken the hell out of it. Hopefully, by the time I've finished typing this, it will have started to show some signs of activity (about and hour or so).

I'll pitch the yeast and then give it all another bloody good shake to make sure it's as aerated as I can make it, without mechanical assistance.

Oh, and I took a gravity reading, which was 1.090 at room temp, so it I get the ferment down to 1.000 it will be about 12.2% ABV, if I can get it down to 0.990, then it will be about 13.5% ABV - I'm aiming for 14%, which is the tolerance for the chosen yeast, Lalvin 71B.

I'm still thinking about this batch and might chuck in a couple of vanilla pods, as that usually goes well with banana, and maybe a jar of malt extract, as malt also goes well with banana, but it would also give some fermentable and some non-fermentable sugars to the brew. I'm already expecting to have to add some more honey to the batch if I want 14% and some residual sugars for sweetness.

Gift horses mouths - Banana Mead

While working yesterday, I was given a carrier bag full of banana's. Not wanting to "look a gift horse in the mouth", I was happy to accept the fruit.

But what to do with it ? Ok, banana wine, maybe banana mead, something like that.

A quick look round the net last night, showed that I need about 4 and 1/2lb of fruit per gallon. Having eaten two of the 'nana's yesterday, and Clare having taken some for banana bread, I've still got about 11lb in weight, so I can safely go for a 2 gallon batch.

I haven't used bananas before, though I'm aware that they can be used to increase body in a batch of country wine. Plus I don't know whether I'll actually need to use pectolase and/or amylase, as I don't know whether bananas contain pectin - they're certainly likely to contain some starch, but whether that's gonna be an issue or not, I don't know.

This is what 11lb of banana looks like once it's been washed, "topped and tailed" and chopped, then added to about 5 litres of water. I should probably have measured out the whole 2 gallons, but as we only have the jam making pan on the right, and I used the base of our pressure cooker (left), as it was too close for comfort with just the jam pan.

I've also been up to Paynes this morning and got 2 x 1.36kg/3lb buckets of "English" honey - which isn't very well named as it's local wild flower honey. I figured that I just need to have a medium flavoured honey, that doesn't or at least, isn't likely to detract from the banana flavour.

Initially, I'm just gonna strain off the banana water/liquid and wring the fruit pulp for the last of any flavour I can get out of it, then let it cool to room temperature. Then make it up to two gallons with RO water (Reverse Osmosis). I'll mix in the honey and sulphite it, while I'm working out whether I need to use pectolase and amylase in it or not. I haven't decided on the yeast yet, I'll have to get to see what I've got available first. And as my 2 x 2 gallon buckets have got brews in them at the moment, I've dug out my 13 litre water cooler bottle, and I'll use that to ferment in.

And before I forget, here's a picture of the banana bread that Clare made from some of the fruit.

I certainly don't mind her pinching some of the fruit, as the banana bread has come out very well. I don't think it's gonna last very long........

Latest batch (March 2012)

The other week, our freezer decided to die. We did quite well, managing to save most of the food. One "almost" casualty, was some small bags of "mixed summer fruit", but I let them defrost completely, then mixed them into a must of honey (Polish Buckwheat) and water. I sulphited that, because I couldn't make my mind up what yeast to use. I ended up just chucking a pack of D21 into it. A couple of days later, I checked the gravity, and it was down to 1.060 or so, so I added a 1lb jar of RewaRewa honey (from New Zealand) and a teaspoon of FermaidK and half a teaspoon of DAP. This morning, I've checked it and it's down to 1.020, so as the fruit was looking rather manky, I decided to remove as much of it as I could with a sieve and slotted spoon. We do our weeks shopping on a sunday morning, so after sorting out the fridge, there was about 1lb of strawberries, 4oz of grapes and 2oz of raspberries left. I've trimmed and chopped them, added about 6oz of sugar and heated them to make like a fruit coulis. That's now cooling on the cooker, and I'll strain it through cloth and add that in as well. I've also bought a couple more bags of frozen "summer fruit", so that when it's finished, I'll add that in as well, to help sweeten it some, as well as adding more "fruitiness" to the batch. Ha! not bad eh? still my usual standards of "make it up as I go". I'll probably back sweeten it as well.

Gravity point drop equating to X %ABV

Ok, I'm gonna post a table as best as I can (I know sweet FA about CSS, HTML and the other kinds of shit needed for this - I'm copying some shit from google). The point is, is that I'm obviously being a bit thick, as I haven't worked out how to use the "mead calculator" over at gotmead. Fine. So I'm putting this table up, the data having been produced by the unfeasibly helpful Bob Morton, who runs WinesatHome, because it's just a bald list of how much alcohol you can expect from a certain drop or difference between a start and finish gravity reading. It takes nothing into account, not any possible variations of sugar content from different honies, etc etc. Just that if you measure X as your start, Y as your finish, then the drop in gravity will equate to a %ABV reading from the list. I believe it also works with multiples i.e. if you start at X gravity, let it drop say 50 points to Y gravity, then you step feed some fermentables back up to (lets call it) X1 and then let it go to the fermentation finish of say Y1 and the drop from X1 to Y1 is equal to 100 points, then you've had a total drop of 150 gravity points which also equates to Z %ABV. I hope that makes sense, I certainly find it easier to work out the strengths of my brew with a reasonable level of accuracy. Oh and I'm only listing the %ABV to 2 decimal points, and not 7 as Bob did with the original data. If you want to be that anal and go to that level of accuracy, then you'll have to register at wines at home and get Bob's original spreadsheet. Edit...... Ok it turned out to be a complete pain in the arse to input the data as a pretty table, so fuck it, here's the data, just as a long list...... The first column is the difference or drop in gravity, while the second is the % alcohol that the drop in gravity represents.
50 6.79
51 6.92
52 7.06
53 7.20
54 7.33
55 7.47
56 7.60
57 7.74
58 7.88
59 8.01
60 8.15
61 8.28
62 8.42
63 8.55
64 8.69
65 8.83
66 8.96
67 9.10
68 9.23
69 9.37
70 9.51
71 9.64
72 9.78
73 9.91
74 10.0
75 10.19
76 10.32
77 10.46
78 10.59
79 10.73
80 10.86
81 11.00
82 11.14
83 11.27
84 11.41
85 11.54
86 11.68
87 11.82
88 11.95
89 12.09
90 12.22
91 12.36
92 12.5
93 12.63
94 12.77
95 12.90
96 13.04
97 13.17
98 13.31
99 13.45
100 13.58
101 13.72

Thinking about "stir plates".....

I've been thinking about a stir plate for making a batch too see how I get on. A laboratory stir plate is a device use to rotate a small plastic "stir bar" (a plastic coated magnetic bar). The idea being that a liquid substance can be stirred, without actually having something that needs to be placed in the liquid, but the liquid is rotated.

As you may know, with meads, it's currently recommended that once a batch is mixed up, it's then stirred at least once a day from the initial yeast pitch, until the 1/3rd sugar break (that's when, say, the starting gravity is 1.100 and when the yeast has burned it's way through the sugars 1/3 of the way, that is to say it's gravity is 1.066 a.k.a. the 1/3rd sugar break). The recommendation is a gotmead thing, yet it's not set in concrete, as there are some members there, who will apply aeration to a batch further, some to the 1/2 point and others until completion.

Anyway, by stirring the batch continuously, it's about getting a continuous amount of air/oxygen to the yeast, and that'd normally be associated with making starters etc.

There's also a limited amount of info about making entire batches while they're in a container that contains a stirring bar and that in turn, is placed on a magnetic stir plate.

I've had a look at places like ebay, but more often than not, the stir plate devices are too expensive, but a little hunting finds sites like this one with the instructions on how to build a home made one, using a computer fan. The only thing that needs thinking about, is whether it needs a speed controller or not. Because when a stirring arrangement like this could easily cause a vortex in the liquid, yet whether it would need to run that fast, would need a bit of experimentation, because whether it needs continuous extra air/oxygen is one question, but at the same time, it's likely to help with removing the CO2 that's produced by the yeast, and consequently, help reduce the swings in pH which can be a problem if the pH dips too low - the CO2, with a still batch, is in solution as carbonic acid (apparently), so continuous movement would help remove it by shifting it to a gaseous state.

I've also found a place that sells laboratory glassware and they have 5 litre Erlenmeyer (flat based conical) flasks, which would be big enough to make a whole 1 gallon batch (they've also got other stuff like glass beakers etc). I suspect that with a bit of effort and expense, it will be a worthwhile experiment....

Either way, I'm still thinking about it.

All in the water ?

As I make mainly meads, and as anyone with any sense, or at least the ability to use google would know, to get honey to ferment, you need to water it down - usually to a gravity level that is manageable to wine yeast (what with honey being natures most anti-bacterial, anti-fungal substance etc etc).

Now it also happens that one of the forums that I post at (which, for manners sake, shall remain nameless), there are a majority of American members, a lot of whom, start off making beers.

One of the questions I see frequently, is about water quality i.e. can I use this kind of water, or should I use ........ whatever.

Now it's fair to point out, that pretty much most domestic, piped, utility supplied water, will contain chlorine/chloramine, but depending on where you are, there will also be some trace elements. Great.

Some mead/wine/beer makers then ask about de-ionised or reverse osmosis or distilled water useage. At which point, a lot of people then pop up and go on about yeasts needing nutrients etc and the water being a valuable source of them.

Fair point, except that water, particularly water designated as drinking water, will not have enough trace elements to suppliment yeast. Hell, to have enough nutrient so the yeast is happy, you'd have to use raw fucking sewage!

There's a number of papers that have been written in connection to various brewing type matters, particularly about water quality for different uses. About the only thing that the research seems to come up with, is that for making fermented products, its best if the water is soft water i.e. water that is either neutral or very slightly acidic, and not hard, calcium or magnesium laden water that's found in my area. As that has been found to produce harsher flavours in among the many so called "off flavours" (sorry for the poor choice of words in that).

Well, ok, not so much off flavours, as minor flavouring issues, but it often depends on what's being made. For example, with distilled beverages, hard water has been found to produce a harshness, sometimes described as almost a bitterness undertone to the taste of vodkas and other "clear" spirits.

Lets face it, this would be mainly a problem with the spirits and beer industries, not "proper" wine (wines made from grapes), because they use 100% grape juice for their product. Whereas the others, including meads and country wines, water is used to reduce concentration of either sugars or colours/flavours.

Oh, and before I finish, so called "spring" water, may actually come from a spring, or it might, depending on where you are, just be a marketing thing. EU regulations state that to be called/labelled as "spring" water, the water must be bottled at the source i.e. the actual spring.

So, the result is like this. If you like the taste of the water you regularly drink, whether it comes from a tap/fawcet/spiggot, or a well, or a spring, then it's probably fine to use. If, like me, you know that your local supply might have brewing/mead making/wine making issues, then it's also fine to use DI/RO/distilled water. Just that those types will have been processed and probably have little dissolved oxygen left in them, so it may be prudent to aerate the hell out of them to get some dissolved oxygen into them (and in any case, if you're like me and making mead, then you should have read the Gotmead NewBee guide, and should be aware about the recommended aeration methods/techniques, along with the usual SNA/staggered nutrient addition as recommended for meads).

It doesn't really matter whether you shake the hell out of it, use a whisk/immersion blender (I tend to mix my honey in a sanitised liquidiser, as that mixes it up well, and also aerates it nicely), airstone for a fish tank, or as you may see some people doing around the bazaars/forums/websites etc, bubbling pure compressed O2 through a stainless steel airstone (but I think that's just a little bit too anal - and the gas isn't easy to get here either)..

As for the nutrients, well those (irrespective of whether you use a branded, combined nutrient like Tronozymol, FermaidK, Fermax or whatever - seemingly known to the US side of mead making as "energiser", or whether you use that and augment it with di-ammonium phosphate/DAP - again, usually referred to as "Nutrient" to the US side) should be added by yourself, to ensure that when making a mead, or whatever else it is that you're doing, that the yeast have enough food from sugars, and nutrients/nutrients and energiser (whatever you call them) to be able to do their thing.....

JAO/Joe's Ancient Orange recipe (before I forget)...

So, I'm posting a copy of the well known JAO recipe. Not because I need too, but because whenever I need to find a copy of it, I have to dig around for it, so now I'll know where to get a copy from.

Oh and I copied this from the "Gotmead NewBee guide".

Joe’s Ancient Orange and Spice Mead
A little caveat before we continue.  This recipe flies in the face of just about all standard brewing methods used to make consistent and good Meads.  It was created by Joe Mattioli to make a fast and tasty drink out of ingredients found in most kitchens.  It is therefore perfect for the beginner, which has resulted in it being perhaps the most popular Mead recipe available on the internet.  As Joe himself says “It is so simple to make and you can make it without much equipment and with a multitude of variations. This could be a first Mead for the novice as it is almost foolproof. It is a bit unorthodox but it has never failed me or the friends I have shared it with. (snip)...it will be sweet, complex and tasty.”  Follow the instructions exactly as provided and you cannot go wrong.  If you want to make larger batches, just scale up the recipe keeping all ingredients in the same proportion.

1 gallon batch

3 1/2 lbs Clover or your choice honey or blend (will finish sweet)
1 Large orange (later cut in eights or smaller, rind and all)
1 small handful of raisins (25 if you count but more or less ok)
1 stick of cinnamon
1 whole clove ( or 2 if you like - these are potent critters)
optional - a pinch of nutmeg and allspice (very small )
1 teaspoon of Fleishmann’s bread yeast ( now don't get holy on me--- after all this is an ancient mead and that's all we had back then)
Balance water to one gallon

Process:
Use a clean 1 gallon carboy
Dissolve honey in some warm water and put in carboy
Wash orange well to remove any pesticides and slice in eights --add orange (you can push em through opening big boy -- rinds included -- its ok for this mead -- take my word for it -- ignore the experts)
Put in raisins, clove, cinnamon stick, any optional ingredients and fill to 3 inches from the top with cold water. ( need room for some foam -- you can top off with more water after the first few days frenzy)
Shake the heck out of the jug with top on, of course. This is your sophisticated aeration process.
When at room temperature in your kitchen, put in 1 teaspoon of bread yeast. ( No you don't have to rehydrate it first-- the ancients didn't even have that word in their vocabulary-- just put it in and give it a gentle swirl or not)(The yeast can fight for their own territory)
Install water airlock. Put in dark place. It will start working immediately or in an hour. (Don't use grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away in the 90's - wait 3 hours before you panic or call me) After major foaming stops in a few days add some water and then keep your hands off of it. (Don't shake it! Don't mess with them yeasties ! Let them alone except its okay to open your cabinet to smell every once in a while).

Racking --- Don't you dare
additional feeding --- NO NO
More stirring or shaking -- Your not listening, don't touch

After 2 months and maybe a few days it will slow down to a stop and clear all by itself. (How about that, you are not so important after all) Then you can put a hose in with a small cloth filter on the end into the clear part and siphon off the golden nectar. If you wait long enough even the oranges will sink to the bottom but I never waited that long. If it is clear it is ready. You don't need a cold basement. It does better in a kitchen in the dark. (Like in a cabinet), likes a little heat (70-80). If it didn't work out... you screwed up and didn't read my instructions (or used grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away) . If it didn't work out then take up another hobby. Mead is not for you. It is too complicated.
If you were successful, which I am 99% certain you will be, then enjoy your mead. When you get ready to make different mead you will probably have to unlearn some of these practices I have taught you, but hey--- This recipe and procedure works with these ingredients so don't knock it. It was your first mead. It was my tenth. Sometimes, even the experts can forget all they know and make good ancient mead.
And there you have it.  You have made your first Mead.  Now come the steps that must be followed to make a good, and eventually a great Mead.

I should point out, that it's a recipe normally done in US gallons, but I'm not American, so I stick to the numbers but I make it to 1 imperial gallon (4.55 litres instead of 3.78 litres) and it still seems to come out fine.

The thread about it over at gotmead (be warned, it's probably the longest single thread at gotmead, so it's a lot of reading), suggests that any change, however small, "voids the warranty". Which is fair enough, but I can't get the same brand of bread yeast here, so I just use a locally available one, something like Allinsons, or Hovis. It still seems to work out fine.

What I would say, is that some people insist on focusing on the presence of the pith of the orange and the fact that this is quite bitter. What they seem to miss, is that by using bread yeast, it will finish sweet, but it's the bitterness of the pith that balances the residual sugars.

Also, I've made other batches of this and tried various experiments, changing the fruit, using wine yeast etc. Well wine yeast usually ferments it dry, but that also highlights the bitter taste of the pith from the orange and hence it doesn't make for a good dry recipe. Changing the fruit, well the only one that came out even close, was the one where I used lemons instead. Limes where too strong and the mix of lemon and lime just didn't taste good.

So just use the recipe as written and it comes out quite good - not drinkable straight away IMO, I reckon it still needs to be aged, but it works well and seems good after 6 or 12 months. Either way, the choice is yours.

Bloody silly idea's ?

I'm not really a traditionalist, though I do make mainly "traditional" meads.

For anyone not knowing, "Traditional" meads are just ones made like wines, but with the use of nutrient etc, that honey lacks, when compared to grape juice i.e. honey, water, yeast, nutrient/energiser and any required winemaking chems.

I'm quite happy to admit that there is some historical evidence for variations, when batches/mixes/recipes have used other ingredients, but given what would have been available (and affordable) in times past, the range of other possible ingredients is going to be limited.

For instance, apple juice (it's fucking juice whether it's cloudy or clear America!) might have been used, but the sort of shit that might be in a "liquid apple pie" only exist in the mind of a modern day idiot!

There is no historical version of chocolate raspberry capsimel, with added mint! That's a fucking "weirdomel". Just like a lot of the recipes that might be found at the various mead making websites (no I won't name any, as this is my personal opinion).

Sure, some of the historical recipes did have limited spices, but limited mainly, by what was available at the time - equally, what was affordable at the time. Likewise, ingredients like the honey and water, may indeed, have been boiled. Though that's likely to be mainly connected with them not knowing any better at the time and needing to sterilise the water, rather than the honey. They may have used herbs of various types, because they were available, but most spices would have been far too expensive, if they were actually available.

Now, this morning, I'm reading about "stove top pasteurisation". I suspect that this is some fools idea of being green/organic/stupid, about how to be able to make a batch to a specific level of alcohol, yet kill off any remaining yeast cells, so that they can back sweeten it. Given that alcohol boils at temperatures lower than water, it seems that it's thought that it should be OK to do this.

I'd like to point out, that the volatile nature of flavour and aroma elements of any product are often affected by heat, and that with modern methods, part of the point is to include as many different flavours and scents as possible. So why in gods name, would any fucking idiot want to heat a batch to try and kill off the yeast ? And still have something that's remotely drinkable ???

A little research would have shown that it's probably, either better to make a batch and use the "step feeding" method, whereby, a base batch is made and then small additional amounts of honey are added, along with careful monitoring of the gravity of such a batch, to build up the alcoholic content to exceed the maximum tolerance of the yeast used, too end up with some residual sugars that can't be fermented by that yeast and just supply flavour/sweetness. The drawback of this, is that higher levels of alcohol in a batch, can need ageing for much longer before the batch is drinkable.

And possible alternative, is to make a batch, then use methods/techniques to get it as clear as possible, and then the batch is filtered with as fine a filter as possible. I'd guess something like a so called "sterile" filter, which I believe is the term applied to filter gauges less that about 0.45 micron diameter. Then it might be possible to back sweeten the batch, because in theory, such fine filtration is capable of removing particles down to the size of bacteria. The downside is that they will also remove some colour pigment, as well as larger sized aroma and flavouring particles...

At the end of the day, it's your brew, so it's up to you what you do with it and the processes that it's exposed too. If you post about something which is patently a fucking stupid idea, then don't be surprised if you take shit over it.......

TTFN